US History: Knowledge and Myth

Balbus · Mar 25, 2010

Jackflash asked in another thread

Why do so many people in Europe know so much about U.S. history and we know so little about European history?
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The reason why a lot of people around the world know about US history (and present day politics) is due to power and influence, what happens their can have repercussions, so people want to know something about the place.

It’s not being America centric its being power centric.

And what you learn from history is that what country has power and influence changes over time. So in the 16th Century the people to watch might have been the Spanish and the Ottoman Turks, but later it was France during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods and then Britain and her empire and now it’s the US (could it be China next?).

The US’s modern superpower status arouse out of the Second World War and its not surprising that a well educated European probably has a good grasp of US history from that period plus a smattering of the US foundation story and with the rest being filled in by Hollywood.

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Balbus · Mar 25, 2010

The problem with many Americans in my opinion is the same problem many British people had at the height of the British Empire.

The people of Victorian Britain had fallen for or been taught a history that gave credence to the imperial and economic policies of their leaders and the unequal system they lived in.

It seems to me that many modern Americans have fallen for or been taught a history that gives credence to the imperial and economic policies of their leaders and the unequal system they live in.

Of course they’re different myths but myths all the same.

Crudely put in the Britain of the time there was the class structure and a belief in ‘ones betters’ people of wealth or social standing deserved that position because of their better ‘breading’. This was a means of crowd control.

In the US there has been the myth of the ‘American Dream’ that anyone from any strata of society if they worked hard could ‘make it’ and that people of wealth deserve that position because of their hard work. This is just another form of crowd control.

Victorian historical education was about the great patriotic deeds of British (mainly English) people of the right classes, Kings, Queens, lords, the gentry. Boadicea, Edward I, Queen Elisabeth I, Sir Francis Drake, Lord Wellington, the destruction of the Spanish Armada the victory of Waterloo and so on.

In the US there is an emphasis on ‘go getters’ the humble Pilgrims that conquered a new land, the lowly figures that took on the might of the British Empire and won their independence, Abe Lincoln going from log cabin to the Whitehouse, and the many rags to riches stories (some true others like those of Horatio Alger made up) and so on.

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TheMadcapSyd · Mar 25, 2010

Balbus rants about America, more at 11.

Also for the record when we learned about those pilgrims and Jonestown, we also learned about the terrible things they did to indians. We learned about Custer's last stand but we also learned about the massacre by federal troops at wounded knee. We learned how the Chinese basically built the transconintental railroad then we told them to go fuck themselves. We learned about massacres by US troops during Vietnam and constant American interference in latin America in the 20th century. We learned the irony of how immigrants were basically let in the by the boatload when our ancestors came and every generation has it's paranoid nativists, how the immigration act of 1924 was basically racial in design. And yes, believe it or not Balbus, my 10th grade American history teacher actually during WW1 taught about American loans pre entry to the war and how America had a serious to the point it would be a disaster if the allies lost financial stake in making sure the allies won WW1 despite being a "neutral" country.

There's no national US textbook, what students learn in history class is often a good deal up to the specific teacher that year. It seems European views on what Americans are taught for history are just as warped as American history is in some places.

Also, the American dream is very much alive, not everything is physically tangible in terms of dollars vs the hope and inspiration is gives people. Despite the fact social mobility is generally regarded as higher in Europe too, in Britain in particular there's much more of a class society I've noticed. Because of how deep and long it's run in the aristocratic families that have been wealthy since god knows when, it seems culturally new rich people can never be accepted into the old blue blood, and there's this rich culture too. There's a clear cultural division of what is acceptable for the rich while here baseball, mcdonalds, and the local mall is just as much for poor people as it is millionaires.

Again though I say socially, not in actual economic mobility potential.

But yea, our history classes often do teach a lot about up and comers who came from nothing. It's just still happening, look at Mr. I spent time on food stamps Obama. It's part of the collective American experience, we are a nation of optimists and dreamers. For better or worse it makes Americans happy, whether or not the American dream actually succeeds or not it gives Americans hope and a collective history, not only in spirit but in physical past, especially if you're a white American you basically have a 50/50 chance of being able to go to this singularity, Ellis island, and know your dirt poor ancestors risked everything to come here.

Also for the record Ellis island is awesome.

Also a great quote 50 years ago from East of Eden(which is also the best novel ever written, and I'm saying that as someone who generally finds Steinbeck to be meh) that I think explains Americans the best.

He said softly, "we're a violent people, Cal. Does it seem strange to you that I include myself? maybe it's true that we are all descended from the restless, the nervous, the criminals, the arguers and brawlers, but also the brave and independent and generous. If our ancestors had not been that, they would have stayed in their home plots in the other world and starved over the squeezed-out soil"

Lee went on, "That's why I include myself. We all have that heritage, no matter what old land our fathers left. All colors and blends of Americans have somewhat the same tendencies. It's a breed--selected out by accident. And so we're overbrave and overfearful--we're kind and cruel as children. We're overfriendly and at the same time frightened of strangers. We boast and are impressed. We're oversentimental and realistic. We are mundane and materialistic--and do you know of any other nation that acts for ideals? We eat too much. We have no taste, no sense of proportion. We throw our energy about like waste. In the old lands they say of us that we go from barbarism to decadence without an intervening culture. Can it be that our critics have not they key or the language of our culture? That's what we are, Cal--all of us. You aren't very different."
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A breed selected out by accident.

Besides, maybe the British should try being more like us, or at least move to a sunnier place. Everything I hear from both the general world and people I know who have been there say the British in Britain are miserable, walk with their head facing down, mumbling, ect. Americans love to fight, the British love to complain, the French love cheese, ect.

I always liked this article simply because it sums up the fact Americans are not arrogantly loud, we just have no problems being overheard even walking down the street. Though the 9 lines from East of Eden are still better then this entire article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/books/review/Dyer-t.html?scp=11&sq=American%20tourists&st=cse

The first thing I ever heard about Americans was that they all carried guns. Then, when I came across people who’d had direct contact with this ferocious-sounding tribe, I learned that they were actually rather friendly. At university, friends who had traveled in the United States came back with more detailed stories, not just of the friendliness of Americans but also of their hospitality (which, in our quaint English way, was translated into something close to gullibility). When I finally got to America myself, I found that not only were the natives friendly and hospitable, they were also incredibly polite. No one tells you this about Americans, but once you notice it, it becomes one of their defining characteristics, especially when they’re abroad.

This is very strange, or at least it says something strange about the way that perception routinely conforms to the preconceptions it would appear to contradict. The archetypal American abroad is perceived as loud and crass even though actually existing American tourists are distinguished by the way they address bus drivers and bartenders as “sir” and are effusive in their thanks when any small service is rendered. We look on with some confusion at these encounters because, on the one hand, the Americans seem a bit country-bumpkinish, and, on the other, good manners are a form of sophistication.

Granted, these visiting Americans often seem to have loud voices, but on closer examination, it’s a little subtler than that. Americans have no fear of being overheard. Civic life in Britain is predicated on the idea that everyone just about conceals his loathing of everyone else. To open your mouth is to risk offending someone. So we mutter and mumble as if surrounded by informers or, more exactly, as if they are living in our heads. In America the right to free speech is exercised freely and cordially. The basic assumption is that nothing you say will offend anyone else because, deep down, everyone is agreed on the premise that America is better than anyplace else. No such belief animates British life. On the contrary. A couple of years ago a survey indicated that British Muslims were the most fed-up of any in Europe: a sign, paradoxically, of profound assimilation.

If the typical American interaction involves an ostensibly contradictory mixture of the formal (politeness), the casual and the cordial, what happens when one moves beyond the transactional? Like many Europeans, I always feel good about myself in America; I feel appreciated, liked. It took a while to realize that this had nothing to do with me. It was about the people who made me feel this way: it was about charm. Yes, this is the bright secret of life in the United States: Americans are not just friendly and polite — they are also charming. And the most charming thing of all is that it rarely looks like charm. The French put a rather charmless emphasis on charm, are consciously or unconsciously persuaded that it is either part of a display of sophistication or — and it may amount to the same thing — a tool in the service of seduction.

You can see all of this in operation on flights back across the Atlantic from America to Euroland. At first we are under the spell of America. Instead of plunking ourselves down next to someone without a word, we say “Hi.” Maybe even indulge in a little conversation, though this American readiness to chat is counterbalanced by the fear that once we’ve got into a conversation we might not be able to extricate ourselves from it. By the time we’re mid-ocean, a kind of preparatory freeze has set in. As the flight stacks up in the inevitable holding pattern over Heathrow, we begin to revert to our muttering and moaning national selves. But, for a week or so after landing, a form of what might be called Ameristalgia makes us conscious of a rudeness in British life — a coarsening in the texture of daily life — that had hitherto seemed quite normal.

For example. I pay a considerable sum of money to play indoors at Islington Tennis Centre. Eighty percent of the time, the next people to play indicate that your time is up by unzipping their racket covers and strolling on court, without saying a word, without a smile, without acknowledging your existence except as an impediment. In America that would be not just unacceptable but inconceivable.

What is the relevance of this anecdotal trivia to a serious debate about the status of America in the world?

Most of my American friends were depressed and gloomy about the Bush years. Several said that if Bush were re-elected in 2004, they would leave the country. He was and they didn’t. The bottom line is that given the choice, Americans love it rather than leave it. Day to day, American life remained as pleasant as could be expected, even in the midst of considerable economic hardship. There was even a bonding, anti-Bush feeling similar to the kind of consensual opposition that we experienced under Margaret Thatcher. A visiting American artist like Patti Smith found that while the usual torrent of name-*dropping — Rimbaud, Mapplethorpe, Kerouac et al. — got a smattering of appreciative applause, a single gibe about Bush brought the house down.

At the same time, either sterling went up or the dollar went down (I don’t really understand this stuff), and as a consequence, Americans felt poor when they visited our rainy little island. So, for a brief period, we felt richer — planeloads of us went to Mannahatta and bought up everything in sight — and ideologically and ethically superior. Man, that felt good. We had a less blinkered attitude to Israel, didn’t drive big gas-guzzling S.U.V.’s, and if we were chilly of an evening we put on a sweater rather than turning up the heating (or, more accurately, turning off the A.C.). Sure, Blair went along with invading Iraq, but wasn’t that partly because he hoped to restrain the crusading fundamentalism of Bush? Now the dollar is back up — or down, or whichever it is — Europe is no longer expensive, and with the election of Barack Obama, the brief cushion of political superiority has been permanently deflated.

The Obama election was a real kick in the teeth, because although we Britons still seethe with class hatred, we pride ourselves on our highly evolved attitude to the question of race that has consistently undermined the American dream. The slight problem is that racial intermingling in Britain is most conspicuous in the ethnically diverse makeup of the groups of yobs — Asian, black and white — who exercise their antisocial behavioral skills without any kind of discrimination as to whom they happen to be terrorizing. In this regard, as in so many others, we seem to be leading from the bottom up.

Across the board, the grounds for all our feelings of superiority have been steadily whittled away. It turns out that the qualities that make us indubitably British — that is, the ones that we don’t share with or have not imported from America — are no longer conducive to Greatness. They actually add up to a kind of ostrich stoicism that, though it can be traced back to our finest hour (the blitz, the Battle of Britain), manifests itself in a peculiar compromise: a highly stylized willingness to muddle on, to put up with poor quality and high prices (restaurants, trains), to proffer (and accept) apologies not as a prelude to but as a substitute for improvement. We may not enjoy the way things are, but we endure them in a way that seems either quaint or quasi-Soviet to American visitors.

A tiny example. There’s a fashionable gastro pub near where I live. You scrum at the bar, desperate to get the attention of the barman. After a while, he will raise his eyebrows and glare at you. Unschooled in our rough ways, a visitor from America might assume he is being threatened, but actually the glare means that your order can now be taken — as long as you’re quick about it. When a friend from California had managed to order, he was handed the credit card terminal, which showed the amount and the option to add something for service. Americans are predisposed to tip, but my friend was slightly taken aback because, far from being in receipt of anything that might be described as service, it felt as if he had been fighting for a place aboard the last lifeboat on the Titanic. “Welcome to England,” I said.
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*edit*
In another forum how to fix the American education system is being debated and this got me thinking about it again and I'm trying to think of what is the problem. Looking back on schools in my own town in terms of social sciences it went
K-5th grade you have one teacher for general studies
6th - Social studies, focusing on the early civilizations, Chinese, Indus valley, Mesopotamia, ect and we did a big thing on Greek/Roman mythology
7th - World geography
8th - American history
9th - World history(meh, world is decieving it was mainly European/Middle east history, we ended with American/European colonialism that's when Asia/Africa came up)
10th- American history
11th- Electives, I took World Wars, economics and sociology, taking a social studies elective though was not needed to graduate.
12th- Contemporary issues, disusing current events, their historical causes, and also how the political system works. It was a full year course and we did absolutely nothing in it because our teacher didn't give a shit, it was awesome.

NotDeadYet · Mar 25, 2010

Madcap, I loved the long quote!

TheMadcapSyd · Mar 25, 2010

NotDeadYet said:

Madcap, I loved the long quote!
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Wait the East of Eden quote or the New York Times article?

NotDeadYet · Mar 25, 2010

The first thing I ever heard about Americans...
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Well-written and interesting.

TheMadcapSyd · Mar 25, 2010

I love that article!

I also love how he starts it off with humor/reality. I mean it's a stereotype but at the same time a wildly held one that we all carry guns every single place we go.

I love the indoor tennis analogy too, he's right, America is far too polite to ever kick someone off a court even when they're eating away your time, doing something like that is basically as big a social faux paus as running through the streets naked.

Balbus · Mar 26, 2010

Mad

Balbus rants about America, more at 11.
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And don’t miss Mad’s counter rant at 12

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History

There's no national US textbook, what students learn in history class is often a good deal up to the specific teacher that year. It seems European views on what Americans are taught for history are just as warped as American history is in some places.
Click to expand...

Actually I’m basing what many Americans seem to think about history on what has been said here by many of them and what I’ve read on a number of other comment and blog sites written by Americans.
Yes I know that some Americans have (or claim to have) a more rounded outlook, but it seems to me a hell of a lot don’t.
I wasn’t claiming some universal truth only some empirically based observations on what seem to be the views of many people in the US.

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The American Dream

Also, the American dream is very much alive, not everything is physically tangible in terms of dollars vs the hope and inspiration is gives people… It's part of the collective American experience, we are a nation of optimists and dreamers. For better or worse it makes Americans happy, whether or not the American dream actually succeeds or not it gives Americans hope and a collective history,
Click to expand...

Which is what I’ve said – religion used to be the opium of the masses now in the US you also have the American Dream myth to give them ‘hope’ so they don’t work to change the system.

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Class

Despite the fact social mobility is generally regarded as higher in Europe too, in Britain in particular there's much more of a class society I've noticed. Because of how deep and long it's run in the aristocratic families that have been wealthy since god knows when
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Every once and awhile some naive or blinkered UK politician will claim Britain is a classless society and they’re instantly drowned out by the laughs of derision from the rest of society.

The thing is we know and accept that we have classes, but there is the myth in the US that theirs is a classless society however many disagree with that view.

The Myth of America as a Classless Society by Howard Zinn
http://www.worldfreeinternet.net/news/nws207.htm

Social class in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class_in_the_United_States

America’s Not-so-classless society
http://uspolitics.about.com/b/2008/04/10/americas-not-so-classless-society.htm

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As to the article by Geoff Dyer, oh come on, man finds a country isn’t as bad as he though it might be, is such a startling and incredible story that’s it should be up there with dog bites man.

I was brought up with all the prejudices that the British (and many Americans) level at the French, but when I went and lived in France I found that as a people they were funny, friendly and incredibly hospitable. I loved living there and would do again.

(Yes and they do love cheese and so do I and so would most people if they lived there they have some incredible cheeses (and the UK now imports tons of French cheese).

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Balbus · Mar 26, 2010

A breed selected out by accident.
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Sorry Mad if you think that your East of Eden quote best explains Americans I think you need to stretch you critical faculties.

maybe it's true that we are all descended from the restless, the nervous, the criminals, the arguers and brawlers, but also the brave and independent and generous. If our ancestors had not been that, they would have stayed in their home plots in the other world and starved over the squeezed-out soil
Click to expand...

First you instantly wonder about the large section of the US population that are descended from those that were physically removed from their world and transported against their will to the new one?

Next it’s clear the traits being described are not exclusive to Americans, or are you claiming that Americans and only Americans can be violent or restless, nervous, have shown signs of criminal tendencies can be argumentative or can get into brawls, and that only those in the US can be brave or independent or generous?

Think about it and it is clearly and patently absurd.

What is been described is people not Americans.

So what it seems to be is be expressing is some kind of weird Social Darwinist outlook, that Americans have been selectively breed to be different than other human beings.

But it then goes on again to describe traits for this ‘new breed’ that are basically universal to the human race in all its contradictory ways.

All groups of people can be brave and fearful at times, they can show signs of friendliness and xenophobia, they can be boastful and impressionistic and both sentimental and realistic, as well as mundane and materialistic.

Or are you claiming that all of these traits have only ever been expressed by Americans?

NotDeadYet · Mar 26, 2010

TheMadcapSyd said:

it's a stereotype but at the same time a wildly held one that we all carry guns every single place we go.
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He also offered a perspective on British working-class culture that was new to me. Not surprising to me that our stereotype of polite English society is flawed, but the reality is a good bit worse than I expected.

Balbus said:

religion used to be the opium of the masses now in the US you also have the American Dream myth to give them ‘hope’ so they don’t work to change the system.
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What's your working definition of the American Dream? I've heard at least three versions so far this week.

mamaKCita · Mar 26, 2010

i speak only on one thing mentioned here and i speak only from personal experience, so don't eat me. there IS a frightening amount of ignorance leading to american rah rah-ism. it's like a high school pep rally whenever i talk to my family, heartlanders to the core. i don't condemn their love of home and pride of accomplishment, but i certainly don't bother discussing american in any less than perfectly glowing tones with them. still, i also love my home, faults and all.

thedope · Mar 26, 2010

The problem with history is that it is always told in the present.

desperad0 · Mar 26, 2010

The problem with history is that it keeps changing.

thedope · Mar 26, 2010

desperad0 said:

The problem with history is that it keeps changing.
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For the very reason it is concocted to serve the present.

Balbus · Mar 26, 2010

Notdeadyet

For clarity, so that I can give a better informed reply, could you expand a bit on what you said?

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He also offered a perspective on British working-class culture that was new to me
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What perspective was that?

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I've heard at least three versions so far this week
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What were they?

thedope · Mar 26, 2010

In this instance, hoping to serve lively conversation.

Balbus · Mar 26, 2010

The problem with history is that it is always told in the present.
The problem with history is that it keeps changing.
For the very reason it is concocted to serve the present.
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It depends on what ‘history’ you’re talking about there are events that have happened, which are part of the historical record and then there are interpretations of what those events mean and what learnt from them.

But that is what we do every day of our lives things happen and we interpret what we think they mean and that guides how we react.

But someone else might see the same event and interpret it differently and so react in a completely different way.

thedope · Mar 26, 2010

Balbus said:

It depends on what ‘history’ you’re talking about there are events that have happened, which are part of the historical record and then there are interpretations of what those events mean and what learnt from them.

But that is what we do every day of our lives things happen and we interpret what we think they mean and that guides how we react.

But someone else might see the same event and interpret it differently and so react in a completely different way.
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There is a geologic history, but as far as the history of the activities of men, their motives and alliances, as someone mentioned here before, the narrative is controlled by power not events.

thedope · Mar 26, 2010

Balbus said:

The US’s modern superpower status arouse out of the Second World War and its not surprising that a well educated European probably has a good grasp of US history from that period plus a smattering of the US foundation story and with the rest being filled in by Hollywood.
Click to expand...

US is not the dominant power right now. The European proprietary model is. The true history of it's dominant emergence is animal domestication, metallurgy, and disease.

TheMadcapSyd · Mar 26, 2010

I'll be back with a proper response tomorrow, but in the meantime, country rivalry!

https://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=ah1EbIOdAZE

"Celebrate our independence with the most American thing you can do, telling the British to shove it up their ass"

"Stop calling it tea and start calling it freedom bag water!"

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US History: Knowledge and Myth

Balbus Senior Member

Balbus Senior Member

TheMadcapSyd Titanic's captain, yo!

NotDeadYet Not even close.

TheMadcapSyd Titanic's captain, yo!

NotDeadYet Not even close.

TheMadcapSyd Titanic's captain, yo!

Balbus Senior Member

Balbus Senior Member

NotDeadYet Not even close.

mamaKCita fucking stupid.

thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

desperad0 Member

thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

Balbus Senior Member

thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

Balbus Senior Member

thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

TheMadcapSyd Titanic's captain, yo!

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US History: Knowledge and Myth

Balbus Senior Member

Balbus Senior Member

TheMadcapSyd Titanic's captain, yo!

NotDeadYet Not even close.

TheMadcapSyd Titanic's captain, yo!

NotDeadYet Not even close.

TheMadcapSyd Titanic's captain, yo!

Balbus Senior Member

Balbus Senior Member

NotDeadYet Not even close.

mamaKCita fucking stupid.

thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

desperad0 Member

thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

Balbus Senior Member

thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

Balbus Senior Member

thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

TheMadcapSyd Titanic's captain, yo!

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