Why doesn't American Culture Evolve?

[Ripley]

Instead it seems very devolutionary right now to me.

Local college radio playing Scorpion and Led Zeppelin incessantly. Imagine if the college students of the 1960s listened to Glen Miller?

The TV sitcom. All In The Family and The Jefferson's were about issues of the day. What contemporary "issues" do they cover today in sitcoms?

Has there been one mainstream big hit movie out of Hollywood in the last 10 years that wasn't a remake of a film, or a sequel? (Other than Shindler's List and Private Ryan...the few and far between.)

Syberia II even recycles the first one..Ack!

Nothing is new...it is all recycled, even the damned commercials.

I am so disappointed with it all.

[arcane1]

1. America has a culture?

news to me :shrug:

[Taxloss]

18. Hey even Yoghurt has a culture. n/t

[arcane1]

22. lmao

good point :)

[Rapcw]

21. LOL I thought the same thing

[BrendaStarr]

49. It think that's the point.

Music is very fractured right now. In the 60 and 70s it was all on a few stations and so it all had to evolved together.

There is lots of new in Hip Hop(at least that's not 20 years old). If heavy metal doesn't want to evolve--oh well

And probably because our society is more focused on making money than on creating real art the whole culture thing is crashing.

The focus for many TV programs and the reason they can get businesses to invest moola in them is to promote general consumerism.

Really this was admitted to by a head of a group that lines businesses up to fund pilots and support new programs.

This goes way past product placement and into mind molding.

[BrainRants]

2. Haven't you heard? Evolution is only a "theory" n/t

[davidinalameda]

3. you mean The Swan isn't culture

or Paris Hilton?

[BlueEyedSon]

4. It changes. Ok, it "devolves."

Maybe it's a sign of decadence and the end of our empire.

[salvorhardin]

5. One answer (out of many)

why culture has approached a standstill is stifling intellectual property laws -- especially a vastly overextended copyright.

A book that everyone should read is Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture, which goes into how unreasonable intellectual property laws have an adverse affect on culture. If you can't afford, or don't want, to buy the book, Lawrence Lessig makes it available for free on on his website.

I would imagine the outrageous copyright laws even affect your college radio station although it'd probably be cheaper for them to play indy music (no ASCAP type fees usually). Although, when I was in college in the 80s we our college radio station played a lot of 60s music. :-)

[FloridaPat]

6. You're looking at the culture. Plastic, fake food, fake everything,

reality shows that aren't really reality, news that doesn't believe in facts, a liar for president that no one notices.

It's a sad culture.

But you do raise a point I've been wondering about lately. Where has all the creativity gone. With the internet you would think creativity would soar. Everyone can produce movies, music, websites. But all is boring. Most is cheap crap. Where'd everyone go???

[BrendaStarr]

51. A few reasons?

People are running as fast as they can to keep a roof over their family.

It takes time to create. I've been working on one drawing for months now. Okay I'm not a professional, but I think that's the point--the internet should be a place for amateurs and professionals.

Quality amateur productions should be spurring on the professionals to keep up.

Also supplies in all arts can be expensive.

I don't know about your area, but in mine housing costs have gone up 100% during Bush's recession for those of us who didn't buy before he started his presidency. Transportation is more expensive each year and medical and dental costs continue to skyrocket.

I like to point out in mixed forums that if the state of welfare in the UK was like that of the US there would be no Harry Potter as Rawlings would have had to work a couple of jobs just to stay alive while she was waiting for her teaching job instead of doing most of the work on her first book. The Money from HP and The Sorcerer's Stone enabled her to become a full time writer. And it has been acknowledged by UK economists that Harry Potter has noticeably helped the UK through taxes, jobs, and tourism (which was very poor after the foot and mouth and mad cow epidemics).

BTW putting a work on the Internet is a sure way to have it pirated or otherwise hijacked for someones blog without acknowledgement. When we link to pics from here we are possibly depriving our own allies of some advertising dough they might get if people visited their site--and believe me I'm sure the recompense on that is low enough.

Finally Adobe is offering something to prevent out and out theft of a publication, but it costs $50K. NO kidding.

In big ways and little it's about money and the destruction of the middle class.

[FlemingsGhost]

7. Corporate TV. Corporate Radio. Corporate film studios.

You are looking in the wrong places. Get your hands dirty. The truth is on the street, friend.

[SoCalDem]

8. One step forward.... two steps backward... rinse & repeat..n/t

.

[seabeyond]

10. bah hahahah that is funny so cal

i just said the same. in another post with conyers i say, we have your back. very next post said the same

the coolest. collective conscious

[seabeyond]

9. two steps forward, one step back

we are in the one step back right now. the up side, we are going to be going into the two steps forward soon

[Ripley]

13. Excuse me, but what is your native language?

And why are we "going to be going into the two steps forward soon"?

[seabeyond]

15. we have taken a step back

that leaves two steps forward.......to come

two steps forward one step back, two steps forward one step back. sequential thinking, pattern. if we have done the one step back, we now get two steps forward

ah never mind.........must be too complicated

[Mountainman]

11. I think you can find your own culture and let the masses rot.

It occurred to me that while we sit here and morn the loss of intellectual ism in this country much of the world is moving right along.

The thing to do is turn off the commercial media and tune into something else. There has always been alternative life style information and entertainment if you are willing to go look for it.

We are the keepers of what enters our brains.

[Ripley]

14. Yes, I have pretty much done that.

But the World does SEE our American Culture. And that bothers me.

[Mountainman]

16. It has always bothered me too. The culture can limit our choices in the

things we want to do sometimes.

[Az]

12. Its a flaw of Post Modern systems

America has worked as long as it has because it has embraced the idea of tolerance and inclusiveness(at an official level). Eventually Post Modernism formed as an organising principle. The idea in PM is that no one group owns or rules the process. All voices are included.

The ideal of PM was that it would enable dialog between various sides without the stress and chaos. But this never really happened. Instead all the various groups and subgroups abide each other and fell back into their own niches. Isolation became the norm instead of cooperation.

Over time groups within that had a history of more aggressive and assertive control of society began to rise again. Because PM advocates allowing all voices equal access there was no way to oppose the rise of these ancient voices in society. Because no one modus can be supported by PM there can be no advance which is not the result of dynamic cooperation of all groups. But there is no cooperation. There is collusion and manipulation.

In this morass of declining social cohesiveness it is no longer possible to present satirical or exploratory entertainment without crossing one of these groups. Thus those interested in making money must defang their works and reduce them to lowest common denominator. And once there, there are only so many stories you can tell before you begin repeating everything ad infinitum.

[sweetheart]

20. Is that what you'd call "multiculturalism"?

Britain is debating the value of multiculturalism, or at least some
of the right wing folks see it as a debate, and rather the fact on the
ground is already a postmodern society, as you put it, but one where
there is a public media regulator and a public media broadcaster that
is charged with making informative, educational and insightful broadcasts.

This chartering of a public role as the "invisible" hand that guides
adam smith's less than invisible hand of the free market, to guide
public media towards promoting culture in a society much much older
than the USA.

So whilst i find your post insightful and brilliantly put, i can't
help but wonder if there is not a constitutional failure at root
that has somehow let the airwaves be designated as not a public common,
and has, with corporate personhood, granted public license to the
intent "entertainment for profit" as the elevating principal behind
any culture that is mainstream, from news media to cinema.

On one hand, fight club, 12 monkeys, american beauty, the big lebowski,
stigmata, and on the other.... the median crap where marketing has
superceded screenwriting as the basis of film.

Perhaps the failure is constitutional, and having a post modern
society does not automatically mean that there can not be a public
good in the public common.

[Ripley]

26. Of those movies you mentioned...fight club...

did well in UK huh?

I've seen it twice, irritates me just the same each time. Is this what is great about America? A film with a hunky sex symbol in a freaky show of mental illness? Horrors it is. I think shit head Pitt is a freak for insisting on a baby maker.

Perhaps Americans ain't alone in their viewing habits?

[sweetheart]

33. has it?

Britain has lots of american TV, as taxloss has pointed out, that i've
met brits who say "i love america" without ever having visited there
purely because they like the TV shows. The soft power of propaganda
certainly works better than military power.

Sad about brad, but i can't help but wonder if it was not something
more. They could have adopted a kid if that was all it was. I think
its hard being a celbrity and having the relationships that one needs
to have in life. Confidence and trust between unmarried lovers is no
problem for us outcastes, but with a anniston or a pitt, there can only
be terrible mistrust from the outset, as whomever meets you has known
about you, and watched you for years stalking you like a hunter stalks
a deer... that being a celeb is hard in such a culture.

I take delight at a recent wine tasting in london where johnny depp
arrived and introduced himself as "johnny the actor".... and nobody
knew who he was, and he just hung out with the crowd. Perhaps the
cost of fame is to spoil the ground for living a normal life.

As for fight club, the name put me off the film until it hit video and
when i finally saw it, i really think it quite a masterpiece that
perhaps only men might appreciate... but in all honestly, the film
could not be made today in post 9/11 america... sad, the repression
of expression that this paranoia fear culture has brought about.

[tx_dem41]

38. The book "Fight Club" was excellent. The movie was based on it...

...Chuck Pahluniak (sp?) is an excellent novelist. Of course, most Americans don't read...sigh.

[FizzFuzz]

43. but kudos to Aniston for saying her life is more important than secluding

herself in the nursery for the rest of her active life.

And that is the extent of what I know on this subject!! lol! (I avoid mainstream media and lowest common denominator entertainment)

[Ripley]

47. Me freaking too!

I only know about these people because of Democratic Underground gossips!

[FizzFuzz]

50. tee hee! me three! n/t

[FizzFuzz]

42. Az, you know, I always love your posts.

They make alot of sense, I learn alot.

And thanks for that explanation of Post Modernism. I had only the most nebulous concept, left over (and a little moldy) from what little art history I paid attention to in college, a million years ago. Heh heh.



Yes, I'm going to be a little more aggressive and hold back less on compliments to posters I admire. I feel moved to action by some thoughts have been voiced lately.


ON Edit:<<In this morass of declining social cohesiveness it is no longer possible to present satirical or exploratory entertainment without crossing one of these groups. Thus those interested in making money must defang their works and reduce them to lowest common denominator. And once there, there are only so many stories you can tell before you begin repeating everything ad infinitum.>>

About lowest common denominator--yes so true, by reducing what they permit themselves to work with, writers, directors etc., have less to create with. And, IMO, a large demand of lowest common denominator pandering is the requirement to avoid anything that demands THINKING (maybe even more so than avoiding offending any particular group?). Anti-intellectualism really got a boost from the sound bite format of television, and it, along with sentimentalized reductionist thinking and disingenuous commercial hype, has taken over public discourse since TV made its advent. Neil Postman wrote a book concerning this in the '80's, you probably already know it, "Amusing Ourselves To Death" It's so right on that I find myself referring to it frequently.

[double_helix]

46. Exactly. Post Modernism/radical subjectivism is the reason.

To a Post Modernist, there is no such thing as objective truth or reality; it has been constructed by powerful elites to be hierarchial. So the Post Modernists go about attempting to create a flatter, more egalitarian reality where nothing has any more weight than anything else: all ideas and opinions are equal, there is no winning or losing, good or bad.

This leads to exactly the problem you described: politically correct, "cultural balkanization" -- a stalemate where groups pretend to get along while interacting, but really feel differently when they go back to their own world at the end of the day.

In such a climate, it is impossible to make any declarative statement about anything, because after all, to the Post Modernists, nothing is inherently better than anything else... which leads to a very mushy, nonsensical and self-destructive culture.

[leveymg]

17. Culture Is What Culture Does . . .

America is in a quiet, stupid period now. Look at our politics.

We've probably bottomed out. Means things are getting ready to get loud and interesting again.

1959 wasn't so wonderful either, unless you like jazz or Elvis.

[Taxloss]

19. Are you kidding? American culture is going great!

I live in the UK and get you imports. I don't know about music, but in terms of TV, the quality of imports has never been stronger. We get The Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, Scrubs, ER, CSI, Desperate Housewives, and so on. It is brilliant right now.

[ngant17]

27. the euro point of view, and US culture

When I visted Europe a few years ago, I was told that people in the US are mostly (but not all) descendants of fortune seekers, social outcasts, pirates, anti-social types, greedy, self-seeking individualists prone to violence.

I suppose it's true. Today modern American culture has come of age, the descendants of the riff-raff have attained political power and built up a powerful armed gang of terrorists -- the Republican Congress and their good-for-nothing welfare-recipients in the Pentagon. Phoney elections, mendacity in officialdom, death=freedom, war=peace, their mental sickness with capitalism has become the norm.

A lot of us are so desperate, just trying to survive day-to-day from honest work that we have little time for creative expression and "culture". Culture for me has to be substituted with trying to meet minimum survival levels.

[I_Make_Mistakes]

31. It is all a FACADE

The US presents its self differently than it lives itself. I am replying to the Brit above.

I went to Medjughorie, (spelling is bad because,my best friend sent me a book for my birthday, my NEIGHBOR, RC, borrowed it, and never gave it back), What a great Roman Christian!. It even had, a personal inscription to me by name.

I would like to give equal opportunity, to the Born Agains. I sold my parrots $200 play gym, to Born Agains, for $50.00. My bird wanted nothing to do with it, even after I re-drilled and made the branches accessible. I loaned them, close to $200.00 in Parrot books. I tried to badger them by phone calls to get the loaned books back, I still don't have them. God, bless all those hypocrites. They are so righteous, they steal and it is forgiven.

It does amaze me, thy shalt not steal, is not the same as borrowing and not returning.

When I was traveling to Bosnia, from Croatia, (the Bosnian airport was bombed out, by guess who?) a British catholic patron said that the US had overcome racism. Yes, I laughed so hard my stomach ached. I told him, we pc'd it, but racism was LOUD and PROUD in the good olde USA.

To the British here, move here, and then tell us what a racially tolerant country this.

[sweetheart]

23. Central planning

Britain produces many more successful music and arts bits per capita
and the US... why. I think there is a problem with over-federalization
where by concentrating too much population at one maxima, it denies
an opportunity for "local" talent to rise up. It is a zero sum game to
win the slots on public media and the cinema, one that must be won
at the highest federal level. In effect, the wall street concentration
has been similar, as what were local financial insttutions financing
local businesses, have now come to become mega giants fighting for
the US monopoly.

Strangely, it stinks terribly of central planning... the very anathema
of the "red scare" is the blight of american business and culture, that
we are all pushed towards gasoline-SUV's by an unchecked irrational
market where any person who wants to be safe on the road, is risking
their life as the "other" cars get progressively bigger and able to
crush a feul-efficient car like a fly on the bumper.

It is a case of gross market failure. In theory, the free market
selects the best and the brightest and promotes them. In fact, the
slush fund at congress selects their favorite crony's and promotes that,
... that american industry, outside military weaponry, is grossly
deficient... Unsaid, is that perhaps that very rot has already
destroyed the military as well... and perhaps the sign of evolution
is for the society as a whole... perhaps natural selection is
proving the US a diseased nation state, one with a broken constitution,
and that this sickness is bleeding out the carcass... and since the
death of a nation state is not that of its individual members,
perhaps the arts and culture will revive at a future time when the
monopolists are not repressing all the arts that come from any
license but the republican (read: communist) party. One party
states are usually a bit deficient in creativity, and increasingly,
republican amerika and china's communist dictatorship are coming
together... in to a one party system of institutional mediocrity...
and cultural decline for the older, and sicker of the 2 animals.

[Taxloss]

32. Well, I think your electoral system is rotten in root and branch

but I have always found the energy, humour, optimism, dynamism and creativity of the US (its people, not its govt) to be admirable.

[sweetheart]

35. the dynamic individual

I see that same dynamism in the UK, repressed by a crony culture of
very judgemental people... but between the 2 cultures, more indiviual
dynamism on the UK side of the atlantic... as the UK institutions
allow it to flourish, whereas american institutions are designed to
crush it out in thier goal for absolute monopoly.

You have 4 languages in the Uk, i think.... Scottish gaellic, Welsh,
English and Cornwallian Gallic. Each has a tradition of music that is
healthy and provides the roots for the impressive musicians the UK
has produced over the past decades from the beatles, led zepplin,
rolling stones, pink floyd, who, elton john, and so many more... wow!

All i can hope, is that the Charles Clark wisely choose to open the
immigration borders to americans who wish to seek their fortune in
britain. Though american culture will suffer the loss, britain will
be richer for the imports.

[Taxloss]

39. Well, as far as I know the borders are open and Americans are welcome!

Incidentally, the Cornish language is sadly basically extinct.

[sweetheart]

44. working visas

Currently the path for an american unwed to a european/brit, is to
attend british university and apply for a job to stay on. A more
"open" policy would do britain no harm. Unlike immigrants from some
areas of the world, american immigration is english speaking, and
very very culturally similar, so the integration shock is less difficult.

I've talked with quite a few americans who would like to emigrate to
britain, and the home office could certainly do a better job at making
it clear that political refugees might have safe haven. Certainly
it could be justified in reciprocity for all the british folks living
stateside.

[scarletwoman]

36. I tell my youngest son, who is an art student, that art is a profoundly

important thing to be doing in these dark times. In our artists of conscience and consciousness lay the seeds of rebirth for the post-U.S. Empire civilization.

I often wonder if I will be in this body long enough to see the light that must inevitably succeed this darkness. But I know that someone among my descendents will; therefore it is my hope that the artists, and the so-called "cultural creatives", among us will take on the responsibily to act as the receptacles of beauty and truth.

Not feeling particularily coherent -- hope you get my drift... (so to speak...)

sw

[Carvillesque]

24. We lack a unifying cause...

As a nation we are split. The causes we have pit liberals against conservatives, Christians against non-believers, generation against generation. Civility is a historical condition gone out of fashion. We spoil our children, giving them everything without sacrifice. We are raising a generation of compliant team players, ill-equipped to find in themselves conviction, the desire to fight for worthy causes, or the inspiration to create something new. Their greatest fear is that someone might be offended. Change takes time, commitment, and vision. The need for instant gratification has displaced our ability to look beyond the moment. That's our culture today. It's fast, it's exciting, and it's as hollow as an empty gas tank. I, too, am disappointed. Disillusioned even.

[newyawker99]

45. Hi Carvillesque!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[democracyindanger]

25. Syberia II was a French title

Just sayin'.

[Ripley]

34. Just sayin what?

They re-used the village from I in the dream sequence.

I am so tired of laziness and cost-cutting that makes these recycles possible. Boring.

Originator is Canadian French anyway.

[democracyindanger]

37. Just sayin' that

your post asks why American culture doesn't evolve, but Syberia II isn't a good example.

I had heard that Syberia II was more like an expansion than an actual sequel, which is why I never bought it. The original was too short, anyway.

[Ripley]

48. Oh, Syberia was just thrown in there

Because I like it. Sorry, I did not specify that Syberia is not an American invention.

Love those French Canadians.......

[corbett]

28. Wait Until Roe Vs. Wade Is Overturned

salvorhardin makes a very good point. In parallel to that, though, will be the 3 Supreme Court seats refilled in the next 3 years. As soon as poor ill Rehnquist resigns, we'll see the overturning of Roe Vs. Wade as priority 1. When that happens, the 60's will recur!

[Carvillesque]

40. If only it were true

Even if Roe v. Wade were overturned, the only people who truly care about abortion rights are those anxious post-prom adolescents waiting by the EPG test for the hoped-for results. The neo-cons would never have gotten this far in the right-to-life movement if it weren't for apathy on the part of the majority of Americans who may be sympathetic to choice, but are too despondent or preoccupied to be bothered. For Christ's sake, the righteous bastards have blown up clinics, murdered doctors, and intimidated patients. Was there ever an uproar? There was never more than diffident hand-wringing and head-shaking. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortions will be performed illegally with no damned help from those who should be been outraged long ago.

[DrWeird]

29. Hmm. Animal House was on last night.

A movie made in the seventies about college students in the sixties rocking out to hits from the fifties.

I'm sure college stations somewhere are still playing Led Zeppelin occasionally, but you can't tell me they're not playing anything modern. Half of the stuff they played when I was in school a couple years ago was half breakthrough hip hop and the other half wouldn't fit into any one genre, and it was all new.

As for sitcoms, nobody watches sitcoms anymore. It's evolved beyond that, despite your gripe.

As for Hollywood, there have been plenty. Private Ryan was crap, don't know why you include that. But if you think there haven't been any good hits, and if you think being a hit has ever been a sign of quality, you need to see more movies.

[toddaa]

30. American Culture

America gave the world Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Ornette Coleman. That's a pretty heavy dose of culture. Today, we have William Parker, Tim Berne, and Ken Vandermark. That's just in jazz circles. Turn off your TV, quit hanging around in shopping malls, and start going to where the culture is. The seeming "lack of culture" in America is nothing more than intellectual laziness on the part of the average American whining over the media saturation of Britney Spears.

KILL YOUR TV!!!

[Lexingtonian]

41. It's all nostalgia and resentment "culture" these days

Always seems to be that way during the middle phases of Republican adminstrations.

Right now we're in a rerun-the-Sixties&Seventies pop culture phase. Iraq is the new Vietnam. Bush Jr is the new Nixon. The uncivilized white population and faux Messianic sorts are the official first class citizens- well, actually, they're only made to feel that way, the corporate chieftains are.... Oil dependence and crisis is still the same idea. Liberal groups are all about purging themselves and loudness. At least psychadelic drug art was new in those days.

I think we're being dragged down by Red State America, which has lagged the cultural median developments in Blue State America by roughly a generation for as long as I can remember. These days it's the Red regions where drug culture is centered (meth and Oxycontin anyway), where abortion is 'controversial' and unwanted pregnancies up and a contemporary issue, where the police state is beating up demonstrators and losing in the courts, where feminism is somehow a new idea they discovered all by themselves ('The DaVinci Codes'), where War is a Duty- for Other People, where Stonewall is being refought, where the young people are tuning out of and leaving the churches because of the elderly idiots.

In short, there's a national phenomenon that everything major and novel accepted into the mainstream in the Blue regions is vehemently rejected by the mainstream in Red regions, then adopted but pretended to be their own innovations a generation later. What's the quote about History being tragic the first time around and farce when it gets repeated....

Yeah, there's a gross lack of creativity and imagination evident in the country at large, and it's everywhere. It's result of the economy being made more colonial- benefitting the few old white plutocrats more, the national wealth being generated being wasted in warfare and taken overseas and consumed without real social benefit, the average American losing real wealth- during the Bush years. Its the result of plutocracy- historically, plutocrats only like vanity art and overemphasize kitsch (sentimentality-based baubles) because it sells well. They don't like the imaginative kind of art or the art that is emphatic about reality...it just doesn't serve Mammon, it even rejects Him most of the time....

[RafterMan]

52. It does evolve

Remember that we are in the first era with high-quality recordings of its pop culture (color movies and stereo recordings) available. So the fact that it sticks around in addition to new stuff is unsurprising.

As for recycling, I think I've heard your complaint before...what has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Face it. The real problem is that you're getting old.