The Sadness of America

[Bekah]

Are you suggesting that a trip to WalMart and the associated shopping 
center can be a "cultural experience?"

Yes,  we can go ahead and eliminate the distinctions, but we run the 
risk of "there is no culture" or "all is culture."  It's all equal.

I suppose it could be in  "the way you view it,"   but that has some 
serious elitist implications, too.

I stand partially corrected in that I did make a rather broad blanket 
statement about "authentic culture"  but imo,  a whole lot (not all - 
and that's what I implied)  of American TV,  movies,  clothes and so 
on  is tripe.

Bekah


At 2:12 PM -0400 10/9/05, Kevin Birmingham wrote:
>The US doesn't have any kind of authentic culture to preserve  or
>export (unless you count TV and rock and roll and movies and plastic
>things and blue jeans).    Culture is Disneyland and travel is about
>gift shops.   Only San Francisco,  Boston and New York have their own
>urban ambiance.  There are some historical sites and the rest is
>commercialized hype.
>
>
>I really can't believe that anyone who enjoys Pynchon -- a writer 
>constantly trying to break down the bogus distinction between "high" 
>and "low" culture -- would actually say this. So music, film, TV and 
>clothing don't count as "authentic culture"? Tell us, then, what 
>does? Is culture something that takes place inside stone buildings? 
>Something sanctioned by the French academy? You'd find that there 
>are several places in the US with "urban ambiance" if, perhaps, you 
>stopped looking around for "historical sites."
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