American Culture

Throughout the week in Sociology, we have learned about culture in other regions.

We saw a series of memorable videos about problems that can happen when people go to other nations with their own specific cultures. My favorite was the one where a British man is eating with a group of Chinese people. In England it is a custom to finish the entire plate of your food; in China, if you finish your food that means you aren't full. This is made worse because the food is an eel, something that the British man finds repulsive.

In America, we are a competitive group of people. We like building things- as kids, we build with LEGOs and Lincoln Logs, and as adults we build with stocks and factories. Capitalism has become a part of our way of being, making us aggressive and always on our toes. Some might view this way of life as greedy, and one could defend it by saying that we just want to put food on the table.

Today in class we watched a video with Oprah where she visited Denmark, a socialist nation. It was almost like an advertisement for the country, which seemed like a great place to visit or live in. But I personally would feel like I wouldn't even have a reason to work with a 50% income tax. And I imagine a lot of Americans would agree with me, as American culture is all about independence, competition, and of course, materialism (the tiny apartment in Denmark was the definition of not being materialistic and still being happy.)

Clearly there is no way to quantify happiness. We will never be able to truly know if they are happier than us. But what I know is that I'm proud of America, and that if I were born and raised and accustomed to Denmark's ways of living I'd be just as proud to live there too. It's all relative- a good example of this is the kid's room in Denmark. It was tiny little room, and I imagine a kid from America would cry and refuse to live in that thing. But "Denmarkians" don't know any better (Danish people, I know) and they have nowhere else to live besides that teeny tiny room.