Happy Valentine's Day!
Yesterday, I ruminated on wonderful things America has brought to the world, not accomplishments like the moon landing or combating nazism, though those are badges of pride too, but culture, things like democracy and music which other nations can participate in. It does a flag-waver good to stop and look at less admirable qualities of his country, too, so today I offer three institutions we hadn't exported.
Consumerism. We've always liked having stuff, and a combination of economic institutions and natural resources have given the Americans a big pile of it. When the national economy skyrocketed in the post-war era, our material bent struck with a vengeance. And, since it coincided with a massive exportation of American culture generally, way too many countries looked across the sea and thought, ?Hey, look at all the stuff they got! We oughta get a big pile of stuff, too.? Japan is the most obvious example, but states everywhere are concentrating more and more on wealth as the ultimate end ? including nervous authoritarians. Communism fell less to the ideals of democracy than to a desire for blue jeans (and computers, and strawberries out of season, and?).
There's nothing wrong with wanting to live comfortably, but often we take it too far. Wealth carries some hefty price tags: environmental damage, a weakening of important non-material values, and spiraling expectations. That last one is a killer; as a society gets richer, it grows to expect to continue getting richer, and tends to expect their increase to accelerate. If conditions don't lend themselves to accelerating wealth, resources succumb increasingly to the rapacity of short-term interests.
The lowest common denominator. I'm not sure if we've really exported this to the world; it seems inherent in the development of mass media, and if we hadn't spearheaded the entertainment industry, someone else would have, quite possibly with the same results. (Or worse. Ever watch Goebbels's propaganda? Creepy.) Still, we were there, and Hollywood is synonymous with mass media, and Hollywood set the pattern for fluff in entertainment, and each year seems to exceed itself in slickness at the expense of substance.
Adoration of youth. Our progressive attitude can be pretty spiffy; it powered our preeminent scientific and technological development. Sadly, it seems part of the same coin that Americans continually look to the new and the future, the young, and dismiss the past, the traditional, and the old. Happened fifty years ago? May as well never happened at all. I can't add anything to repeated accusations of marginalizing the elderly; I can only repeat them, though I am guilty myself.
Youthful looks and vigor are fine, nothing wrong with them. But it saddens even me, generally oblivious to Hollywood, to learn favorite actresses are compelled to lie about their ages to compete for roles. Saddening, too, that advertisements for products aimed at the senior bracket use actors that look like 45s with their hair frosted.