Themes of culture

Back in the 1940's and 50's there was an attempt to describe cultures in terms of themes or basic features that together made sense of them. I think this started with Ruth Benedict who tried to argue that Kwakiutl culture was "dionesian' whereas Hopi culture was "apollonian." Someone, I believe it was Morris Opler, immediately pointed out the obvious - cultures were far too complex to be so described and suggested the obvious, there would have to be multiple themes. These ideas were toyed about with for a time but eventually more or less disappeared. Even so, while thinking back on this, I began to wonder how one would describe contemporary American culture in such a way. My remarks here are not to be taken as in any way definitive, merely impressions acquired from watching some tv, reading books, newspapers and magazines, and observations of American behavior. To do justice to this would require weeks or months of research and a book-length treatment. In short, I suggest there are six main themes in American culture at the moment: sex, violence, materialism, drugs, religion, and militarism. These are not meant to be in order of importance.

Sex. Can there be any doubt that Americans are obsessed with sex? Sex is ubiquitous in advertising. We have annual reports on who is the sexist man or woman on earth. George Cloony won this year. Does anyone know anything about Cloony's sex life? I think he is sexy because he is handsome. See, you can't even be handsome in America without also being sexy. Consider women's magazines. Not only are the covers almost universally sexy, the articles have much to do with how to please your man, tricks in bed, how to make yourself look sexy, and etc. In the past few years there are now a variety of drugs one can take to "get it up," be always "prepared," have "male enhancement," and so on. Just now there is a new drug for women so they, too, can be more interested and prepared for sex. Quite frankly, I hadn't realized this was such a problem. I thought sex was just something that came naturally. Sex is used to sell everything, especially automobiles, but also ladies' lingerie and just about anything else you can think of.

Violence: I don't watch much tv. A couple of football games a week, a bit of MNABC, once in a while some kind of special. As near as I can tell virtually every ad you see for a movie is violent. Explosions, car crashes, murders, machine gunnings, and on and on. I suppose once in a while there is a movie ad that is not violent but they are very few and very far between. Video games are even worse. Violent beyond belief. I confess I have never actually seen one, just the ads for them. But wow! Our favorite sport, football, is violent. Even basketball has become more violent over the years. Boxing is violent, but doesn't even compare with the fights on pay-for-view these days, featuring brutality that goes far beyond any previous norms. Why we outlaw dog and cockfights but allow humans to do this to each other is something I find hard to understand.

Materialism: It is widely acknowledged that we have become a society of consumers. Shop until you drop, the one with the most toys wins, buy, buy, buy. And if you don't have the cash to participate in this madness your local bank or corporation will be glad to lend you enough. More than enough. The siren song of credit. Buy now, pay later. I think not a day goes by any more when I do not get an ad from some credit card company offering me a deliciously low interest rate (for a while) to get me in their clutches. Donald Trump is an icon. Who does not want to become filthy rich, rich beyond any reason whatsoever. CEO's pull down millions per year while the rest of us plod along with minimum wages and credit card debt trying to keep up with the Jones's or the Smith's or whomever. Ours is a culture predicated on waste and obsolescence, all in the name of the insanity of materialism.

Drugs: We are a nation of addicts. Not only is illegal drug addiction, to cocaine, heroin, meth, even gasoline sniffing, a serious problem, even prescription drugs have become a problem. The pharmaceutical companies now spend billions to convince us to take drugs we would not otherwise even have thought about. It is not only viagra and other such drugs, but all kinds of drugs. Drugs to help you sleep, to help you stay awake, drugs for arthritis, heart disease, liver problems, even things like restless leg syndrome (a relatively recent invention), hyperactivity, lethargy, hair growing, you name it and there is a drug for it (and if there isn't they will soon have one). They even invent conditions for the sole purpose of being able to sell you a drug for it.

Religion: the opiate of the masses. The U.S. is the only developed country where a majority of the population professes to believe in some form of organized religion. A vast majority apparently do not believe in evolution, large numbers believe in the literal truth of the bible, many believe the 2nd coming is imminent. They are homophobic, anti-abortion, anti-stem cell research, all because of their completely irrational religious beliefs. Although they profess to abhor abortion they refuse to even accept contraception. Whatever church they belong to they believe to be the only true one and they are willing to torture and kill in its name. And they proselytize. They cannot let others have their beliefs but have to try to convince them that theirs' is the only true path to who knows where.

Militarism: We now spend more money on our military than all other nations on earth put together. We have enough nuclear and other weapons to kill other individual human beings probably 100 times or more. We are the largest provider of military equipment on earth. We intervene in the affairs of any other nation we desire to, and we apparently desire to do so regularly and most everywhere, often at the point of a gun, but economically as well. We consume far more than our share of the earth's resources and we use out military to insure this continues. We currently have troops stationed virtually all over the world. We currently believe we have the right to pre-emptively attack any country we even think may someday wish to do us harm.

These six "themes" do not provide a very positive view of American culture in the 21st century. Although we profess to be interested in peace and democracy there is little in our behavior to demonstrate such a commitment. And there is nothing in our history to demonstrate such a commitment. There is a seventh them we ought to consider as well, hypocrisy.