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> America has no past for the present to reflect off. Well, what do you mean by "past"? European settlement in America has a very long history, which of cours

> America has no past for the present to reflect off. Well, what do you mean by "past"? European settlement in America has a very long history, which of course extends back to the 17th century. It has a rich intellectual tradition, in which respects it surpasses many European countries -- and many of the dominant strains of thought today have their roots in America. It has an exceptionally rich literary and artistic tradition, with numerous styles which are characteristically American. In scientific achievement, few countries can compete. It even has its own aesthetic, just as Japan does. You could say that Japan is regressing from modernity into older ways of being, but this is far from true. Japan before Meiji was strictly aristocratic and feudal. The average Japanese family were tenant farmers with zero political power, economic power, and near-zero potential for advancement in society. If anything, Japan is apparently regressing into an American-style older way of being. A pre-New-Deal manner, with big winners, bigger and more numerous losers, and increased social strife. Also, the atomization the article picks up on isn't a Ye Olde Japanese thing; it's very American.

silvestrov 8mo ago
> a very long history [...] back to the 17th century I think you proved the point (about no history) without wanting to. How large percentage of history lessions in Europe do you think is spent on the years after the 17th century?
- A_D_E_P_T 8mo ago
  A lot! The majority, surely. The period from the 18th through the close of the 20th centuries was a time of tremendous upheaval, where nations were forged. German students, for instance, don't spend all of their time on the HRE; they tend to focus more on the nation-forming events of the 18th and 19th centuries, and then of course the 20th. Of course, students also learn ancient and ancient-adjacent history -- the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Charlemagne, etc. -- but this is general and isn't unique to any national tradition, but common to the entire continent.
- piva00 8mo ago
  A lot, the period from National Romanticism onward is the most relevant for any form of study of a "nation". Before that you could only think in terms of loosely connected realms/kingdoms, before more in terms of tribes and some city-states. Those aren't that useful to study to understand the present, from the 17th century is where most of the current culture branched out from. The historical connection to the land from the people/tribes living in territories of modern Europe from before the Middle Ages is more akin to studying Native Americans in the USA, they were the people inhabiting the land, they had their traditions, and some of those traditions were used to forge the national identity of present cultures but there's a lot of this national identity that was myth-making by National Romantics to generate a sense of unity needed for creating the nation and nation-states.
chneu 8mo ago
There's a joke in the race world that White Americans have no culture so they have to steal other people's culture. This is relatively true and largely because the US has little history compared to other nations. That's part of why so many facets of American society and history are nonsense myths, such as the American West myth. So much of US culture and history is made up ego stuff.
- Gud 8mo ago
  It’s not true at all? The “white Americans” is a group formed by multiple diverse groups. The history of “white america” didn’t start when they landed on the shores of America.
  - queenkjuul 8mo ago
    The history of white America starts when white Americans decided they were people and non-white people weren't and thus "their history" needed to be separated as "white history"
    - reodicrapio 8mo ago
      [flagged]
- reodicrapio 8mo ago
  Such a naive take lol
- _DeadFred_ 8mo ago
  Sounds like you are the one who has bought into myths created to fit a modern narrative. Isn't the UKs historical 'shared identity' way more of a myth than the American west? I mean my grandmother from the midwest still had stories that would have fit any western novel, and her parents spoke German and were the 'poor midwest farm settler' family straight out of the west. My other grandmother has kachina dolls in her living room that her family was gifted for helping out a local village. My town has opium dens dug out next to the railroad from during it's construction. I have visited a ton of ghost towns.

silvestrov 8mo ago

> a very long history [...] back to the 17th century I think you proved the point (about no history) without wanting to. How large percentage of history lessions in Europe do you think is spent on the years after the 17th century?

A_D_E_P_T 8mo ago
A lot! The majority, surely. The period from the 18th through the close of the 20th centuries was a time of tremendous upheaval, where nations were forged. German students, for instance, don't spend all of their time on the HRE; they tend to focus more on the nation-forming events of the 18th and 19th centuries, and then of course the 20th. Of course, students also learn ancient and ancient-adjacent history -- the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Charlemagne, etc. -- but this is general and isn't unique to any national tradition, but common to the entire continent.
piva00 8mo ago
A lot, the period from National Romanticism onward is the most relevant for any form of study of a "nation". Before that you could only think in terms of loosely connected realms/kingdoms, before more in terms of tribes and some city-states. Those aren't that useful to study to understand the present, from the 17th century is where most of the current culture branched out from. The historical connection to the land from the people/tribes living in territories of modern Europe from before the Middle Ages is more akin to studying Native Americans in the USA, they were the people inhabiting the land, they had their traditions, and some of those traditions were used to forge the national identity of present cultures but there's a lot of this national identity that was myth-making by National Romantics to generate a sense of unity needed for creating the nation and nation-states.

chneu 8mo ago

There's a joke in the race world that White Americans have no culture so they have to steal other people's culture. This is relatively true and largely because the US has little history compared to other nations. That's part of why so many facets of American society and history are nonsense myths, such as the American West myth. So much of US culture and history is made up ego stuff.

Gud 8mo ago
It’s not true at all? The “white Americans” is a group formed by multiple diverse groups. The history of “white america” didn’t start when they landed on the shores of America.
- queenkjuul 8mo ago
  The history of white America starts when white Americans decided they were people and non-white people weren't and thus "their history" needed to be separated as "white history"
  - reodicrapio 8mo ago
    [flagged]
reodicrapio 8mo ago
Such a naive take lol
_DeadFred_ 8mo ago
Sounds like you are the one who has bought into myths created to fit a modern narrative. Isn't the UKs historical 'shared identity' way more of a myth than the American west? I mean my grandmother from the midwest still had stories that would have fit any western novel, and her parents spoke German and were the 'poor midwest farm settler' family straight out of the west. My other grandmother has kachina dolls in her living room that her family was gifted for helping out a local village. My town has opium dens dug out next to the railroad from during it's construction. I have visited a ton of ghost towns.