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addersljThere's often an assumption, usually found amongst the residents of the United States of America, that the UK and the US share a broadly similar frame of cultural context. This is, quite frankly, bollocks.
Take a quick look at this story: UK wants music embassy in the US. The key points are scattered through the story, but they come down to (a) virtually no British music is having an impact on the US charts and (b) the US is the most parochial music market in the world, bar Pakistan (which is currently edging the world towards nuclear war and thus is not a country to look up to).
Now, why is this important? Surely the good citizens of the US are entitled to listen to whatever music they want to? Of course they are. Indeed, I listen to quite a lot of American music and enjoy it throughly. The point isn't that, it's that many Americans are simply unaware of their degree of cultural isolationism at the moment. The British chart is a mix of British, American and European artists. The US chart is largely US artists. The cultural infulences at work there are purely American.
They are equally unware of the degree of cultural Imperialism that goes on. People outside America don't mind it that much - they're quite happy to use good American products that come their way. But the asymmetric nature of the exchange makes some non-Americans uneasy.
Many US writers in Livejournals, Blogs and newspapers are turning their attention to Europe and the rest of the world in a way they haven't since probably the Second World War. George W Bush has been forced to play a bigger part on the world stage than he would have if left to his own devices. We all remembers some of the simply daft things he said about foreign countries in his election campaign. This change of focus is an inevitable consequence of September 11th, but one that makes the rest of us a little nervous. Why? It's because suddenly Americans are commenting on things they have very little real understanding of. Sure, there are some well-informed commentators out there saying interesting things. But there's an awful lot of people espousing a jingoistic belief in the inherent superiority of the American way, without truly understanding the cultures and philosophies of those lands. They haven't seen their TV, watched their films and listened to their music. They haven't read their books or skimmed their magazines. They see everything through glasses with the stars and stripes printed on them. Indeed, many seem genuinely surprised when they discover that people hold different views from them and promptly set out to persuade the poor, ignorant natives.
I freely admit that not every American is guilty of this, but there's enough of them out there to make web browsing an increasingly uncomfortable experience. The really curious thing is that the attitude I'm describing here reminds me powerfully of the attitudes of the British in the 19th Century. Any chance of learning from our mistakes?
Take a quick look at this story: UK wants music embassy in the US. The key points are scattered through the story, but they come down to (a) virtually no British music is having an impact on the US charts and (b) the US is the most parochial music market in the world, bar Pakistan (which is currently edging the world towards nuclear war and thus is not a country to look up to).
Now, why is this important? Surely the good citizens of the US are entitled to listen to whatever music they want to? Of course they are. Indeed, I listen to quite a lot of American music and enjoy it throughly. The point isn't that, it's that many Americans are simply unaware of their degree of cultural isolationism at the moment. The British chart is a mix of British, American and European artists. The US chart is largely US artists. The cultural infulences at work there are purely American.
They are equally unware of the degree of cultural Imperialism that goes on. People outside America don't mind it that much - they're quite happy to use good American products that come their way. But the asymmetric nature of the exchange makes some non-Americans uneasy.
Many US writers in Livejournals, Blogs and newspapers are turning their attention to Europe and the rest of the world in a way they haven't since probably the Second World War. George W Bush has been forced to play a bigger part on the world stage than he would have if left to his own devices. We all remembers some of the simply daft things he said about foreign countries in his election campaign. This change of focus is an inevitable consequence of September 11th, but one that makes the rest of us a little nervous. Why? It's because suddenly Americans are commenting on things they have very little real understanding of. Sure, there are some well-informed commentators out there saying interesting things. But there's an awful lot of people espousing a jingoistic belief in the inherent superiority of the American way, without truly understanding the cultures and philosophies of those lands. They haven't seen their TV, watched their films and listened to their music. They haven't read their books or skimmed their magazines. They see everything through glasses with the stars and stripes printed on them. Indeed, many seem genuinely surprised when they discover that people hold different views from them and promptly set out to persuade the poor, ignorant natives.
I freely admit that not every American is guilty of this, but there's enough of them out there to make web browsing an increasingly uncomfortable experience. The really curious thing is that the attitude I'm describing here reminds me powerfully of the attitudes of the British in the 19th Century. Any chance of learning from our mistakes?
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Date: 2002-05-28 11:05 pm (UTC)Well, if you want to start making yourself unpopular with people, comparing their nation to Pakistan because they don't buy British CDs is a passable start. ;) What's funny to me is that I read that story and don't see it as a British vs. US thing, but instead as poorly-performing corporations trying to get a government to stimulate their sales for them. By wrapping themselves in the Union Jack and evoking ambivalent attitudes towards the US, they hope they can get taxpayers to pay for a PR campaign...so they can get US dollars.
No, "purely American" would not be "largely US"; it would be a chart without Shakira or Celine Dion. It would be an MTV that didn't endlessly run Oasis videos years ago. Of course, the "purely American" line is interesting in another way entirely. The US has a quarter of a billion people whose ancestors came from virtually every country in the world. There are real, regional cultural differences stemming from distance and varied ethnicity mixes, as much as some people would like to lump all Americans together as mindless hyperconsuming rednecks. New Yorkers are not like Texans are not like Georgians are not like Californians.
"Some non-Americans" is a wildly vague term. And how uneasy? Sorry for the peevishness, but that's dodgy rhetoric.
I know. When they first started covering international news to the New York Times and the Houston Chronicle last November, there was a great to-do. ;)
Sadly, yes, and far more than I would like.
This is definitely true. It's also definitely true that there are a great many people in other countries venturing equally absurd and uninformed opinions about America. Despite some of the snarkiness I've noticed myself writing above, I'm not lumping you in with these people, Adam; you haven't said anything nearly as offensive or remotely as ridiculous. However, thing like the automatic assumption of universal American homogenity and ignorance puts me off.
What is it that Americans have been saying that's been so distressing? I can think of many disquieting things I've heard from Europe lately, but I'm at a loss for what's unnerving about us.