Conversation

Do you even have a national grand narrative until other country elites get into a moral panic about it corrupting their youth?
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Elite Americans looked to Sweden or whatever, But cultural true north for ~50y, 1960-2010, was American culture. The only mass culture that was self-sustaining in a critical nuclear reaction sense. Everything else was directly or indirectly drafting off it.
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I don’t think Americans consciously found meaning in supplying the worlds reserve cultural currency in addition to economic, but unconsciously they did. And now that it’s just another culture (albeit a big-budget one), I think it’s affecting the psyche.
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Ie I don’t think Americans like being just another culture. Meaning crisis within US = when you’re used to cultural leadership, global pluralism feels like decline Meaning crisis outside US = there is no obvious leader culture, we may have to have to pick, or roll our own
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I think I’m only just beginning to appreciate how many key inspirational narratives of the last 50 years were primarily American, from rock and roll and space to Silicon Valley. Even when staffed by key foreigners (Beatles, Werner von Braun, Alan Turing…).
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They *look* universal — anyone can learn to play rock and roll or learn rocketry or programming. But the culture of the prime narrative was American. The collapse of America as cultural reserve currency is I think not broadly recognized yet. Where it is, the significance isn’t
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Yet another layer of divergentism. No trunk grand narrative attracting convergence. When the top 100 or so countries start rolling their own or following other leaders randomly, you’ll get high divergence. I mean, I can barely even navigate India culturally anymore.
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I suspect America being a preferential attachment cultural node was a second order effect of it being the preferential attachment economic node. Cultural reserve status followed currency reserve status followed extreme economic dominance. The chain of causation has collapsed.
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Much of culture and grand narrativizing is arguably a sort of success cargo cult. If you dance rock and roll like Americans maybe you can be rich like Americans, etc. Crude caricature, but I stand by it. Culture isn’t a pure expression of self. It’s grasping for spiritual agency
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I guess thread colored by current utter bankruptcy of what’s left of Soviet empire. It’s hard to look at mess today and think of even the limited power of the early 80s as substantial. As I think I’ve mentioned before, I grew up with Soviet books (but revealingly, in English!)
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The USSR in the early 80s felt like at least as real an “alternative way” to Americanism as the Chinese way does today. I don’t think China is aiming to be an aspirational state though, the way the US and USSR did.
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yea and it makes sense in contrast to a lot of Asian sensibilities. Americans are irreverent irresponsible mavericks who don’t respect their elders but this also means they produce hackers who don’t respect assumptions about what is possible → culture of innovation → $
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How long until our actual currency goes the way of our cultural currency? I might endure psychic pain when the music or sport I like isn’t the world standard, but when my dollar isn’t sought after worldwide…ouch.