I have thought for over a year now that America doesn’t have what can reasonably be called a “culture.” What we do have is a generic moral system based on watered-down Christianity, rampant and destructive individualism, and solid American values like caveat emptor derived from capitalism. I have been delighted recently to find myself moving away from this position, however, through three things: movies such as Casablanca, Beatnik poetry, and my hero David Brooks.
Several months ago, he wrote the most insightful article (www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/opinion/29brooks.html) on the kind of culture America has that I have ever read. The reason an American culture has not really flourished is, of course, size. As has always been true, culture thrives most powerfully in small groups, and Brooks explains how the American tribes that used to be based on geography are morphing, blending, and re-forming into groups based loosely on income and education levels.
This will have absolutely massive effects. Class tension will rise, and it will be hard to quash, because the injustices in America do usually come down to money. Class is a uniquely difficult issue: it’s much harder to neutralize money’s influence than that of a societal norm like racism. There are few more dangerous themes around which the American tribes could form, because money is power – racism, sexism, etc. are fights largely over who has access to money and thus power. I don’t mean political power or power over others, I mean power over your own life. Power over what you can give to your children. Nothing is a stronger motivator.
Economics really does rule all. As Brooks concludes, education must be more accessible, and more culturally valued, or else.
And if America is really becoming more segmented, with fewer common experiences, that brings us to the question of what will bring us together. The national ideal will have to be stronger to counteract the differences people are aware of in their daily experiences. Does that mean a strengthening of the state? I hope not, but the nation often thrives best through the state: the draft is a tangible manifestation of the idea that Americans will fight for their country (admittedly, many of these ideas, including this one, were desecrated by the 1960s). The idea that we are all individuals free to live as we please, in a meritocratic economic system, all Americans, could work: the key is that it allows a logical incorporation of America into your identity. But we must find some alternative to a model that suggests that you, as an individual, should be loyal to the state, or even the nation, before anything else (with a possible exception of your family). Human beings don’t flourish without strong communities - the only conclusion psychology has come to regarding happiness is that isolated people are not happy (with the odd exception, of course).
What, then, is the fate of the American community? I don’t know.
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