Talk:Culture of the United States

Military

Another thing this is missing a mention of the military, its hard to believe that an government organization as big as the American military (one of the biggest in the world in fact, easily the largest navy, infact larger than #2-#18 put together) has no effect on its culture. British military sure has an effect on its culture, especially its navy in the Colonial period. Even the Canadian military (all 5 guys) has an effect on their culture, with the peacekeepers and what not. Also a note, if you find a change I add to be OR, then delete it or it, do not revert to other OR and certainly do not delete s unless you actually get sources, the burden of proof lies on the defensive side. I realize some of this comes off somewhat negative, I don't mean it to be, at least not unrealistically so (every culture has its faults), but I also don't think its right to say what a great place America is without anything backing that up (which is whats happening when you say how great and better off you are because your diverse and equal and always have been when you still aren't 100%). It sounds like Einstein before he actually got there, when he only knew what the propaganda told him.

this article...

...is just full of shit. actually i wanted to get to know sth about "american values". i was redirected here. but this article tells me nothing about american values. and does not live up to my expectations to an article about any countrys culture. this is all there is to say about american culture??? are you kidding me? greetings from germany

Merger with the Society of the United States

A while ago, Society of the United States was merged here. I am restoring that article, per Talk:Society_of_the_United_States#Restoring_article (which most certainly does not suggest this merger was accepted by the majority in any case), but I am not removing anything from this one. Expansion is good - just like deleting (merging and redirecting without proper discussion!) is bad. Also, I have no time to see what was added, but if anybody thinks this article has too much on the society, well, please note that the society of the US article was restored, and excessive content can be moved there (or deleted, if it is redundant). I'll also fix all the redirects to point back to it in a sec. PS. And some content should certainly be removed from here; for example social class is a concept related to society, not culture. I'd remove it, but the section is entitled "Social class and work", which merges to mostly unrelated content (and I guess work culture of the USA, if the section coverrs it, should stay here). Ugh, what a mess... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 21:49, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Accumulating too much detail?

It seems to me that the article is going way to far into analysis when discussing culture. IMO, it is okay to show that "Americans liked toast in the 1950s" without going into the affect on the wheat farmers, exports, etc.

Yes, Muslims were very unpopular after 9/11. But going into every detail as to how this affected them seems disproportionate to the article. May be okay to fork. "This had negative ramifications for the Muslim community" for example. But going on and on about the alleged impact on the legal system (which I haven't noticed, nor anyone else accepted a handful of accused) seems inordinate.

If this is going to become "another collection of minority grievances" instead of "culture", I think it will have lost its impact as "Culture" and should be renamed "minority grievances against the US" or something like that. It runs the risk of no longer reflecting "culture." It will then proceed into the realm of charges and countercharges, hardly the stuff of "current or historical culture." Student7 (talk) 13:29, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

An article on the culture of the United States could give a very comprehensive overview of the subject, touching on all the major aspects and omitting nothing of importance, in rather fewer words than I've used here.PiCo (talk) 14:04, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Why does this article talk about random crap like views on capital punishment and not more about arts, architecture, literature, music, etc??????

Why does this article talk about random crap like views on capital punishment and not more about arts, architecture, literature, music, etc?????? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.181.237.199 (talk) 06:44, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a work in progress - Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. That said - be bold - jump in and try to fix the problems if you like. For more info on how to help see Wikipedia:WikiProject United States/Help.......... Moxy (talk) 06:51, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

The Grand Prix...?

This is a TERRIBLE lead picture for this article, it plays right into an extremely offensive stereotype that doesn't apply to a huge segment of Americans. Then nearly ALL of the pictures are of sports, even shooting? American culture should be represented by something like a Jackson Pollock, John Singer Sargent, or even Norman Rockwell painting, Miles Davis or Dizzy Gillespie, Edgard Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Ernest Hemmingway, Edith Wharton, Emily Dickenson, Thomas Keller or Alice Waters, or a shot of the Met, Gugenheim, Smithsonian, or Library of Congress. I'm not saying they all have to be NPR-approved, but it's wrong to imply that all we care about is sports, flags, and fast food. The food section is particularly ridiculous, it's nothing but McDonald's and Denny's, when in reality New York and Northern California are considered two of the world's finest destinations for restaurants. In fact the only picture on there I think deserves the honor is the one of Mark Twain. I don'r know if it was some proud redneck, or a European beating the dead horse of "Americans are fat, stupid, and uncultured" (I suspect the latter), but we're a country with SOME redeeming qualities, and this should be reflected in the most visible part of the article, the pictures. 24.91.244.221 (talk) 07:24, 27 November 2011 (UTC)