Will's Kids -- Bailes

[LOT64 at aol.com]

In a message dated 96-05-21 09:35:48 EDT, you write:

>It has been suggested by an economist, Robert Heilbroner, that Americans
>belong
>to an economy rather than a culture.  The American Heritage Dictionary
>defines
>culture as Òthe totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts,
>beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought
>characteristic of a community or population.Ó  Through these, a culture
gives
>direction and meaning to the members of its population.  

If the USA does not have a culture what is the rest of the world copying,
adapting, craving and despising?  Sure there's tons of crap but what about
the culture that brought us the unique genius of Louis Armstrong, Charlie
Parker, John Coltrane, Orson Welles, Preston Sturges, Joseph Von Sternberg,
Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Pynchon, Gaddis, Melville, etc,etc...They
are uniquely American.  You may like them or hate them but there is a
definite American Culture.  It lacks the reverence for tradition and the
maturity of European culture but it is alive, vital, experimental, brave and
brash.  There is a particular type of genius that flowers in the American
compost and would not exist anywhere else.  Of course, these artists are
usually despised. Every attempt is made to co-opt them or destroy them. But
you can't have everything.

There is always a commerical aspect to culture.  In our country this is often
too dominant but there is certainly a culture with values, ideals, myths,
thought, direction and meaning.  You may not always like it, but it is there.

I do agree with you that commerce is placed above humane concerns in our
country.  Isn't it the same everywhere? (substitute ideology or politics or
religion for commerce depending where you go)  The crassness of American
society makes the culture that emerges from it even more incredible.  The pop
references in modern lit are inescapable in modern life.  To paraphrase Mao,
the artist is like a fish that swims in the sea of the popular culture. This
is not to say one must accept it,celebrate it, or love it but, I feel, a
vital role of the artist is tobring into relief the things which are so
accepted that we stop seeing them. To defamiliarize the familiar. And they
are often very amusing.

Ron Churgin