A cultural identity is a sort of myth by definition. There are very few “pure” cultures left, but they’re routinely upheld by advocates of the social equivalent of monocultures. America, since the Melting Pot days, has been lugging around the Anglo American image like a security blanket.
Not unusual. In the New World Anglo cultures, cultural acknowledgment, let alone shifts, have been slow, often cosmetic, and sometimes quite hypocritical. In the New World Hispanic nations, the “Spanish” look belies a lot of cultural mixes. Russia is a hybrid nation of various ethnicities, with the actual Russians just one of the group.
The UK, France, Belgium, Germany and Italy, have complex cultural identities, including lots of different groups. Not a monoculture among them, but you’d swear the “typical” social ID for each country was an image of a single cultural identity. In Europe, that hasn’t really been the case since the pre Roman times.
Then there’s the
assimilation idea, ably explained by Barbara Sowell in her DJ piece yesterday. This has been a major issue, and communal whining point, for a while now, as well as an ideological punching bag.
So why is America, arguably the greatest representative of cultural diversity on Earth, looking for a single American identity? Why does it think that it’s going to find a single image? For that matter, where does it think it
can find a single image?
If you tried to market America as a product, and used a single image to do it, you'd probably get sued for misrepresentation, if not actually institutionalized for your mental health.
Those are real questions, not rhetorical. Part of the problem is that the old images of America were so limited, and conceptually limiting. Multiculturalism was a term designed to cover co extant cultures in a society. The term “
multi cultural society” implies a composite entity, but also implies a functional society where the various cultures coexist.
The US has basically created a problem for itself with the insistence on a single image. The Anglo image may look “normal”, but let’s face it, it’s pretty damn dishonest. The sheer number of non Anglo contributors to American history would fill whole states quite easily.
Assimilation, as a word, has a few unfortunate echoes of the old days in which native populations were to be “assimilated” in terms of erasing their cultures. It didn’t work, anywhere on Earth, and was, understandably, hated by those who were supposed to be “assimilated” whether they liked it or not.
The pity in terms of the concept as it is
meant is that things like speaking English are good social defences for people from non Anglo cultures. Some are horribly disadvantaged, and exploited, because they don’t know their rights.
Social orientation, as a matter of fact, isn’t “assimilation”, it really is orientation, and very useful in terms of just knowing how to live in a society.
But call that
assimilation, and it sounds like "identity destroyed". The word alone creates resistance to the idea, and understandably so, given its past meanings and some fairy hideous results.
It’s very difficult to get people to become “productive members of society” if that society is regularly rejecting them and their cultures on a generational basis. The Anglo insularity is no help whatever in creating real working societies.
Nor is it realistic to assume people will come to America, drop their cultural identity, and pick up some sort of sitcom character as their new role. Coming from another culture isn’t a crime, nor is it something of which they should be ashamed.
Does America want people, or characterless socio-cultural doormats? Should these people deny their heritage, their families, and their own genes, to become some sort of demographic decal?
Then there’s the race thing, the obsolete obscenity incarnate, the excuse for trash everywhere to be hostile to other groups. If anyone can show me a single instance of racism achieving anything vaguely acceptable or useful to any civilized idea, or America, I’ll be interested to hear about it.
Bluntly, grow up, America. Have a look at the kind of people who are racists, and you’ve seen all you need to know. Losers to a man, ignoramuses from birth, non-contributors on a colossal scale.
The theory of a monoculture leads to one likely result:
“Everything’s fine, we’ve just stamped out cultural identities.”
Whoopee. It happens to be cultural inputs that drive most arts, literature, music, and often media, because the arts are reflected by the media. Does America want a sterilized culture? Imagine the American arts without jazz, Latino music, the big European inputs, etc. You’d wind up with a dishcloth pretending to be a culture.
A case history of a parallel culture:
Every once in a while, Australia does a micro version of American issues. Migration was a big deal from the early days. A brief history:
The Chinese arrived during the gold rush. The Yellow Peril was in full swing, violence included.
Then the world ended, and the Irish arrived. It was going to lead to ruin, according to the Anglo media.
Later, pre war, came the Greeks and Italians. They were ignored, insulted, and did all the crap work.
Post war, and between then and now, the population increased by 400%. The world arrived, and the White Australia policy sniveled off to a well deserved oblivion. Refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, Tibet, and the Middle East (all of it) arrived, bringing with them their cultures and traditions.
During the period from about 1870-1970, “assimilation” was the policy for Australian aboriginals. Hence the Stolen Generation, brought up as whites, hence the apology nearly 120 years later. It was a colossal failure, an atrocity created by a mindset which was far more ignorant than any Stone Age tribe would know how to be.
The current status: The Prime Minister is Irish. The Environment Minister is multi generational Chinese. Representation of other cultures isn’t particularly proportional, but it does exist, and there’s not much real animosity. The Aboriginals are building a new culture on top of the old one. The Greeks and Italians are now pillars of the society, and largely responsible for rebuilding the inner cities.
Australia has an image, but it’s a form of self mockery, as well as a cultural statement. The stereotype is a joke, for and against ourselves.
America can’t be Davy Crockett any more. It can’t be Will Rogers, or John Wayne, in the future. The single social image, for humanity, is a lie by definition. America needs to look in the mirror, and finally take some notice of what it sees. There will be an America, and there will be people and images which represent the society of the time.
You might want to ask the big green chick with the torch in New York about what’s an American. She’s seen a lot of them come and go.
