It is difficult at best to try and describe American culture; it is not homogeneous, having many elements and layers of complexity. It represents that set of values, traits, behaviors and ways of living that have accumulated in this country since its inception, up through the present.
However, it is possible to divide American culture into two basic sets of cultural values, norms, etc. that have evolved in America over the last 200+ years. The first is “Traditional American Culture” and the second “Liberal/Progressive American Culture.”
Additionally, since much of this country is comprised of immigrants, there are two separate and very different cultural values that have had considerable influence on American culture throughout its history, and the impact of these two different yet related values is the deciding factor in determining how healthy our American culture is. The first overriding value that helped solidify much of American culture through most of its history is the value of Assimilation. The second overriding value, and one that is the opposite of Assimilation, has been thrust upon our culture in the last few decades at great expense is Multiculturalism.
Traditional American culture owes much of its success from generation to generation to the value of assimilation. And, correspondingly, much of the cultural breakdown we have witnessed recently is in part attributable to the liberal/progressive value of Multiculturalism.
Traditional American Culture
This country was founded and built around very basic and specific values, ideals, and behaviors. First and foremost is this country’s cultural connection to Judeo-Christian values. Early American culture has its roots in biblical principles. We have derived not only our God given rights as written in the United States Constitution from biblical principles, but that unique set of values and behaviors that largely determine how we act, interact and live with one another.
Biblical principles lay out the basic rules that we have historically followed within our culture. They define how we interact within our families, our businesses, our communities, our politics and so on. It is an all inclusive set of principles that largely determine the quality of not only each individual life but the overall happiness, prosperity and general well being of entire communities and the nation.
Traditional values could be found in our school systems as each generation attempted to pass on not only intellectual knowledge but behavioral and cultural knowledge as well. From early in our history, when actual scripture was used to help impart particular lessons or values, to current educational policy that has stripped all biblical references out of the educational process.
The process of maintaining this basic set of rules, values or ideals that gets handed down from generation to generation is critical to the long term continuity of any culture or nation. This country was founded on strong traditional principles that in the early years helped it navigate through the difficulties that any new culture or society must confront and became the common threads that held towns, city’s and states together as one nation. It was the common culture that held this country together as it grew from a handful of colonies along the Northeastern coastline to a 50 state Republic of states that spread from sea to shining sea and beyond.
With each generation these core cultural principles were handed down by stories, through the education system, television, books and music. We are a product of the culture that we see and hear around us each day, for better or worse. And our culture is influenced by those ideas, actions and deeds that are exchanged between its citizens. Our culture evolves sometimes by nature and at times by force of will, but either way this evolutionary process is not an accident and therefore should be taken seriously. The forces of good and evil that add to or challenge the basic principles of traditional culture should be something that we do not necessarily leave to chance wherever possible.
If the basic foundations of traditional American culture are to be maintained, it will take a conscious effort, diligently applied at every level or layer of influence. To the extent this isn’t happening, other forces are exerting influence over each generation and those elements are helping to shape a new version of American culture, a liberal/progressive American culture.
Liberal/Progressive American Culture
When and where the liberal/progressive elements began to exert enough influence to drastically direct American culture is open to debate. But the fact it has occurred is not. Liberal culture also has a basic set of values, traits or beliefs that define our behavior and relationships from family to friends, and outward to community and state. These cultural elements are not derived from biblical principles, and are more centered on the individual and their own right or permission to experience and express the full range of human behavior with little or no regard to culture, community or state. Morality is relative, there is no right or wrong and if it feels good, do it.
Liberal culture has been evolving in America for decades but its explosion into mainstream America can be traced back to the sixties. This is the generation that rejected the generations that came before them, rejected their parents long held cultural values, and declared that they had the right answers, new answers and would therefore no longer comply with previous traditional cultural norms. Somehow, everything that had come before them, everything that their parents believed in, fought for and died for, was deeply flawed and incorrect. This ideology of self centered egoism burst onto the scene on college campuses across the country, became “pop-culture” and began indoctrinating a new generation of Americans into an ideology of liberalism that stood in direct opposition to our history and traditional American culture. This previously fringe “counter-culture” has evolved and become the mainstream culture of today. Our public education system, the media and entertainment industry can be credited with its startling success. In one generation this nation has been transformed from one of a traditional faith based culture to a liberal/progressive anything goes culture.
Multiculturalism vs. Assimilation
The invention of the idea of Multiculturalism, born out of the pathology of liberalism, has been introduced into the framework of American culture in the last 20 years or so. The idea is that America is a nation of many different cultures, not just one American culture. As a result of recognizing all of the many cultures that America supposedly is, our true historical American culture, the one that held this country together through world wars and violent expansion of its borders, firmly rooted in the word of God, is slowly being eliminated. Through the liberal/progressive lie of American Multiculturalism, our true and historic traditional American Culture is being erased.
It may be possible for the cultures embraced by Multiculturalism to exist within a framework of a traditional culture, but that doesn’t seem to be the intent of this liberal/progressive construct. The continued and pervasive focus on the many cultures seems to come at the expense of the one culture, an ideal that is the exact opposite of what the real history of America is. Multiculturalism allows for immigrants to come from around the world and impose the culture from their homeland onto their new world and surrounding people and environment. They are allowed to gain all of the benefits of being in America without having to embrace the historic culture of America. They are no longer being asked to assimilate, and instead are encouraged to promote the culture of their homeland. We now “celebrate diversity” rather than celebrate what makes us all American.
America became one nation under God with the help of two major influences. First, it was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and those became the guiding forces of its people and culture. Second, the one way ticket into America, no matter where a new immigrant was from, was through assimilation. People flocked to America from around the world to embrace not only America the land, but American culture and traditions. They became Americans. Not Asian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Muslim-Americans as is happening now. They threw off their old culture and embraced their new one.
Assimilation into traditional American culture created one nation, one people. That created strength, bonds, unity. It is human nature to be attracted to sameness, just as we choose our friends primarily based on those things we hold in common. It is not bigotry, racism, hatred, fear-mongering, phobia, or any of the multitudes of accusations from the left that are hurled when someone from traditional American culture speaks up for and defends their culture in opposition of any other culture that is attempting to impose itself onto American culture. The intended outcome and desire of Multiculturalism is to destroy traditional American culture and replace it with a mixed-bag of cultures from around the world and call it “American culture.” To create as many sub-groups within America and pit them against each other for the sake of maintaining power over them. This is the modern political left in action to devastating consequence.
Assimilation created one place for people of all walks of life to come together and be truly equal with freedom and opportunity based on nothing more than mere presence. There was no ethnic requirement, no social requirement, no preconceived notion of who can or cannot pursue the American dream. Something never before achieved in human existence. The greatness of this country is a direct reflection of the degree of assimilation that occurred during the majority of the history of this country.
Multiculturalism has created the exact opposite, and it is unfortunately by design. Multiculturalism divides people into separate groups or segments. Walls appear where there were once bridges. Our only common value now is the one of tolerance as preached by the liberal/progressives. This is not a very strong value or ideal to bond a nation together with. We are told we must be tolerant of each others differences rather than come together by the mutual embrace of that which we hold in common. We share the same space but live in very different worlds, worlds of different customs, values, ideals and language, all held together through tolerance.
We are falsely told these differences are what make us a great nation. This is a lie. Our differences will eventually destroy us, as history has shown as past multicultural nations have attempted to tolerate each other within the borders of a single shared nation. We are a world of separate nations for a reason. Within the safety of each nations borders there is a common culture that provides the bonds of unity that allow for strength and longevity. Absent this, destruction follows.
America has never been a nation whose culture is an amalgamation of different cultures from around the world. No, America has its own unique culture, a culture that is being attacked every day by the forces of the liberal/progressive agenda that seek to destroy our traditional, faith based culture, and put in its place a Godless culture driven by the full range of imperfections of the human condition for the sake of power and control.
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