(no subject)

[novapsyche]

One of the reasons I feel America doesn't have a culture is because culture depends on a remembrance of the past--that is, history. Americans on the whole consider history an interesting pastime but nothing terribly important. We have a dislocated sense of time.

Comments

[timiathan.livejournal.com]

The past is prologue, baby! History is history!


Seriously, though, maybe it's not so much that we have a dislocated sense of time as that we have a more accurate one. All that exists is the moment -- not that we draw from anything is thoughtful as buddhism, too much attention to the past is a distraction from what's at hand. The past gave us things like segregation, slavery, patriarchy, the holocaust, the crusades. It gives us things like the Flat Earth Society, cripples things like stem cell research. It's not often that I'm on the side of America, but tradition sucks. We're better off without it.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

maybe it's not so much that we have a dislocated sense of time as that we have a more accurate one.

I don't know if I would agree with this. Americans live in a society where the concept of time is highly accelerated from even 50 years prior. All these fancy, newfangled machines (cars, telephones, microwaves, computers). Things no longer take so much time to happen, so our concept of time as a lived experience starts to lose meaning.

too much attention to the past is a distraction from what's at hand

But we wouldn't have what's at hand if actions and events hadn't happened in the past. The past informs the present. Americans want to deny this causal relationship.

The past gave us things like segregation, slavery, patriarchy, the holocaust, the crusades.

But ignoring the bad parts of history doesn't make them not have happened.

It's not often that I'm on the side of America, but tradition sucks. We're better off without it.

I'm not generally on the side of tradition. But I'm not sure culture can exist without it.

[timiathan.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's definitely not as cut and dry as either of our arguments. You could also make a case, for example, that while Europe is steeped in culture, they've had a lot less trouble adhering to destructive traditions.