How exactly do we quantify ‘culture’ anymore? Museums, ethnic enclaves with nice restaurants, historical buildings, or perhaps professional football and baseball franchises? If you live in a city with a rich history, I guess that counts as culture, but I’m still confused. Many of these ‘historical’ areas have given way to urban ghettos and empty buildings. The few times I’ve been to Paris and Munich, it was apparent to me that there was more of this ‘culture’ going on, but it was hard to quantify. Lots of neat churches, but nobody attends them anymore! We are a country that over time has largely abandoned many of the traditions, langauges and customs of our mother countries, wherever they may be, but defining what we have replaced them with is the hard part.
African Americans have very little, if anything, in common with African culture, even though many would claim African cultural identify. Similarily, of the 60 million + German Americans, how many have you met who speak the language, can cook wiener schnitzel or wear leider hosen? As time passes, even our religious identities are changing. I used to be a member of the United Church of Christ – the first church in America, and one that the Puritons planted. I now belong to an evengelical church and have abandoned the UCC, ironically, due to the rapidly changing cultural ideals within the church that have made this once conservative church now the most liberal church in America.
The real challenge is defining exactly what American culture is all about in this day and age. We champion diversity, but isn’t that an antiquated and exclusionary way of looking at culture that risks alienating everyone? But the alternative – a true American culture – is increasingly hard to define. We are becoming a culture defined by mass consumption and secularism. In our house, we don’t cook any meals that are remotely ethnic, but instead go out to eat. Our great cultural traditions are dominated by consumption with the original meaning lost in translation. Christmas is about getting presents, and Thanksgiving is all about turkey and the parade.
And our historical religious institutions are being abandoned for mega churches. EG: Look to the Lutheran ELCA, or any other mainline protestant denominations decline. At school our children are being taught that every opinion or belief, no matter how extreme, needs to be valued for its diversity. So what exactly are they supposed to believe, and by what values will they be defined? We were once defined as a Christian nation, but even that has become controversial and is going by the way side.
