In this first rendition of DDW’s Complete Generalisations About Other Cultures series, let us sharpen our stabbing pencils for everyone’s favourite scapegoat, the United States of America. Firstly America, on behalf of the rest of the world, let me thank you for the mutually beneficial arrangement in which your own indefatigable self-assurance provides not only your reason for being, but infinite entertainment for the rest of us on a daily basis.
Any traveller would have met one of those open-minded, well-read hippies who are interested in other cultures and want to ruin every perception of Yanks held dear. This kind of American ungraciously refuses to make use of the McDonald’s restaurants and Starbucks provided for them throughout every continent, preferring instead to explore new places and learn local customs (and in some cases father Australian whingers with a big mouth). Apart from these stubborn exceptions, one cannot help but wonder how the nation we know today evolved.
When a group of Separatist Puritans* landed in Cape Cod in 1620, they sought to win over the native pagans with the bible or, at the very least, with guns, booze and smallpox infested blankets. Enlightenment, however, seemed to be on the side of the locals when, after half of the settlers died in their first New World winter, they met their first native tribesman who strolled calmly into their camp and - in perfect English – asked them for a cold beer.
Any traveller would have met one of those open-minded, well-read hippies who are interested in other cultures and want to ruin every perception of Yanks held dear. This kind of American ungraciously refuses to make use of the McDonald’s restaurants and Starbucks provided for them throughout every continent, preferring instead to explore new places and learn local customs (and in some cases father Australian whingers with a big mouth). Apart from these stubborn exceptions, one cannot help but wonder how the nation we know today evolved.
When a group of Separatist Puritans* landed in Cape Cod in 1620, they sought to win over the native pagans with the bible or, at the very least, with guns, booze and smallpox infested blankets. Enlightenment, however, seemed to be on the side of the locals when, after half of the settlers died in their first New World winter, they met their first native tribesman who strolled calmly into their camp and - in perfect English – asked them for a cold beer.
Thirteen colonies sprung up across the east coast like Subway franchises and, within 150 years, a population of 2.5 million decided the English had to move their holiday homes to Australia. Being American was to be self-sufficient, self-governed and fervently religious, free from the Popish traditions of old with a God-given task to settle the North American continent. Territory expanded, a Bill of Rights was written and wealth grew along with freedom...to own as many slaves as you liked.
Do you think they'll have Freedom Fries in France?
Wonderful writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman echo the self-reliance of Americans that survived a bloody Civil War and capture the frontier-expanding spirit that defines the USA even today. This evangelising mission spread from the Great Plains to every corner of the earth – with the bible in one hand and an ICBM in the other. Now, as an Empire in decline, America is in the unique position to stop taking itself so seriously and allow citizens to develop a sense of humour like their British cousins before them (or the makers of Arrested Development).
Apart from more acronym-based detective shows, what does the future hold for our quarter-pounder cousins? Every American I have ever known has been an informed humanist who is aware of their place in the world, yet all we see is the herd chewing the ignorant cud of opinion disguised as news, becoming exponentially insular and fearful. The words of Ben Franklin, the great Revolutionary torchbearer of the Age of Reason, seem only a memory today: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
* That is, the Protestants too extreme to be considered puritanical
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