Culture in the U.S.

[Heartofice]

I think it’s really that everyone has a set of identities which tend to stack on top of one another and anyone person will have a number of ways of identifying.

You might for instance see yourself as English, but also as a European, but also as a person of Asian heritage but also as gay or straight .. or as a goth! 
 

So one person’s ‘culture’ is complex and made up of an number different other ‘cultures’. And just because you have a complex set of identities it doesn’t mean that you don’t have a number of things that help you identify as any one of those things. 
 

So the conversation has come up many times on this board ‘what is English culture’ , almost to say that there is simply no such thing as English culture because it isn’t obvious what is meant by that, or that even suggesting it exists is in some way exclusive or dangerous.

While it is fluid and means slightly different things to different people there still seems to be things that people identify as ‘English culture’ , like it might be going to the pub, having a curry, beating people up at football matches or watching the Queen on Christmas Day, it might be having a level of cynicism or certain sense of humour about things. 
 

But the mistake that people make is to suggest that just because there is an idea of such a culture, that suddenly that means everyone from that country is identical or all like or do the same things. Because identities and sub cultures are so varied and multi layered that means everyone is different.

But I’m English and if I got to America I can tell you that I am very different in a number of ways from Americans, and it can take a while to adjust to it. The way of life, cultural values, the way people speak and think is actually different.. even though you’d think it would be pretty similar. 
 

But much like the red vs blue state thing in the US there is a london vs everywhere else in the UK thing which is pretty similar. 

[gruff one]

Thank you all for the recent posts. Some times people can't see the forest, because of the trees. Some see a mono culture as the forest of the US. Some see birch, oak, maple, red pine, white pine, willow, etc. as the forest.