0 comment Sunday, November 30, 2014 | admin
Christmas Across Our Country
from An American Annual of Christmas Literature and Art (1975)
The first Christmas celebration held by Englishmen in America was at Jamestown in 1607:
"The extreme winde, rayne, frost and snow caused us to keep Christmas among the salvages where we were never more merry, nor fed on more plenty of good oysters, fish, flesh, wildfowl, and good bread." - From the record of Captain John Smith
Down East: Christmas at Plymouth, 1620
"We went on shore, some to fell timber, some to saw, some to rive, and some to carry; so no man rested all that day." - From Bradford's Record
The Puritans regarded Christmas as a day of solemn worship.
In 1659 the General Constitution of Massachusetts deemed it necessary to enact this law: "Whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way as a festival shall be fined Five Shillings."
Christmas became a legal holiday in Massachusetts about the middle of the 18th century, and the day began to be celebrated in the real old English fashion around 1790 or the early 1800s.
There were "Hymns and prayer" in the morning.
Boar's heads and peacock pies decorated the tables and Yule-logs burned in the great halls.
Soap-bubble parties were a popular Yuletide amusement in the 1880s and at apple bees, young ladies found their future husband's initial when the peeling was coyly tossed over a shoulder.
Down South - Back in the 1800s, a few days before Christmas, a load of cotton, behind a six-mule hitch, would be decorated with colored streamers and sent to town to be traded for holiday supplies for the plantation. And river packets carried folks back home for Christmas.
Riding to the hounds on Christmas Day has always been popular.
Christmas services have been held in the Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg since 1715.
Open house is the custom at old Southern mansions.
An old plantation legend says that at the stroke of midnight, Christmas Eve, all the farm animals kneel towards the Star.
Fireworks are a Southern contribution to the American Christmas.
Labels: American Customs, American History, Holidays
0 comment Sunday, November 16, 2014 | admin
I think we're all rather fed up, and weary of the dismal political prospects in our country, so for once I am going to blog about something rather more trivial -- or is it trivial? The subject is the role of hats in our society.
I tend to agree with that philosopher -- was it Confucius? -- who believed that every little detail of life had some significance, and that the small details and niceties and ceremonies were building blocks of civilization. I am one of those rare people who believes that clothes, in a sense, do make the man or the woman. By that I don't mean that the expensively-dressed people, or the fashion plates, are superior to the rest; far from it. But I think that not only does the way we dress and present ourselves reflect our total worldview and our attitude, but it also helps shape it.
I think most of us would agree that there is a different feeling associated with wearing our best, our Sunday finery, as opposed to wearing our sloppy, lounging-around clothes. But does the phrase 'Sunday finery' even have a meaning nowadays, when most people who attend church wear the same clothes they wear for a casual occasion or recreation? In most churches I've attended in recent years, I've seen more jeans and athletic shoes than dressy clothes, and I've seen a lot of rather revealing clothes on many women, especially the younger ones. When the subject is discussed, I'm always the lone voice speaking for dressing up; most people nowadays are very insistent that God wants them to be comfortable above all else, and that they have a God-given, Constitutional right to wear jeans and sneakers to church. Anything else is decried as being superficial or snobbish.
Again, I appeal to tradition here: generations of our ancestors believed in wearing their best on Sundays, and that did not mean being a fashion plate, nor did it mean competing to be the most stylish or the most expensively dressed. Past generations may not have had expensive clothing, and my Puritan ancestors believed in dressing rather simply and conservatively. Those who had little money and few items of clothing still wore the best they had for worship, and the clothes, no matter that they might be cheaply made or well-worn, were clean and pressed; it was a matter of showing respect.
But now it seems it's all about ourselves and what we want or what we feel most ''comfortable'' in.
People these days seem not to favor dressing up for fancy secular occasions, like going to the ballet or the opera or a concert. I remember when I was a child, we dressed up to go to the movies. My parents both loved movies and we went as a family, and dressing up was de rigueur for evening movies. Similarly for travel; you wore your good clothes to take a plane trip, or even a train trip. Nowadays, wherever you go, the Uniform is everywhere: jeans and athletic shoes. Male or female, the look is much the same. I remember being bemused and somewhat appalled about 15 or so years ago when John Kennedy Jr. was photographed by paparazzi with his then-girlfriend, and both he and the girlfriend were dressed identically, with jeans, sneakers, and identical bomber jackets and baseball caps. Unisex. I thought they both looked very proletarian and sloppy, these 'beautiful people.' What's the use of being rich and beautiful and young if you dress in frumpy, nondescript, shapeless, genderless clothes?
One of the items of clothing that was once standard though now rarely worn is the hat. This is true of men particularly; when I was a child hats were almost universally worn by men. And there was an etiquette involved in hat-wearing; the hat had to be doffed in certain settings (in the presence of ladies, and in church, for example). Men would tip the hat as a greeting. I remember in a building where I worked about 20 years ago, there were still a number of older men who visited there, who still wore their hats, and they unfailingly removed their hats as a chivalrous gesture when I entered the elevator. I found that rather gallant and touching, realizing that these men were a vanishing breed in our society.
Here is a rather fun article about 'Bringing Back the Hat'.
''Up until the 1950�s men were rarely seen out and about without a hat sitting upon their head. Since that time, the wearing of hats has seen a precipitous decline. No one is precisely sure why. Some say the downfall of hats occurred when JFK did not wear a hat to his inauguration, thus forever branding them as uncool. This is an urban myth, however, as Kennedy did indeed don a hat that day. Another theory posits that the shrinking size of cars made wearing a hat while driving prohibitively difficult. Most likely, the demise of hats can simply be traced to changing styles and the ongoing trend towards a more casual look.''
Yes, I think that the changing hairstyles and the overall trend towards a more proletarian, egalitarian, anti-style look explains the disappearance of hats. JFK's hatlessness might also be explained by his own hairstyle; he had a very thick, bushy head of hair that was probably not suited to wearing a hat. Later on in the 60s as young men began to adopt the Beatles hairstyle, and long, unkempt hair became the fashion among younger men, hats just didn't suit the look. Later on when some long-haired young men began to affect hats from earlier eras, for example, young hippie men wearing high silk hats with their ragtag, motley attire, the effect was clownish; similarly with long-haired young men wearing a fedora. It just looked absurd. But hair was all-important in the 60s and onward; long hair was a badge; it showed whether one was one of the 'enemy' or whether one was part of the Movement.
Women, too, abandoned hats around the same time, for similar reasons; the bouffant hairstyle, which was teased and sprayed into shape, was not well-adapted to hats. So the hats had to go; no big-haired woman wanted her hair to be flattened by a hat.
As the years went by, the counterculture look seemed to prevail, and people tended to associate the pre-counterculture fashions as being stodgy and ridiculous. Hats were square and passe.
''Yet hats are due for a full resurgence. Hats are both functional and stylish. They can cover a bad hair day, keep your head warm, and shade your eyes from the sun. They can also be worn to cover a receding hairline, which interestingly enough is why Frank Sinatra, an iconic hat wearer, start wearing one in the first place. They give you touch of class and sophistication, impart personality, and add an interesting and unique accent to your outfits. And hats are a sure-fire way to boost your confidence. A cool hat can quickly become your signature piece and give you extra swagger.
Of course men today still wear hats, but they are most often confined to ratty baseball caps, hippie beanie caps, or the thankfully almost extinct trucker hat.''
Personally I would like to see the last of those ubiquitous baseball caps, except on actual baseball players of course. They are fine in the appropriate context.
The comment thread contains a link to this piece by Theodore Dalrymple, called Use Your Head.
''Theodore Dalrymple believes that wearing proper hats � not hoods or woollen beanies � could encourage self-respect and civility in the young
[...]
Why do men behave so badly nowadays? I know that the question has been asked for more than 2,500 years, but it just so happens that, this time, it is entirely apposite. Any doctor who has worked in the NHS will tell you so.
The explanation came to me a few months ago in a blinding flash of illumination: the hat. To the hat, or rather to the lack of one, is to be traced the source of all our ill-deportment. Bare heads, or heads accoutred in the wrong kind of headgear, cause our want of self-respect, and therefore our want of respect for others. What we need, therefore, is more hats: proper ones, from cloth caps to trilbies, homburgs, bowlers and toppers.
[...]
Reflecting on hats, it suddenly occurred to me how much more difficult it was to behave badly in a proper hat, and how much easier to be polite in one. I recalled the days of my childhood during which most men wore a hat, and I remembered that my father, who was not always the most considerate of men, never failed, in a gesture of genuine politeness, to raise his hat to someone whom he knew. Indeed, the etiquette of hats was drummed into me as a child as being a stage in the taming of the natural savage.''
It's an interesting piece; I recommend reading it. Dalrymple asserts, perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that we might encourage hat-wearing as a means of increasing public civility. But I think he is somewhat serious, too, and I do think that what we wear and how we behave are not unrelated.
I think that dressing appropriately shows a proper respect for convention and tradition; dressing for ''comfort'' or to make some rebellious or defiant statement is appropriate to a more adolescent society, which we have become in recent decades. One of the distinctions between the America of my childhood and today's America is that it seemed in the past that grown-ups were in charge; there were rules, there were standards, there were traditions and conventions on which there was a solid consensus. In today's America, it seems as if we've entered Neverland, as in James Barrie's Peter Pan, where there are no grown-ups, and each child creates his own personal Neverland.
I knew someone who said he liked old movies. When I asked him what kind of old movies he liked, he said, ''anything where they wear hats and drive black cars.'' I don't know the significance of black cars here, but the wearing of hats seems to be an indicator of the days when America was still sane and our society was still civilized and decorous.
I tend to agree with that philosopher -- was it Confucius? -- who believed that every little detail of life had some significance, and that the small details and niceties and ceremonies were building blocks of civilization. I am one of those rare people who believes that clothes, in a sense, do make the man or the woman. By that I don't mean that the expensively-dressed people, or the fashion plates, are superior to the rest; far from it. But I think that not only does the way we dress and present ourselves reflect our total worldview and our attitude, but it also helps shape it.
I think most of us would agree that there is a different feeling associated with wearing our best, our Sunday finery, as opposed to wearing our sloppy, lounging-around clothes. But does the phrase 'Sunday finery' even have a meaning nowadays, when most people who attend church wear the same clothes they wear for a casual occasion or recreation? In most churches I've attended in recent years, I've seen more jeans and athletic shoes than dressy clothes, and I've seen a lot of rather revealing clothes on many women, especially the younger ones. When the subject is discussed, I'm always the lone voice speaking for dressing up; most people nowadays are very insistent that God wants them to be comfortable above all else, and that they have a God-given, Constitutional right to wear jeans and sneakers to church. Anything else is decried as being superficial or snobbish.
Again, I appeal to tradition here: generations of our ancestors believed in wearing their best on Sundays, and that did not mean being a fashion plate, nor did it mean competing to be the most stylish or the most expensively dressed. Past generations may not have had expensive clothing, and my Puritan ancestors believed in dressing rather simply and conservatively. Those who had little money and few items of clothing still wore the best they had for worship, and the clothes, no matter that they might be cheaply made or well-worn, were clean and pressed; it was a matter of showing respect.
But now it seems it's all about ourselves and what we want or what we feel most ''comfortable'' in.
People these days seem not to favor dressing up for fancy secular occasions, like going to the ballet or the opera or a concert. I remember when I was a child, we dressed up to go to the movies. My parents both loved movies and we went as a family, and dressing up was de rigueur for evening movies. Similarly for travel; you wore your good clothes to take a plane trip, or even a train trip. Nowadays, wherever you go, the Uniform is everywhere: jeans and athletic shoes. Male or female, the look is much the same. I remember being bemused and somewhat appalled about 15 or so years ago when John Kennedy Jr. was photographed by paparazzi with his then-girlfriend, and both he and the girlfriend were dressed identically, with jeans, sneakers, and identical bomber jackets and baseball caps. Unisex. I thought they both looked very proletarian and sloppy, these 'beautiful people.' What's the use of being rich and beautiful and young if you dress in frumpy, nondescript, shapeless, genderless clothes?
One of the items of clothing that was once standard though now rarely worn is the hat. This is true of men particularly; when I was a child hats were almost universally worn by men. And there was an etiquette involved in hat-wearing; the hat had to be doffed in certain settings (in the presence of ladies, and in church, for example). Men would tip the hat as a greeting. I remember in a building where I worked about 20 years ago, there were still a number of older men who visited there, who still wore their hats, and they unfailingly removed their hats as a chivalrous gesture when I entered the elevator. I found that rather gallant and touching, realizing that these men were a vanishing breed in our society.
Here is a rather fun article about 'Bringing Back the Hat'.
''Up until the 1950�s men were rarely seen out and about without a hat sitting upon their head. Since that time, the wearing of hats has seen a precipitous decline. No one is precisely sure why. Some say the downfall of hats occurred when JFK did not wear a hat to his inauguration, thus forever branding them as uncool. This is an urban myth, however, as Kennedy did indeed don a hat that day. Another theory posits that the shrinking size of cars made wearing a hat while driving prohibitively difficult. Most likely, the demise of hats can simply be traced to changing styles and the ongoing trend towards a more casual look.''
Yes, I think that the changing hairstyles and the overall trend towards a more proletarian, egalitarian, anti-style look explains the disappearance of hats. JFK's hatlessness might also be explained by his own hairstyle; he had a very thick, bushy head of hair that was probably not suited to wearing a hat. Later on in the 60s as young men began to adopt the Beatles hairstyle, and long, unkempt hair became the fashion among younger men, hats just didn't suit the look. Later on when some long-haired young men began to affect hats from earlier eras, for example, young hippie men wearing high silk hats with their ragtag, motley attire, the effect was clownish; similarly with long-haired young men wearing a fedora. It just looked absurd. But hair was all-important in the 60s and onward; long hair was a badge; it showed whether one was one of the 'enemy' or whether one was part of the Movement.
Women, too, abandoned hats around the same time, for similar reasons; the bouffant hairstyle, which was teased and sprayed into shape, was not well-adapted to hats. So the hats had to go; no big-haired woman wanted her hair to be flattened by a hat.
As the years went by, the counterculture look seemed to prevail, and people tended to associate the pre-counterculture fashions as being stodgy and ridiculous. Hats were square and passe.
''Yet hats are due for a full resurgence. Hats are both functional and stylish. They can cover a bad hair day, keep your head warm, and shade your eyes from the sun. They can also be worn to cover a receding hairline, which interestingly enough is why Frank Sinatra, an iconic hat wearer, start wearing one in the first place. They give you touch of class and sophistication, impart personality, and add an interesting and unique accent to your outfits. And hats are a sure-fire way to boost your confidence. A cool hat can quickly become your signature piece and give you extra swagger.
Of course men today still wear hats, but they are most often confined to ratty baseball caps, hippie beanie caps, or the thankfully almost extinct trucker hat.''
Personally I would like to see the last of those ubiquitous baseball caps, except on actual baseball players of course. They are fine in the appropriate context.
The comment thread contains a link to this piece by Theodore Dalrymple, called Use Your Head.
''Theodore Dalrymple believes that wearing proper hats � not hoods or woollen beanies � could encourage self-respect and civility in the young
[...]
Why do men behave so badly nowadays? I know that the question has been asked for more than 2,500 years, but it just so happens that, this time, it is entirely apposite. Any doctor who has worked in the NHS will tell you so.
The explanation came to me a few months ago in a blinding flash of illumination: the hat. To the hat, or rather to the lack of one, is to be traced the source of all our ill-deportment. Bare heads, or heads accoutred in the wrong kind of headgear, cause our want of self-respect, and therefore our want of respect for others. What we need, therefore, is more hats: proper ones, from cloth caps to trilbies, homburgs, bowlers and toppers.
[...]
Reflecting on hats, it suddenly occurred to me how much more difficult it was to behave badly in a proper hat, and how much easier to be polite in one. I recalled the days of my childhood during which most men wore a hat, and I remembered that my father, who was not always the most considerate of men, never failed, in a gesture of genuine politeness, to raise his hat to someone whom he knew. Indeed, the etiquette of hats was drummed into me as a child as being a stage in the taming of the natural savage.''
It's an interesting piece; I recommend reading it. Dalrymple asserts, perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that we might encourage hat-wearing as a means of increasing public civility. But I think he is somewhat serious, too, and I do think that what we wear and how we behave are not unrelated.
I think that dressing appropriately shows a proper respect for convention and tradition; dressing for ''comfort'' or to make some rebellious or defiant statement is appropriate to a more adolescent society, which we have become in recent decades. One of the distinctions between the America of my childhood and today's America is that it seemed in the past that grown-ups were in charge; there were rules, there were standards, there were traditions and conventions on which there was a solid consensus. In today's America, it seems as if we've entered Neverland, as in James Barrie's Peter Pan, where there are no grown-ups, and each child creates his own personal Neverland.
I knew someone who said he liked old movies. When I asked him what kind of old movies he liked, he said, ''anything where they wear hats and drive black cars.'' I don't know the significance of black cars here, but the wearing of hats seems to be an indicator of the days when America was still sane and our society was still civilized and decorous.
Labels: American Culture, American Customs, Civility, Egalitarianism, Societal Decay
0 comment Wednesday, July 30, 2014 | admin
I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving, with lots of good company and good food; I hope that you all may be surrounded by those you love.In honor of Thanksgiving, I offer you a poem by Edgar Guest, and it may be a little on the corny side, but if we can't enjoy corny, sentimental, homespun poetry on Thanksgiving, when can we enjoy it? We live in a cynical age and a little corn will do us all good.
Thanksgiving
Edgar A. Guest
Gettin' together to smile an' rejoice,
An' eatin' an' laughin' with folks of your choice;
An' kissin' the girls an' declarin' that they
Are growin more beautiful day after day;
Chattin' an' braggin' a bit with the men,
Buildin' the old family circle again;
Livin' the wholesome an' old-fashioned cheer,
Just for awhile at the end of the year.
Greetings fly fast as we crowd through the door
And under the old roof we gather once more
Just as we did when the youngsters were small;
Mother's a little bit grayer, that's all.
Father's a little bit older, but still
Ready to romp an' to laugh with a will.
Here we are back at the table again
Tellin' our stories as women an men.
Bowed are our heads for a moment in prayer;
Oh, but we're grateful an' glad to be there.
Home from the east land an' home from the west,
Home with the folks that are dearest an' best.
Out of the sham of the cities afar
We've come for a time to be just what we are.
Here we can talk of ourselves an' be frank,
Forgettin' position an' station an' rank.
Give me the end of the year an' its fun
When most of the plannin' an' toilin' is done;
Bring all the wanderers home to the nest,
Let me sit down with the ones I love best,
Hear the old voices still ringin' with song,
See the old faces unblemished by wrong,
See the old table with all of its chairs
An I'll put soul in my Thanksgivin' prayers.
Happy Thanksgiving, all, and may God bless you.
Note: the illustration above is from a magazine cover by Wilbur G. Kurtz. The picture was 'Home for Thanksgiving', and it appeared on a 'Progressive Farmer' magazine cover in 1934.
Labels: American Customs, American Heritage, Holidays, Poetry
0 comment Wednesday, May 21, 2014 | admin
A while back, I had a commenter on this blog, someone in Europe, tell me haughtily that 'Americans are a people of no race.'
And more recently another antagonistic commenter condescendingly told me that 'America has no culture.'
These are not novel statements. The first one, though, I had never heard stated so dogmatically and baldly, so it rather took me aback. The second one is a rather common dismissal, a way of denigrating White Americans as being a nation of ciphers, a people whose only 'culture' consists of consumerism and lowbrow popular entertainment. The denial of recognition of American culture is just a way of dehumanizing us, in the very way that the chronically aggrieved say that majority White Americans 'dehumanize' them.
It's a way of denying that we even have an identity, or traditions, or folkways, or a heritage. It's a way of saying that we are nonentities in the world, of no import and having no rights to self-preservation.
Google the phrase 'American culture' and you will get lots and lots of hits about 'African-American culture', 'Latin American culture' 'Native American culture', and every kind of hyphenated American culture, but few about just plain old American culture. The few sites that come up among the top hits are sites that are devoted to little more than patriotic traditions, which is not bad in and of itself, but what exactly are we patriotic about? A flag? A set of ideals and 'propositions'? According to some of these sites, yes, and yes. And that's apparently all American culture and traditions are about.
By the way, Google helpfully suggests 'Also try African American culture...'
If I didn't know better, I would think that my antagonist was right: there is no American culture. We are a cultureless people.
According to one globalist-oriented site, American culture is synonymous with American popular culture, Hollywood movies and television. If that's true, we have worse than no culture; we have a depraved culture which is very alien to what our forefathers lived and died for.
This depressing page tells us that American culture is all about the melting pot, diversity, and all the usual drivel.
Here, arch-cynic Spengler tells us what American culture is, and it isn't pretty.
We all know instinctively that Americans have a culture; I was never more aware of it than during an extended sojourn across the pond. I was never more acutely aware of my Americanness than I was then. Otherwise friendly people in my host countries made me aware of my differences, and pointed out how typically American I was. At that point, I was still liberal and I was uncomfortable being told how American I was, when I considered myself so enlightened and progressive and cosmopolitan. But I began to appreciate what made me distinctly American and Southron and I began to embrace it. I was thrilled to get home again though my time abroad was interesting.
Many of the people I met in other countries had one trait that I found tiresome: they often seemed to think they knew America and Americans better than I know America and Americans, even when they had never set foot on our soil. Where did this preternatural knowledge come from? American popular culture. American movies and music. Many people in Europe think they know America inside and out, solely from watching American entertainment and meeting the occasional tourist. No amount of persuasion could make them see that they know only a false image of America. No; they had seen America on their TV screens or in the movie theater.
My interlocutors, who denied me a race or a culture, also think they know America better than an American knows it.
One thing that most Europeans seem to perceive correctly is that when they think of Americans, for good or ill, they think not of a Latino or other minorities; they think of a White American. The stereotype of Americans, though often unflattering, usually involves White Americans. The 'typical' American is a White American. Uncle Sam is white-bearded old gent, probably of Anglo-Saxon heritage. Maybe one day he will wear a sombrero or a kaffiyeh and have a different name, but for now, he is a WASP.
American=White, to most non-Americans.
American=European-descended, to most non-Americans.
Yes, there are and have been people of other stock in this country, but they are 'other' and are perceived by outsiders as not quite American.
Which brings me to the next accusation usually made by our antagonists: White Americans are Europeans by descent, hence they belong in Europe, having usurped and 'stolen' this country. Our Latino invaders allude to this when they use words like 'Pilgrim' as insults, or jeer at us to 'go back to Europe'.
The problem with that is, similar covetous invaders have staked their claims on Europe, the continent where most of our forefathers originated.
And the accusation is made that we have no culture because such culture and traditions as we have are mere hand-me-downs, as I think Spengler said, from our earlier forebears in Europe. Hence we have no distinctively American culture which is not derived from European influences.
I believe our European cousins would disagree with that; they can recognize that our ways are distinctively ours, and are hardly carbon copies of European originals.
Our centuries in this country have forged us into a distinctive people culturally, and to some extent genetically, as many people come from various different European strains. So if our enemies think to drive us back to Europe, which country would we choose? Most of us would have to choose between several different countries where our ancestors originated. More of my ancestors came from England than from any other country, but I also have Welsh, Scots, and some French and Dutch ancestry. Where is my ancestral home? I can name many of the places in Europe where my ancestors lived for millennia but which of them is supposed to be my true home if America is not my rightful place?
As for our supposedly non-existent culture, it appears that we who care about our survival should devote more effort to that culture, and try to make more people aware that we have a real cultural heritage which is far more valuable than the dross which comes from Hollywood or MTV. And yes, part of our cultural heritage is inherited from Europe, a fact we should be proud of, and a fact which we should not shy away from for fear of being told we 'don't belong here.'
Our heritage is originally European, specifically English or British, but it has become distinctively ours through the unique experiences of our forefathers over the last 400 years in this country. 'Culture' denotes, according to Merriam-Webster
b: the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time c: the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization d: the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic...
Culture is not something that means only the fine arts and the highbrow pursuits, as some take it to mean, nor does it mean something that only 'diverse' 'vibrant' minorities have: dressing up in various regalia and gewgaws or speaking a foreign language or eating strange and exotic foods. Too many think that this is the main meaning of culture: something only colorful minorities possess.
We Americans have customs, folkways, social conventions and habits, shared memories and holidays, our own distinctive foods and folk-sayings and beliefs and folk-heroes and songs and stories. Too much of trash popular culture has crept in, but we still have something deeper and richer and more enduring than today's ephemeral, disposable entertainment, and we need to rediscover that and preserve it as best we can, lest we fall prey to the lie that we 'have no culture', and thus neglect the very real heritage that is ours.
I'll conclude with an invitation to my readers to offer their thoughts what our culture consists of, or to suggest things that are distinctly American, aspects of our way of life that make us what we are.
And more recently another antagonistic commenter condescendingly told me that 'America has no culture.'
These are not novel statements. The first one, though, I had never heard stated so dogmatically and baldly, so it rather took me aback. The second one is a rather common dismissal, a way of denigrating White Americans as being a nation of ciphers, a people whose only 'culture' consists of consumerism and lowbrow popular entertainment. The denial of recognition of American culture is just a way of dehumanizing us, in the very way that the chronically aggrieved say that majority White Americans 'dehumanize' them.
It's a way of denying that we even have an identity, or traditions, or folkways, or a heritage. It's a way of saying that we are nonentities in the world, of no import and having no rights to self-preservation.
Google the phrase 'American culture' and you will get lots and lots of hits about 'African-American culture', 'Latin American culture' 'Native American culture', and every kind of hyphenated American culture, but few about just plain old American culture. The few sites that come up among the top hits are sites that are devoted to little more than patriotic traditions, which is not bad in and of itself, but what exactly are we patriotic about? A flag? A set of ideals and 'propositions'? According to some of these sites, yes, and yes. And that's apparently all American culture and traditions are about.
By the way, Google helpfully suggests 'Also try African American culture...'
If I didn't know better, I would think that my antagonist was right: there is no American culture. We are a cultureless people.
According to one globalist-oriented site, American culture is synonymous with American popular culture, Hollywood movies and television. If that's true, we have worse than no culture; we have a depraved culture which is very alien to what our forefathers lived and died for.
This depressing page tells us that American culture is all about the melting pot, diversity, and all the usual drivel.
Here, arch-cynic Spengler tells us what American culture is, and it isn't pretty.
We all know instinctively that Americans have a culture; I was never more aware of it than during an extended sojourn across the pond. I was never more acutely aware of my Americanness than I was then. Otherwise friendly people in my host countries made me aware of my differences, and pointed out how typically American I was. At that point, I was still liberal and I was uncomfortable being told how American I was, when I considered myself so enlightened and progressive and cosmopolitan. But I began to appreciate what made me distinctly American and Southron and I began to embrace it. I was thrilled to get home again though my time abroad was interesting.
Many of the people I met in other countries had one trait that I found tiresome: they often seemed to think they knew America and Americans better than I know America and Americans, even when they had never set foot on our soil. Where did this preternatural knowledge come from? American popular culture. American movies and music. Many people in Europe think they know America inside and out, solely from watching American entertainment and meeting the occasional tourist. No amount of persuasion could make them see that they know only a false image of America. No; they had seen America on their TV screens or in the movie theater.
My interlocutors, who denied me a race or a culture, also think they know America better than an American knows it.
One thing that most Europeans seem to perceive correctly is that when they think of Americans, for good or ill, they think not of a Latino or other minorities; they think of a White American. The stereotype of Americans, though often unflattering, usually involves White Americans. The 'typical' American is a White American. Uncle Sam is white-bearded old gent, probably of Anglo-Saxon heritage. Maybe one day he will wear a sombrero or a kaffiyeh and have a different name, but for now, he is a WASP.
American=White, to most non-Americans.
American=European-descended, to most non-Americans.
Yes, there are and have been people of other stock in this country, but they are 'other' and are perceived by outsiders as not quite American.
Which brings me to the next accusation usually made by our antagonists: White Americans are Europeans by descent, hence they belong in Europe, having usurped and 'stolen' this country. Our Latino invaders allude to this when they use words like 'Pilgrim' as insults, or jeer at us to 'go back to Europe'.
The problem with that is, similar covetous invaders have staked their claims on Europe, the continent where most of our forefathers originated.
And the accusation is made that we have no culture because such culture and traditions as we have are mere hand-me-downs, as I think Spengler said, from our earlier forebears in Europe. Hence we have no distinctively American culture which is not derived from European influences.
I believe our European cousins would disagree with that; they can recognize that our ways are distinctively ours, and are hardly carbon copies of European originals.
Our centuries in this country have forged us into a distinctive people culturally, and to some extent genetically, as many people come from various different European strains. So if our enemies think to drive us back to Europe, which country would we choose? Most of us would have to choose between several different countries where our ancestors originated. More of my ancestors came from England than from any other country, but I also have Welsh, Scots, and some French and Dutch ancestry. Where is my ancestral home? I can name many of the places in Europe where my ancestors lived for millennia but which of them is supposed to be my true home if America is not my rightful place?
As for our supposedly non-existent culture, it appears that we who care about our survival should devote more effort to that culture, and try to make more people aware that we have a real cultural heritage which is far more valuable than the dross which comes from Hollywood or MTV. And yes, part of our cultural heritage is inherited from Europe, a fact we should be proud of, and a fact which we should not shy away from for fear of being told we 'don't belong here.'
Our heritage is originally European, specifically English or British, but it has become distinctively ours through the unique experiences of our forefathers over the last 400 years in this country. 'Culture' denotes, according to Merriam-Webster
b: the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time c: the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization d: the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic...
Culture is not something that means only the fine arts and the highbrow pursuits, as some take it to mean, nor does it mean something that only 'diverse' 'vibrant' minorities have: dressing up in various regalia and gewgaws or speaking a foreign language or eating strange and exotic foods. Too many think that this is the main meaning of culture: something only colorful minorities possess.
We Americans have customs, folkways, social conventions and habits, shared memories and holidays, our own distinctive foods and folk-sayings and beliefs and folk-heroes and songs and stories. Too much of trash popular culture has crept in, but we still have something deeper and richer and more enduring than today's ephemeral, disposable entertainment, and we need to rediscover that and preserve it as best we can, lest we fall prey to the lie that we 'have no culture', and thus neglect the very real heritage that is ours.
I'll conclude with an invitation to my readers to offer their thoughts what our culture consists of, or to suggest things that are distinctly American, aspects of our way of life that make us what we are.
Labels: American Culture, American Customs, American History, American Identity