A song constantly played on the radios, and a music video abundantly featuring the American Flag and a Nuclear Family that seems to imply this is patriotic.
Seriously?
What the fuck happened to talent? I miss the days of Janis Joplin (and yes I know I’m too young to say that but c’mon, she’s MILES ahead of this lunatic I found on youtube).
On a side note: Who thought it was okay to use a voice modification that makes their voice shaky like that? That Framptons weird electro-voice thing, I can’t stand it (though the rest of Frampton kicks ass).
Both my brother and I have been to Chicago for field trips for our schools, and both times they had to tell us quite literally what colors we’re not allowed to wear and what hand symbols we can never make.
Unfortunately…the hippiest looking dudes in the classes all got the shit beat out of them regardless.
Hedonist.
Materialist.
Individualist.
Shallow sense of “democracy”.
American flag replaced the one and only God.
Nihilistic values.
Over-competitive lifestyle.
Obsessed with capitalism, stock market, and possession of “unrealistically feasible fiat currency”.
Insecure with over-dynamic society.
Congradulations, you just demonstrated you don’t know what you are talking about. Your inaccurate and hyperbolic generalizations are better suited for the confines of your imagination.
So, I’m not always America’s biggest fan, but that post really takes the biscuit.
Let’s go one at a time:
Hedonistic: A priori, what is wrong with seeking pleasure? What is inherently false about the assumption that there is good in what people enjoy?
Materialistic: I assume you mean obsessed with possession, rather than anything along the lines of ‘physicalist’ etc. Whilst there may be other concerns that are important in the world, what exactly is the problem with paying attention to ‘things’? We live in the material world; why oughtn’t we be concerned about our relationship with it?
Individualistic: This may mean excessively egoistic (which is what I suspect you mean) and excessively would be a criticism. Mentioning that people see themselves as separate is not evidently mentioning a flaw. Indeed, it is difficult to see how you could truly attack the taking of individual moral agents as just that: morally significant individuals.
Shallow sense of “democracy”: By which you presumably mean to claim that America is not very democratic, or is missing the point of democracy. You’re going to have to expand on this point before being annihilated, but for now I’ll just point out that you can’t just accuse a nation of having a shallow conception of something without any further explanation. That’s a shallow argument. In fact, it’s not even shallow, but barely skates the surface.
Nihilistic values: It’s difficult to see how this is compatible with the other values you list. Moreover, you’re going to have to provide some examples.
Over-competitive lifestyle: This gross generalisation requires substantiation and moreover, explanation of how an attitude to market places must spill into actual lifestyle.
Obsessed…currency".: The bit in quotation marks doesn’t make a word of sense. To use the technical term, it’s pure bollocks. As for the rest, I agree that US fetishism of free markets is misguided - if only economically. It fails to take into account the relationship between efficiency and welfare and the implications of market failure and the theory of the second best. Nevertheless, obsession with the stock market, given its far reaching impact seems justified.
Insecure with over-dynamic society: Say what? If you mean they can’t handle society changing, I think you’re going to need to provide evidence. Indeed, if you mean the opposite - that society changes too rapidly - you’re going to have to provide some evidence, even if it’s just a Durkheimian argument about anomie.
And I saved the God one for last. I struggle how you can manage to accuse a nation so agonisingly full of evangelical Christians of lack of faith in God. In fact, in the developed world, the US has some of the lowest rates of irreligion around.
While America does have a lot of people that conform to those values, those are values and characteristics of free will, not culture. I could argue that being an ABDL is materialistic (The usage of disposable products that fill our landfills higher and higher without necessity), nihilistic (The idea of forfeiting any responsibility for the sake of pleasure), hedonistic (a form of unnecessary pleasure), individualistic (a uniqueness that is not of the status quo and generally shunned by conformity) and insecure with an over-dynamic society (The idea of regressing before the comprehension of societal values of any kind with only the concern for individual values) but would that be a fair assessment of say…you? Could be. Might not be. Hell, the generalization doesn’t even encompass the difference between AB and DL or any subsidiary label like Sissy, LG, and so on, in the same manner your generalization doesn’t encompass Republicans, Democrats or their subset labels.
Personally as a Canadian I always believed that deep down if you push past the propaganda and the politics, the majority of Canadians and Americans share the same basic values and that the relationship that exists between Canada and the United States benefits both parties involved. These being the fundamentals I believe that there are always improvements that can be made to the existing system.
Ya know what’s even more American than dressing like a white-trash punker and partying all night long? Terrorizing an innocent girl because he’s with a guy you happen to have a crush on, and acting like it’s a perfectly normal thing to do. Even better, lets have an extremely famous pop star do it so we can spread a message to all young girls across America that it is totally okay to do this-
