How to tell if you're American

Not long ago, one of those earnest-freshman puppydogs on the Net declared that there was "no such thing as American culture." Right. Fish have also been known to doubt the existence of water.

The following is a first crack at an ostensive definition of 'American culture'-- things shared by the vast majority (let's say 90%) of native-born Americans. Many of these won't sound 'cultural' at all to Americans; they'll sound like just descriptions of the way things are. But each one of them would be contested in one or more non-American cultures.

This test has spawned a growing host of responses (most of them better written than mine). To wit:

France Nicolas Duvernois
Italy Riccardo Distasi
Brazil Emilio Neto
Scotland Geoff Eddy
England Graham John Francis de Sales Wheeler
The Netherlands Bas Suverkropp
Germany Irgend Jemand
Japan Hirofumi Nagamura
New Zealand Gareth Wilson
Australia Chris O'Regan
South Africa T'Mar
India Apurva Mishra
Verduria me
   Offsite
Brittany Damien Erwan Perrotin
Austria Klaus A. Brunner
Finland Johanna Laakso
Louisiana Andrew Chaney
Texas Tom Wier
Charya Boudewijn Rempt
Khadra wligon1

These pages are all organized by nation or culture.Robert Delaney has put up an interesting page with the same information organized by subject.

--Mark Rosenfelder


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