American Contributions to World Civilisation
Many of the prominent characteristics of our culture—venal politicians, callous and stupid bureaucrats and police, promiscuous and perverted clergymen, debased currency—were inherited from the Old World, where they have a long history. However, we Americans are proverbially an inventive people and we have made many innovative cultural contributions of our own to the world. Like . . .
- Hip-hop (at least in its present form)
- “The Battle Hymn of the Republic’’
- A Constitution that “evolves”
- “Subprime” mortgages
- Televangelists
- Heads of government who hear God telling them to go to war. (I am not entirely sure this is new. Perhaps the claim should be limited to elected heads of government.)
- Lincoln worship
- Michael Jackson
- Sex therapists?
- Nuclear weapons
- William F. Buckley
- Oprah Winfrey
- Public relations as an industry
- "Fast" food
- Chain "fast food" stores
- Therapeutic dictatorship
- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
- Grade inflation
- The Teenager
- “A nation of immigrants”
- The Republican Party
- Bill and Hillary Clinton
Entries(RSS)
Hear, hear, and the list can go on. Malls. Various ESPN channels with not a sporting event to be seen while various MTV stations have a hard time coming up with anything close to music. College classes on Tupac, Bat Man and Star Trek. "Men" in their 30s and 40s who are obsessed with professional wrestling and videogames. A television show where the likes of Dan Rather and Newt Gingrich can pontificate about the meaning of Star Wars.
Let's not be one-sided. America invented several styles of barbeque, grits, hash browns, chicken fried steak, Cajun cuisine, shrimp and grits, the Kentucky Rifle, crabcakes, Kentucky bourbon and pecan pie. America also provided the military genius of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Nathan Bedford Forrest and George Patton. Of course, these inventions come from a part of America reviled by The New York Times, CBS, The Washington Post, Time, David Frum and David Brooks so I dare not mention its name.
Excellent points Mr. Leaberry. I think corn dodgers and drinking coffee around a fire are other contributions. It is strange too that self reliance and independence are so seldom spoken about today. If I had one suggestion for the young man attempting civility today, it would be to pass on the borrowed advice of an old school teacher from New York City who has taught longer than any man I know:"Go back home and try to create a little spot of independence within your own life and community. Like chipping away at a great rock it might take a while and one might even fail in the effort, but it would be well worth any effort if one were able by some minor miracle to experience this ancient goal for most men and women. That and understanding the divine relations between God and man. Very simple things that in our times would take a lifetime.
1. I think malls started in Europe, but we can take credit for strip malls.
~The Boy Band (or did the UK beat on this one?)
~'Emo' music
~the Americanism heresy - this one can easily fit in with any Christian variant.
To Dr. Wilson's baleful list, I would add:
the sports industry
Ronald Reagan
the Beats
The abominable ensemble of 1) gym shoes ("trainers" to our British cousins?), 2) blue jeans, 3) T-shirt (abominability enhanced for graphics thereon), and 4) baseball cap (abominability enhanced when cap is worn backwards or sideways). This is the costume of a child, not an adult, a boy rather than a man. Yet dissemination of this sartorial ruination is a sign of American culrural penetration.
If it is any condolence, Dr. Wilson, at least your country is not responsible for contributing David Frum to Western civilization. That dubious distinction, belongs to my own beloved Canada.
That's not a bad list Clyde, however, I noticed you omitted Rock 'n' Roll music. Is that because it comes from Dixie, and is therefore not Yankee?
@2 Derek
Three out of the four generals you mentioned wore grey, and Patton, while born in California, had great uncles who fought for the Confederacy. His father was a friend of The Grey Ghost -- John Mosby. The cuisine you mention is all Southern, as are the rifle and the Bourbon.
But an American, Alexander Bell, invented the telephone (for better or worse), and Thomas Edison also invented many of today's modern conveniences. And a true Yankee, Eli Whitney, invented the cotton gin.
How about this one: The art of substituting appearance for reality. Soybean 'burgers', or potato chip producers (the brand name begins with 'L') changing the oil they are cooked in so that they contain no animal fats, thus changing the taste fundamentally, and then emblazoning the fron to the bag with the words, 'Same Great Taste!'
Better yet, how about constotutions? The one we see on parchment is not the one we have today. 'Same Great Constitution!'
Please excuse the typos. 'emblazoning the front of the bag'
Each morning, a missionary advertises neon sign
He tells the native population that civilization is fine
And three educated savages holler from a bamboo tree
That civilization is a thing for me to see
So bongo, bongo, bongo, I don't wanna leave the Congo, oh no no no no no
Bingo, bangle, bungle, I'm so happy in the jungle, I refuse to go
Don't want no bright lights, false teeth, doorbells, landlords, I make it clear
That no matter how they coax him, I'll stay right here
I looked through a magazine the missionary's wife concealed
I see how people who are civilized bung you with automobile
At the movies they have got to pay many coconuts to see
Uncivilized pictures that the newsreel takes of me
So bongo, bongo, bongo, he don't wanna leave the Congo, oh no no no no no
Bingo, bangle, bungle, he's so happy in the jungle, he refuse to go
Don't want no penthouse, bathtub, streetcars, taxis, noise in my ear
So, no matter how they coax him, I'll stay right here
“Fast” food
I would have put the marks around the latter word.
#7. What's wrong with blue jeans? They are excellent apparel for people who do real work. #13, understood; I wanted to stress that
fast food's only virtue, being fast, is no longer even true. It used to be served by teenagers earning pocket money. Now by illegal aliens.
Positive American contributions by Northerners include mass-made autos by Michigander Henry Ford, the airplane by the Ohio's Wright Brothers(who may have tested their invention in North Carolina because the food is better there than in Ohio), and open-heart surgery, pioneered by Minnesota's C. Walton Lillehai. The largely Jewish film industry was largely a positive until the terrible 60s. The immigration wave after Lincoln's War gave us such giants as John Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Vince Lombardi and, yes, the Howard brothers.
Mr. Leaberry at @15:
The list of practical and useful American inventions is, of course, enormous. I will add a favorite of mine, air conditioning, invented by Willis Carrier of Angola, New York.
I'm glad you mentioned the Wright Brothers of Dayton in my home state of Ohio. Those interested in military aviation will want to visit the United States Air Force Museum in Dayton, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the former Wright Field, which houses by far the most extensive collection of military aircraft I have seen anywehre, including at the Smithsonian, the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, and Duxford in England.
I'm also glad you mentioned North Carolina, which wants to claim the Wright Brothers based on the fact that the first airplane flew at Kitty Hawk. The Wright Brothers selected Kitty Hawk for their experiments (which started with gliders) because it was secluded and offered regular winds. If North Carolina wants to boast of the real reason the Wright Brothers went there, its license plates would not read "First in Flight" but, as a fellow Ohioan has suggested, "We're Windy."
If I could add to Dr. Wilson's Negative Contribution List:
The Warren Court
The Interstate Highway System
"College" Football and Basketball
Cell Phones
Text Messaging
Twitter
Computerized "Music"
The Kennedy, Bush, Rockefeller and Adams "Royal" families
The Wall Street Journal
The Ivy League
The Transcendentalists
Consumerism
Economism (the late John Attarian's term)
Annheuser-Busch and Miller "Beer" Corporations
The urban political machine
Tax Withholding
The War to make the world "Safe for Democracy"
Playboy magazine
The ACLU, NAACP, SPLC, NCAA, ABA, NAM and almost all institutions more famous as acronyms rather than their spelled out names
Mr. Piatak @16
"I will add a favorite of mine, air conditioning, invented by Willis Carrier of Angola, New York."
One related to air conditioning is refrigeration. I do not know if we invented it, but cold fruit in the hot summer --plums, peaches, strawberries and cold milk etc.--- are real enjoyments of civilized life that I wish our ancestors could have enjoyed without the need for living very near a spring or possessing a very deep well.
Dr.Wilson, "Many of the prominent characteristics of our culture—venal politicians, callous and stupid bureaucrats were inherited from the Old World."
Time Magaines most influential folks for 2009
Edward Kennedy
Gordon Brown
Christine Lagarde
Thomas Dart
Avigdor Lieberman
Joaquín Guzmán
Nouri al-Maliki
Hillary Clinton
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
Boris Johnson
Norah al-Faiz
Elizabeth Warren
Paul Kagame
Nicolas Sarkozy
Angela Merkel
Wang Qishan
Xi Jinping
David McKiernan
Ashfaq Kayani
Barack Obama
Mr. Piatak, being happily married to a lady from Wadsworth, Ohio, I felt impelled to add two of Ohio's greatest sons- Orville and Wilbur Wright- to the list of positive American achievements. On another tack, I find it amusing that North Carolina has had FIRST IN FLIGHT license plates for three decades or so. Those enterprising Buckeyes chose Kill Devil Hills because the beach there was windy and relatively uninhabited. If North Carolina wanted license plates more accurate to historical importance the state ought to be honest and put a big tobacco plant on the plates. However, modern North Carolinians are supposed to be as ashamed of their historic agricultural endeavor as they are to be ashamed that their ancestors wore the gray against Lincoln's armies.
How about the Soap Opera and the Credit Card and Genetically Modified Organisms (i.e., food crop seeds)?
15, 16, 20. I was, of course, writing about cultural contributions, not mechanical inventions. Even so, I think you will find that nearly all scientific inventions were simultaneously developed by Europeans, though characteristically Americans claim they are first. The main cultural contribution of air conditioning has been to repopulate the South with non-Southerners at a greater rate than we are able to civilise them. From boyhood I have regretted that foolish promotion of my beloved homeland as "The First in Flight." You are erntirely right about this. The two bachelor bicycle mechanics from Dayton just used the North Carolina Outer Banks as a location. This is what happens when money becomes more important than truth and right.
One other point about positive contributions: the Confederate soldiers themselves. Too often, the leaders get too much of the limelight. The heart of American sacrifice, the truest of heroes, can be found on Confederate grave stones, often marked "Unknown."
My list:
The normalization of narcissism
The proscription of honest inquiry in regard to the status quo
Frozen food
non-food foods
"health foods" as a distinct category
The family as a summer camp and the parents as entertainment directors
The father depicted as a moron, fool or cruel, abusive despot.
Fatherhood reduced to the status of organic ATM machines (a Bankwork Orange)
Frosted tape
John Stewart
Bill Maher
double stick tape
Elvis
ad hominem attack as a winning debate strategy
Seven Elevens
Sean Hannity
24/7 access to goods and services
Burma shave and modern dentistry: see, modern contributions aren't all bad
23 the Confederate soldiers themselves. Too often, the leaders get too much of the limelight. The heart of American sacrifice, the truest of heroes, can be found on Confederate grave stones, often marked “Unknown.”
I was watching the history channel (usually a mistake that raises my already high blood pressure) a few nights ago. The program was "Life without People"; a program speculating on what would happen over time if people just completely vanished, willy nilly.
In North America they concentrated on certain icons of architecture in Chicago and Atlanta and how they would fair as time progresses. The Yankee vine, Kudzu got some bad press here!
After 5000 years all the great cities are completely gone, with no indication they ever existed. In North America only one structure of man endures and, in as far as careful analysis can judge, will continue to endure indefinitely beyond the 5000 year mark.
There's more: Remarkably, it endures, not just as a fragment, but whole and complete,
That structure?
With over 90% of its original appearance or more well preserved and easily recognizable, the images of OUR President Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E Lee can still be clearly seen, engraved in one of the hardest and most durable natural substances on earth: the pure granite of Stone Mountain, Ga.
Deo Vindici!
tom
Multiculturalism
diversity
political correctness(maybe these are of European origin)
Historical destruction and reconstruction
@24
At least Elvis was never ashamed to be Southern.
Dr Wilson @ 14
"#7. What’s wrong with blue jeans? They are excellent apparel for people who do real work. "
Damn straight. Aint a day that goes by where I dont where a pair to work.
Too often, the leaders get too much of the limelight.
My point about Stone Mountain: True, our leaders get the limelight, especially today, because the reality is that of Patton. I knew a man severely wounded in WWII, who served under Patton. I recall him saying with considerable bitterness in his voice, "Old blood and guts––––his guts and our blood!"
That says it all: the people make the sacrifice and the leaders gain the glory without shedding a drop of blood or a single tear. Observe our present DC administration and legislators, who are calling for sacrifice from us, while living with a degree of indulgence that would drive any European ruler of the past to envy.
Not so with President Davis and Lee and Jackson; they suffered with our people, they sacrificed and paid a high, high price, each in his own unique way. Davis lived for over a generation as a martyr to principle––one of the most noble of American lives.
Because of this I believe they are worthy leaders to represent and point to the thousands of Southerners who fought and sacrificed with them.
How fitting on this continent that after the demise of the Yankee cities and long after all the Yankee bankers have been consigned to the lower recesses of Hell–– this one icon, recalling the Southern cause remains.
It is my hope that some time soon Southerners can all congregate there to celebrate our independence. Impossible?
Nonsense.
Well said, if I may say so, Mr. Ridenour (#29). And, as you all well know I'm sure, the majority of our generals were all too often out in front, exposed to enemy fire just as their soldiers were. Hence the high mortality rate among their numbers and hence the willingness of our ancestors to follow them.
@Tom Piatak
In ABOLITION OF MAN, Lewis identifies the airplane as a technology presented as liberating but which, in fact, is used by men to enslave other men. He gives two others: the wireless radio, for which we can thank an Italian or a Serb (the same Serb that Edison ripped off) depending on your loyalties, and the contraceptive, for which we can thank an American Irish Catholic, John Rock, though he was promoted by a lapsed American Irish Catholic, Margaret Sanger, and funded by McCormicks (Chicago), the cause later picked up by Rockefellers (New York). For the eugenics inspiring the invention, the credit goes to country from whence we came: England.
David Allen White, who teaches (taught?) English at the Naval Academy used to say that when all the Golden Arches and Detroit automobiles were rusting in the sun, America would be remembered for two things: that we put a man on the moon and MOBY DICK. We certainly need to add the atom bomb and the contraceptive pill. The latter is responsible for the sorrows considered in the current Murchison thread. Many of the inventions noted favorably in this thread are technologies and thus, in one way or another, are about control. If we want to list American contributions that move mens' hearts and imaginations to better understand themselves and their relationship to the world, then I submit: Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor, and Willa Cather (Southerners).
Captain Check,
You are hitting on all cylinders this morning so I hope you will turn up the RPM's. It is good for the public see your racing side from time to time -- telling it like it is, as they say. Thanks and God bless
Robert @ 32. I second the motion!
My 2 cents:
Clean Air Act
translation: Arbeit macht Frei - rauchen Verboten
Captain Check, Professor White will be retiring from the Naval Academy this semester or the next. I am not certain which. If I cross his path at Mass at St. Athanasius, I'll make it a point to ask him.
@26 Bryan
Political correctness is a construct of the Maoist/Red Guards in China.