America is killing everything

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The meme of America is killing everything. Entire cultures are abandoning their time-cherished, ancient ways in favor of the quick-fix, hip hop American culture.

The environment is dying. The planet is warming. Entire cultures are dying. Individuals have always come and go in the past, but not until modern times did entire cultures, perspectives, ways of life die out. It's utterly depressing. Because of America and everything it stands for, and the fact everywhere is emulating us, the entire planet is being eaten away into a McDonalds and hip hop strip mall monoculture, oblivious of history and the future alike yet also hostile towards novelty.

What do we do? Simply accept it?

It's sort of narcissistic for you to say that "modernity" is "America", even if you don't like modernity.

It seems like you have a lot of complaints about the modern world, some legitimate and some nonsensical, and you are rolling them up into a big vague blob.

I agree. I wish I lived in a time when things were simpler. I wish I had to hunt-and-gather for my own food. I mean, that would be pretty cool. I mean, I could hunt-and-gather now but I would just look like a weirdo.

American world domination policy goes like this.

1. It selects a defenseless country that it wants to invade.
2. It invents silly, untrue reasons why the country needs to be invaded.
3. When the leader of that country voices his objection he's made out to be an insane war monger.
4. They send in their war machine to smash the country.

All done in the name of their peace loving god of course.

Disgusting, bully boy, cowards.

Yes, its not like other countrieshave ever been invaded by someone else in a very violent manner for self-serving, dogmatic or political agendas

Granted, I'm against our interventionist foreign policy, but I don't think America is "killing everything".

And I don't think that in the billions of years of the earth's existence there is significant evidence that the earth is in a warming period.

But I do hate hip hop.

so its okay becauase others do it?

worst argument in this case, really, it is.

Bullsh*t! You want to go back to the Middle Ages.

Do you know why other cultures are perishing (assuming they are). It is because they cannot compete with modern industrial culture. Wake up! We no longer dwell in caves.

ruveyn

Much is lost to cultural imperialism. But cultural imperialism wasn't invented recently or in America. It dates back a couple to a few thousand years. It started as soon as human populations reached the density needed for cultures to expand and either stomp out or absorb smaller tribal cultures. Remnants of those cultures survived in mutated form and that still happens today. This can be seen either as a tragedy or as the march of progress. It's seen both ways even in this thread. But however you see it, it's neither a recent invention nor an American one.

Take hope in the historical observation that this is not a static process. The absorbed culture doesn't go away completely nor does the dominating culture prevail forever. The dominating culture also can leave its' best features behind when its' time is over. We have positive legacies in law, language and architecture from when Rome did this. The positives of American culture may be hard to see right now when you look at Chicken nuggets and Lil' Wayne, but time has a way of sifting out the best things and holding onto them and mutating them as needed in ways that are only visible long afterwards.

Last edited by Janissy on 15 May 2012, 10:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

Don't totally blame America. It is "American corporatism" that is the culprit behind your paranoia. Once that is understood one can fight back by buying local and learning to do more for oneself. Instead of a Coke, buy a generic cola. Instead of a Big Mac go to a nearby family restaurant.

mwah it probably isn't at bad as it seams and you could always join a protest if you like just pick the one that for you seams most fit

I don't think older culture is necessarily superior. I feel like there's both a positive and negative aspect of modernity. The positive aspects are more acceptance of diversity, openness to novelty, and value of freedom. The negative aspects are the decline of close-knit community and growth of selfish individualism to an unhealthy level. Maybe my perspective is warped because I struggle so much with depression, but I just get the sense that people are less empathetic and more self-absorbed than ever before. I'm not blaming one political ideology or another either as this obliviousness seems to affect people of all political persuasions.

ftfy

Cultures change, none but the most primitive stay the same. We're more interconnected than ever now and it's better to evolve together rather than further apart. The melting pot is an important aspect of the American identity and I think the world would better served to adopt this philosophy as opposed to non-assimilative ones like multiculturalism. All that can come from is tension and eventually conflict.

And you are more qualified to make that judgement than the >95% of climate scientists who say that the Earth is warming and humans are probably the cause, because?


Have you ever been heard of Canada? We've got multiculturalism working quite nicely, thank you. There are tensions and prejudices, of course, (although primarily between anglophones and francophones) but all in all things work pretty well here. Much better than how things have gone in Europe (as far as I can tell they messed up their policies decades ago and are living with the consequences of having created de facto segregation) and without as much of the boiling-pot thing of the USA.

Oh, and Hip Hop must die. It's bad enough in the US, why does it have to contaminate other cultures as well?!?!

http://news.yahoo.com/earth-major-overd ... 10545.html