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I'm really surprised by one of the answers on the poll I just posted, where almost everyone who responded so far has chosen
"US citizens borrow from other cultures as much or more than other cultures borrow from the US"
Myself and 1 other person were the only ones so far who did not pick this as the answer. (Although there are only 9 responses so far, which is a bit premature... could be a statistical anomaly). But anyway, I'm really surprised that so many people think this is true. Any time I have gone outside the US, it has seemed that other countries are completely obsessed with American culture, while when I'm back home, nobody is hardly even aware of other cultures, let alone caring enough to imitate them. The whole world watches American hollywood movies, listens to American music, and follows American politics. Nobody in America gives a shit about the movies, music, or politics of other countries, at least that has been my experience.
4 or 5 years ago, I was living with a guy from Finland, who was working on his PhD in History. (I believe now, he's a Professor at University of Helsinki; I may be misremembering which university though.) He was really into death metal, especially Finnish death metal. But one of the interesting side effects of him being into metal in general (and I know this doesn't count as "death", but) was that during a lecture series on Cultural Imperialism he gave to his students, one day he brought in one of his favorite songs to play for them as a demo of what Cultural Imperialism really means. It's by Rammstein, and it's called "We're All Living In Amerika". It's one of the coolest music videos ever, so I share it with you here... I wonder if this will change your mind, those of you who picked the above answer...
Anyway, I'm not claiming I'm necessarily *right* on this one, since this whole poll, moreso than the others, I feel like is stuff that I know a lot less about. (And also, there are no right answers to whether it's awesome or scary, since that is subjective... and my personal thought on that is actually that there are some things that are awesome and others that are scary, so I just had to go with one so I picked "awesome" but I don't think that's the whole story.)
Regarding the question about science... I know I shouldn't give it away because the poll results have barely started to come in, but yes, we are by far #1. I don't think there is any contest. In my field, we are so far beyond #2, that you'd have to add several other countries best universities together to even come close to the US's consistent cutting edge output. It's just no contest at all. I'm not as sure about it for other fields, but I'm pretty damn sure we're #1 overall.
Also, I wish I had remembered to include a question about Health Care, and about Art. In Health Care, the World Health Organization ranks the US at #37, while many American conservative politicians claim that the US is actually #1. I think the truth is, it depends what your metric is. If you only care about rich people (or those who work traditional white colar salaried 9-5 jobs) getting health care, then there are some measures by which we are #1 or close to it. If you care more about having everyone covered or having it paid for in a fairly equitable way, then we're near the bottom of the barrel for developed countries (and the WHO weights those more heavily than quality of care in their ranking... they also take into account things like life expectancy, which have more to do with the bad eating habits of Americans than with our healthcare system). I guess Art is somewhat covered by culture, but then again I didn't provide that many options for the culture question... I admit, there should have been more. Personally, I think Burning Man by itself puts us a step ahead on art, but then other types of art we're probably behind on... and we don't have much in the way of a national endowment for the arts. Also, most of US art tends to be more mass marketed, which is bad.
"US citizens borrow from other cultures as much or more than other cultures borrow from the US"
Myself and 1 other person were the only ones so far who did not pick this as the answer. (Although there are only 9 responses so far, which is a bit premature... could be a statistical anomaly). But anyway, I'm really surprised that so many people think this is true. Any time I have gone outside the US, it has seemed that other countries are completely obsessed with American culture, while when I'm back home, nobody is hardly even aware of other cultures, let alone caring enough to imitate them. The whole world watches American hollywood movies, listens to American music, and follows American politics. Nobody in America gives a shit about the movies, music, or politics of other countries, at least that has been my experience.
4 or 5 years ago, I was living with a guy from Finland, who was working on his PhD in History. (I believe now, he's a Professor at University of Helsinki; I may be misremembering which university though.) He was really into death metal, especially Finnish death metal. But one of the interesting side effects of him being into metal in general (and I know this doesn't count as "death", but) was that during a lecture series on Cultural Imperialism he gave to his students, one day he brought in one of his favorite songs to play for them as a demo of what Cultural Imperialism really means. It's by Rammstein, and it's called "We're All Living In Amerika". It's one of the coolest music videos ever, so I share it with you here... I wonder if this will change your mind, those of you who picked the above answer...
Anyway, I'm not claiming I'm necessarily *right* on this one, since this whole poll, moreso than the others, I feel like is stuff that I know a lot less about. (And also, there are no right answers to whether it's awesome or scary, since that is subjective... and my personal thought on that is actually that there are some things that are awesome and others that are scary, so I just had to go with one so I picked "awesome" but I don't think that's the whole story.)
Regarding the question about science... I know I shouldn't give it away because the poll results have barely started to come in, but yes, we are by far #1. I don't think there is any contest. In my field, we are so far beyond #2, that you'd have to add several other countries best universities together to even come close to the US's consistent cutting edge output. It's just no contest at all. I'm not as sure about it for other fields, but I'm pretty damn sure we're #1 overall.
Also, I wish I had remembered to include a question about Health Care, and about Art. In Health Care, the World Health Organization ranks the US at #37, while many American conservative politicians claim that the US is actually #1. I think the truth is, it depends what your metric is. If you only care about rich people (or those who work traditional white colar salaried 9-5 jobs) getting health care, then there are some measures by which we are #1 or close to it. If you care more about having everyone covered or having it paid for in a fairly equitable way, then we're near the bottom of the barrel for developed countries (and the WHO weights those more heavily than quality of care in their ranking... they also take into account things like life expectancy, which have more to do with the bad eating habits of Americans than with our healthcare system). I guess Art is somewhat covered by culture, but then again I didn't provide that many options for the culture question... I admit, there should have been more. Personally, I think Burning Man by itself puts us a step ahead on art, but then other types of art we're probably behind on... and we don't have much in the way of a national endowment for the arts. Also, most of US art tends to be more mass marketed, which is bad.
