Pat’s Polemics

So often I talk about people’s culture. While there are many cultures in the U.S., we can ask if there is a general U.S. culture. I have frequently referred to the book American Nations which finds in voting patterns eleven distinct culture areas, as anthropologists would call them, in North America. But what about the culture as a whole, historically?
Most of my attention has been directed to the areas of education and race relations and how politics impact them. But a connected and larger issue is the utilitarian or pragmatic approach Americans generally take to things. I recall reading in my textbooks of American history how we are a pragmatic people, we just want to know if something works and are unconcerned about its underlying philosophical or theoretical basis. Does it work? If we encounter something, we want to know what it’s good for, how can we use it?
All of this makes intellectual pursuits, pure research, unmoored philosophizing, and even art almost beside the point for the people of our culture. Not quite, not entirely, but it certainly colors our assessment of events and personalities. A man/woman of action, not a thinker. Thinkers dither while the man of action takes action, even if it’s the wrong action, even if it leads to disastrous results. And time is a major factor: Americans would rather see a decision made by a man of action and then implemented over a long period of frustration b/c not everyone was on board with the decision. Observers have noted that in Japanese culture it can take a seemingly interminable long time to reach consensus b/c everyone must be brought on board and up to speed, but once the decision is made, its implementation is speedy. In the latter mode, the implementation may come too late and in the former it may not get off the ground in the face of resistance.
This is one aspect of the general American culture. I will come up with others for this category.