Culture and me

So yesterday I am writing about culture as expressed in the free market economy and is that the true standard of measurement. And as I wrote that piece it struck me that in fact I am pretty damm parochial, narrow minded, small town boob. Not through choice, in the sense that I am against exposure to world culture, I listen to world music, I love to dip into foreign films when I have a chance, I used to read mystery novels by authors around the world. Tip, mystery novels are great ways to capture the ins and outs of other cultures through their stories.

But in the final analysis, I am an American. And despite my efforts and the efforts of anyone who has even the least conciousness of what it means to be an American I am suffocated by the truely small minded parochial quality of our culture. Yeah we steal or purchase the best from around the world, but this so limits our ability to understand what the rest of the world understands in the way that the world does not indeed revolve only around the United States. That there are other opinions and ways of looking at current events and the make up of world dynamics that don't have anything to do with what Americans want or percieve the world to be.

It reminds me of the fact that although Americans see conflicts between the Muslim world and the State of Israel to be the hightlight of conflict, in fact the bloody fierce contest between Hindus and Muslims rages on and has taken the world close to Nuclear war as well. Or that there are lots of people who are not impressed with our debates over Intelligent Design versus Evolution and probably wonder what kind of backwater boobs we really are.

It is detrimental to one's conciousness to be a member of a group that is a "world power" because it distorts your worldview despite your best wishes. This is part of the peculiar mental distortion of the current regime here that believe the only reality is the one they create. I suppose the British felt this way when the sun never set on that empire.

Americans concerns are not necessarily the worlds concerns, but when living inundated and immersed into the cultural, information machine that we call the media, popular opinion, and general social outlook even the best of us, come close to drowning.

ta ta for now.