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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