The USA is a global leader in the arts, research says we aren't proud of it
A recent study from Pew Research Center says only 2% of Americans view art and culture as a point of national pride.
I wanted to dive more into the question of why, out of the US respondents to the Pew Research study, only a small minority, 2%, said that they are proud of the art and culture of the United States.
You wanna know something that completely pisses me off, it’s when some idiotic, never-have-traveled, euro-idolizing, uncultured, and bad-read person tries to make the argument that the United States has no culture…
Okay maybe that is a little harsh. But if you are someone who agrees with this statement, I have to give you a sorry-not-sorry reminder that you are completely false, and in fact it’s quite the opposite. The US is the dominant culture across the globe, second only to the greater culture of the Americas as a whole (which I will save for another article).
Music has had the greatest impact on world culture to date. Most genres of popular music today are heavily influenced by, or just come straight from, the United States. Rap, Hip-Hop, Rock, House, Country, the list goes on. This is without even diving into American film or other forms of media that have profound influence on the global scale.
But the thing is that we know this. Americans know that we create some of the best art. But we aren’t proud of it. In fact, when looking at the survey as a whole, Americans aren’t really proud of anything related to their country. I myself seem to understand that people are only proud of things related to those who look like them or come from the same community as them. Joe Shmo in Utah could care less that Tyler, the Creator is playing at the Grammys or that a flurry of American artists are being represented at Art Basel. Or on the contrary, I probably myself am not paying much attention to which country artist is making headlines, as I am not particularly interested in that genre, and although I am from Texas, I don't have an affinity for country music.
Simply put, I believe we are divided. Now more than ever, our country and our people are divided. Trolls online would try to say that we are “too diverse” to be united, but countries like Brazil have recorded high feelings of national cohesion whilst having a very diverse population group. There's more to the story than just that. We need a new wave of art, one that is going to bring together the 99% of Americans and help tell our story. Until then, things are only going to get worse, but since we are already at the bottom, I'm not sure how much worse we can get.
