On Thanksgiving Day, Spiked is asking: what should we give thanks to Americans for? For me, there are five big things:
1. Popular music. Be it country, jazz or blues and their descendants - they have a common root - Americans have done a great job of preserving and developing a musical heritage that combines popularity, technical excellence and faithfulness to tradition. We English have not been so diligent. One thing that makes me a little ashamed of my country is that Kate Rusby is not regarded as a national treasure.
2. Television. In his In Praise of Commercial Culture, published in 1998, Tyler Cowen cites the dubious quality of American television as a counter-example to his thesis that market forces are good for culture. Subsequent events have proved him too pessimistic. The list of great recent US TV is almost endless: The Simpsons, CSI, 24, House, West Wing, The Sopranos, The X-Files, and the mighty Californication. Barring Corrie and Doctor Who - the legacy of an older era - Britain has little to compare.
There's a reason for this. Americans who make television programmes love TV. Brits who do so are middle class ponces who prefer the theatre, and look down on TV as something for chavs to slob out in front of. Which brings me to...
3. The democratic spirit. In the early 90s, my employers held a conference in Prague. Getting through immigration control at the airport was very slow; having let in the Nazis and the Communists all too quickly, the Czechs were a little tardy in becoming fussy. Anyhoo, someone walked to the front of the queue, waved a diplomatic passport and went through. A normally mild-mannered American friend went ballistic at this, thinking this an outrageous privilege whilst we Europeans just shrugged. This taught me that Americans are different, in that they, more than us, have the democratic spirit. They have a hostility to privilege, and a belief that government must serve its people rather than vice versa. Allied to this is a respect for rights and the rule of law, an optimism that people can improve things. As Tocqueville wrote:
Democracy does not provide people with the most skillful of governments, but it does that which the most skillful governments often cannot do; it spreads throughout the body social a restless activity, superabundant force, and energy never found elsewhere.
4. Intellectual activity. There are few questions of political philosophy where one can usefully ignore the influence of Rawls, Nozick or Rorty (to name but a few), and economics is largely extensions or criticisms of Samuelson and Arrow. When we think of economic and philosophical questions, we do so largely as Americans.
5. Mass production. Daniel Ben-Ami has called this right. Cars, TV, radio, computers and the internet were all invented outside the US. What Americans have done, more than others, is develop the techniques that make these cheap enough for the people.
Natch, there's stuff on the debit side of the balance sheet too - all those mullet-headed power balladeers of the 1980s for one - but I'll overlook them today.
economics is largely extensions or criticisms of Samuelson and Arrow.
Is this a joke?
The list of great recent US TV is almost endless: ...CSI...
Yep, this is definitely a joke.
...24...
Oh, come on now.
...The X-Files, and the mighty Californication.
Right, that's far enough.
They have a hostility to privilege, and a belief that government must serve its people rather than vice versa. Allied to this is a respect for rights and the rule of law
Sarcasm is ugly if overused, you know.
Posted by: ajay | November 22, 2007 at 02:48 PM
I was sorry to see Californication end. It took an episode or two to warm to but then I loved it! I hope it comes back for another season.
Posted by: windyridge | November 23, 2007 at 01:45 AM
I think the best part of this post is the picture of Gillian Anderson ;)
Posted by: scumble | November 23, 2007 at 09:56 AM
6. The right to bear arms.
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Posted by: DoeMike | December 19, 2007 at 11:22 PM