In search of culture
Every so often in my life, particularly around major milestone events or holidays, I get kind of wistful and reflective. I’m not personally religious, and I was raised in a mostly secular household. On top of that, my personal heritage is a mixed bag, with many European countries represented, so I’m sort of generically white. (I’ve heard it referred to as “European mutt.”) All this adds up to mean that I don’t feel like I have many traditions or customs, nor do I feel like I have much of a cultural heritage.
A friend commented to me that this was “a typically American problem,” and I think he’s right. I love my country, I love what it stands for, and I love the life I have here. But I think there’s something about the nature of the United States that leaves me and others like me feeling this way. What do we think of when we talk about American culture? Fast food, Hollywood, clothing brands. When we talk about having or experiencing “culture,” we mean French or Italian opera, or Japanese theater. We mean the clothing and music and food traditional for peoples that are hundreds or even thousands of years old. Culture is something they have and we observe.
I think there’s a natural human instinct to characterize the world and one’s own perspective on it in terms of “people like us.” It allows simultaneously for the freedom of individuality (we are not like them, we are different) and for security in the collective (we are all together, living in our way). Obviously, this has had some extremely negative outcomes—hatred, oppression, genocide—but it also has some positive outcomes, such as personal pride and a sense of continuity, of belonging, of togetherness. It’s nice to be able to look back at history and say, “Look what great things my people have done! I come from that greatness!” and also say, “Look what I am doing, to bring honor to my people, and to improve the world our children will live in!”
To some extent, it’s possible to say such things about the United States, just as it’s possible to say some of this about humanity as a whole. But we don’t all look the same, or speak the same language, or believe the same things, or eat the same food, or listen to the same music, or have the same values and aspirations. In fact, this is what we have in common: we are all different. I am proud of that, of coming from a “melting pot” (or, if you will, a patchwork quilt or a beautiful mosaic). I’m glad that we can celebrate and learn from our differences. I’m glad our system of government enshrines rights which allow us to think and act differently from each other. However, that means that when I say, “I am an American,” I don’t feel that sense of “people like us” which I described above.
Part of the problem, I think, is that the customs I do have somehow seem less than adequate, as though they’re not good enough to “count.” I have traditional food and traditional dress! It’s things like turkey sandwiches and T-shirts, but why can’t that be my culture? Even as I protest this, I still have the sense that it’s true.
And maybe this is an inevitable consequence of living in the modern world, of faster and faster technology, of the nuclear family, of the age of reason. Many of the traditions that do “count” actually seem like mystical, ritual performance—hard to believe that anyone actually put (or puts) much stake in them. Still, probably for the same reason I like old typewriters and fountain pens, I find them beautiful.
So, every time I feel wistful for some tradition, I research some nationality or cultural group that makes up a statistically significant part of that long, hyphenated list I call my heritage. It’s always not really me, but just a piece of me… though maybe someday I’ll pick some parts of it to wear as my own.
What do you think? Have you experienced this? Or is this completely foreign to you?
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I have to say, growing up in the South, we have ‘culture’ coming out of our ears. The cuisine, the manners, the social events, the music traditions. And having just left New Mexico a couple of days ago, i think they can definitley make a case for having ‘culture’. For me the best place to start mining U.S. culture is with the food. That tells the story better than almost anything else.