Define your national culture

[Conserative Morality]

Culture is a lens through which our values and ideas form and are viewed through. It's not that we share the same customs, rituals, etc, it's that these same customs, rituals, etc, have affected all of us and our development, even if we don't embrace them.

[Impireacht]

American culture is bickering over ridiculous crap, watching ridiculous reality TV shows, worshipping celebrities as national heroes, buying 2 new smartphones every year on food stamps, and making fun of other cultures that are way better.

On the other hand, we do have a pretty cool history, and have had some great and influential figures. So, I guess we aren't all bad.

This is just my views, it doesn't mean I think all of us Americans are like this... but a lot are. Some of the funniest issues and issue responses in NS come right out of our politics

[Major-Tom]

The best national culture.

Source: #America. #Bald Eagles

[The Liberated Territories]

Western, primarily.

[New confederate ramenia]

There is plenty of research into the concept of culture in general, and about organisational cultures. But I'm not aware of any academic definitions of any particular nation's culture. Are you?

I am indeed. University of Wisconsin: Madison offers a course in national cultures as part of its business curriculum. I'd assume the textbook for that class counts as one. When I get off mobile, I'll go on the online database and find you some gucci studies.

At the very least then it sounds like you're only made partial progress towards a definition. And even that partial definition was being challenged by other members supposedly defined by it.

I said they resent it, not that they'd disagree. There are plenty of left wing rags decrying the influence of the protestant work ethic or the influence of Calvinism (the poor are poor because they are bad people and god is punishing them). The American exceptionalism goes without saying though. That is absolutely integral to our culture. You may find a couple of contrarians on NSG given that this is a left leaning site. If they don't wanna agree, so be it. The vast majority of Americans do subscribe to those ideas on some level. If you'd like, I could also go into in depth America perceptions of wealth, how to negotiate or other things. If you want a complete academic definition, I'd encourage you to read a book. NSG simply is too small to define all the nuances of a culture.

Can you please explain what the protestant work ethic means in terms of American culture? Is it the whole American dream of a self-made man working hard to get rich?

[Neu Leonstein]

Culture is a lens through which our values and ideas form and are viewed through. It's not that we share the same customs, rituals, etc, it's that these same customs, rituals, etc, have affected all of us and our development, even if we don't embrace them.

I don't think that works, because depending on how one interprets your statement it means that it is actually either impossible to integrate into another culture (because if you migrate as an adult you weren't affected by that culture during your development) or only possible to integrate because every migrant is affected by the new culture, whether they embrace them or not. But most people think that it is possible for migrants to integrate themselves into a new culture, but that it is not a foregone conclusion that they do so.

[Conserative Morality]

I don't think that works, because depending on how one interprets your statement it means that it is actually either impossible to integrate into another culture (because if you migrate as an adult you weren't affected by that culture during your development) or only possible to integrate because every migrant is affected by the new culture, whether they embrace them or not. But most people think that it is possible for migrants to integrate themselves into a new culture, but that it is not a foregone conclusion that they do so.

I'm of the latter opinion. You can't stop a new culture from influencing you. You may more readily try to see things through the lens of the culture around you, or you may resist it, but either way to some degree the way you see the world will be changed by it.

[Neu Leonstein]

I'm of the latter opinion. You can't stop a new culture from influencing you. You may more readily try to see things through the lens of the culture around you, or you may resist it, but either way to some degree the way you see the world will be changed by it.

Well, fair enough. But we're still no closer to figuring out what "it" actually is.

[Minzerland]

Australia would probably look like a modified British culture to be honest, definitely influenced by the rest of continental Europe too.

EDIT: It is a Multicultural country I guess...

Yeah, but what does any of that actually mean in practice. How do you distinguish an "assimilated" immigrant from any other immigrant?

Please elaborate.

[Neu Leonstein]

Please elaborate.

So there is this idea that some immigrants assimilate more than others, right? Some more right-wing people want to exclude certain immigrants because they don't "fit in". But no one seems to have a good tangible sense of what it is they are meant to fit into. What is it that would make you think that an immigrant is assimilated well into Australian culture, and another one is not?

[Minzerland]

Please elaborate.

So there is this idea that some immigrants assimilate more than others, right? Some more right-wing people want to exclude certain immigrants because they don't "fit in". But no one seems to have a good tangible sense of what it is they are meant to fit into. What is it that would make you think that an immigrant is assimilated well into Australian culture, and another one is not?

It depends what their culture may be like before they came to Australia, and if their culture is at opposites with Australia's current culture. By 'don't "fit in"' do these right-wingers mean that the immigrants culture is incompatible or doesn't mix well? The rest of the paragraph I have no idea of what you're babbling on about.

[Cetacea]

Australia would probably look like a modified British culture to be honest, definitely influenced by the rest of continental Europe too.

EDIT: It is a Multicultural country I guess...

Nah Australians have Bogan culture, definitely influenced by rebel Irish and English and European poor:)

slightly ironically Jamaica probably has more British culture

[Cetacea]

Please elaborate.

So there is this idea that some immigrants assimilate more than others, right? Some more right-wing people want to exclude certain immigrants because they don't "fit in". But no one seems to have a good tangible sense of what it is they are meant to fit into. What is it that would make you think that an immigrant is assimilated well into Australian culture, and another one is not?

thats because assimilation is inherently racist, assimilation means "I want you to act more like me" and I will judge whether your actions are acceptable to my standards or not. Cultures will influence each other when they interact and start to cross pollinate, the degree to which these might 'assimilate' is entirely subjective.

As a simple example prior to the 1970's most Anglosphere diets consisted of Potatoes, Sausages, Roast, Peas and Cabbage. During the 70's they added fancy foreign foods like garlic and avacados, then you get the rise of olive oil, curries, soy sauce, bratwurst and waffle cones until by the 1990's the western diet had entirely changed and was featuring such weirdness as hummus and bok choy (and thankfully had lost the archaic fondue pot). Now its easier to find a Zaatar manoushe than a toad in the hole and plum pudding

[United Slavians]

Cultures are not country-exclusive, unless in some rare cases. Huntington first divided the world cultures in, i think eight cultures. For this post, i'll mention two: western culture and eastern slavic-Orthodox culture.
Using this as a guide, my country is in the eastern slavic-Orthodox culture, but being corroded by the western culture for a little less than a century now.
Now i can go on about how an invasion of a diferent(in this case also somewhat opposite) culture destroys the societies that are based on others, but i won't unless the discussion takes us there.

[Minzerland]

Australia would probably look like a modified British culture to be honest, definitely influenced by the rest of continental Europe too.

EDIT: It is a Multicultural country I guess...

Nah Australians have Bogan culture, definitely influenced by rebel Irish and English and European poor:)

slightly ironically Jamaica probably has more British culture

Probably.

[Minzerland]

So there is this idea that some immigrants assimilate more than others, right? Some more right-wing people want to exclude certain immigrants because they don't "fit in". But no one seems to have a good tangible sense of what it is they are meant to fit into. What is it that would make you think that an immigrant is assimilated well into Australian culture, and another one is not?

thats because assimilation is inherently racist, assimilation means "I want you to act more like me" and I will judge whether your actions are acceptable to my standards or not. Cultures will influence each other when they interact and start to cross pollinate, the degree to which these might 'assimilate' is entirely subjective.

As a simple example prior to the 1970's most Anglosphere diets consisted of Potatoes, Sausages, Roast, Peas and Cabbage. During the 70's they added fancy foreign foods like garlic and avacados,
then you get the rise of olive oil, curries, soy sauce, bratwurst and waffle cones until by the
1990's the western diet had entirely changed and was featuring such weirdness as hummus and
choy (and thankfully had lost the archaic fondue pot). Now its easier to find a Zaatar manoushe
than a toad in the hole and plum pudding

Assimilation, racist? Culture is hardly connected to race at all, rather the values of society; I agree, it could be an instrumental tool in racism but that's it. It's not absurd to assert a culture as better, nor is it racist.

[Kubra]

apologizing profusely in the day, barfighting with dudes in cowboy hats in the night

[Hydesland]

Please elaborate.

So there is this idea that some immigrants assimilate more than others, right? Some more right-wing people want to exclude certain immigrants because they don't "fit in". But no one seems to have a good tangible sense of what it is they are meant to fit into. What is it that would make you think that an immigrant is assimilated well into Australian culture, and another one is not?

An example is when you get a 'cultural enclave' - effectively a group of migrants cluster in a specific neighborhood, and almost exclusively interact with other migrants, extremely rarely speak the native language and effectively isolate themselves from the rest of the city. Local shops, restaurants, places of worship etc... get replaced with ones that sell items/services usually sold in the originating countries of the migrants, and are very unlikely to hire non migrant workers. In some cases, the area can seem rather alien and may not be a desirable place for non migrants to live.

[Forsher]

None of these definitions suggest culture applies exclusively to "the nation" as a thing. There are subcultures all the way down to the smallest possible group. My family has learned patterns of knowledge, beliefs and behaviour that distinguish us from other families in the same neighbourhood. A bunch of skater friends who do tricks in the central business district share their own culture, which is clearly distinguishable from the culture of all the other people that walk past them on their way to and from work. In fact, chances are that those skaters would share a lot of knowledge, beliefs and behaviour with skaters on the other side of the world. Hell, even NSG has a culture of sorts, which ties regular posters together no matter which country they are from.

This is not troublesome to the notion of a national culture.

So usually when I ask people to define their culture, they go to language, religion and certain customs and rituals. Language is one thing - but given that there are a bunch of countries that have several languages, that seems to be problematic. Is there no such thing as Swiss culture, because Switzerland can be divided into subsections by language? And while the skaters are perfectly able to communicate with the office workers in the common language of the country, they do not use the same language when talking to one another - slang, memes and inside knowledge form part of their subculture and are used to reinforce it.

This can be a problematic aspect of questions of national culture insofar as they often tend to become pursuits of uniqueness or specialness... which is further often subsumed into quests (of whatever nature).

One last thing people sometimes bring up is particular character traits or ways of behaving. Australians might say "mateship" is an Australian trait. Germans might say "punctuality" is part of being German. But that again strikes me as a really bad way to distinguish a nation of millions. Not only are not all Germans punctual or all Australians mates, but lots of people outside those countries exhibit those traits too.

Think of, say, a regression model:

y_i = b₀ + b₁x_i + e_i, where e_i is just the bog standard random error

It's pretty self evident that if we know a given observation's value of x, we don't actually know the corresponding value of y, right? However, it is equally self evident (assuming the model has been properly put together and we're not interested in prediction/have a high R²) that this fact is actually pretty trivial: the regression model still informs us of the relationship of x to y/can make a pretty good prediction.

We could, perhaps, think of y as describing national culture (which for whatever reason is quantitative now, just because). In this sense, x is now, say, the "attitudes, values, goals, and practices" of the ith person. In other words, it doesn't matter that, say, Tommy religiously observes Anzac day while Jonny doesn't even know the date. If we noticed patterns in the value of y for various i's that corresponded to particular nations we could then have an assessment of the culture of those nations. More reasonably, we could perhaps use a regression to estimate the probability that a person identifies as culturally y, given their "attitudes, values, goals, and practices". This presupposes that there is, in fact, a certain uniqueness to national culture.

In a vaguely more practical sense, imagine that a geographic region has two different groups which can be non-arbitrarily distinguished. If we drew a circle representing one group and another representing the other then the overlapping region would, in theory, be the national culture if the region is a nation. In this sense, national culture is the shared sense of macro-self between individuals... the things that people who identify with a macro-self generally share.

The trouble is that, as you note, there are often ideas about what a culture is. Rugby, for instance, is a big one in New Zealand. Yay, awesome, much involvement, Sir Richie (Ritchie?) and all that. Sport and sporting moments/identity are biggies in general, I'd say. However, they are particular exclusive (insofar as most people either love or hate a given sport... if they've heard of it and can't ignore it). New Zealand, as a whole, says it loves rugby but really it likes winning... a nation of fair weather fans... and to the extent that it likes rugby, it doesn't like it quite so much as all that. This is why symbolism of rugby probably fairly equally represents everything wrong with/in NZ as much as all that is good and right (possibly explaining certain political outcomes). Non-sports based myths are equally troubling.

I would argue that national culture exists in a state of perpetual tension between what is observable and unacknowledged (e.g. fair weatherism, Wanderlust, apathy) and what is believed (e.g. biculturalism, rugbyism, equality), as well as the (semi-)acknowledged observed things... which you talked about somewhat.

I'm sure I have more things to say but I'm out of time and too lazy to make a draft.

[Rio Cana]

Australia would probably look like a modified British culture to be honest, definitely influenced by the rest of continental Europe too.

EDIT: It is a Multicultural country I guess...

Nah Australians have Bogan culture, definitely influenced by rebel Irish and English and European poor:)

slightly ironically Jamaica probably has more British culture

Its not Jamaica but Barbados. Those in Jamaica and Trinidad refer to Barbados has the little England. It resembles England culturally and in places landscape wise.

[Pranovia]

Spanish + Malay + Western culture, with a dash of Chinese, Korean aand other influential cultures.
Pretty much a melting pot of cultures, I suppose.

[Cetacea]

So there is this idea that some immigrants assimilate more than others, right? Some more right-wing people want to exclude certain immigrants because they don't "fit in". But no one seems to have a good tangible sense of what it is they are meant to fit into. What is it that would make you think that an immigrant is assimilated well into Australian culture, and another one is not?

An example is when you get a 'cultural enclave' - effectively a group of migrants cluster in a specific neighborhood, and almost exclusively interact with other migrants, extremely rarely speak the native language and effectively isolate themselves from the rest of the city. Local shops, restaurants, places of worship etc... get replaced with ones that sell items/services usually sold in the originating countries of the migrants, and are very unlikely to hire non migrant workers. In some cases, the area can seem rather alien and may not be a desirable place for non migrants to live.

you mean cultural enclaves like Manhattan and Staten Island?

[Netherlands Mualenia]

Culture nowadays is more the mixture of all aspects of a nation that influences the lives of its citizens: Language, religiousness, religious or non-religious tradition, time to wake up, time to eat, what to eat, how important work is to her people, literature, way of swearing, tolerance (or lack thereof).

Culture is simply almost everything a people have, which is probably we have such a love for living in nation-states instead of a world hippie government. European culture/society is almost the complete opposite of that of Islam, so you shouldn’t be surprised people are more against those migrants than migrants from Poland and other eastern European countries.

you mean cultural enclaves like Manhattan and Staten Island?

Bijlmer (Amsterdam), Schilderswijk (The Hague), practically most of the suburbs of Paris, Elephant & Castle (London) etc.

Elephant & Castle is the worst place in Europe I've been. It is a hotbed for hatred against everything civilised while the majority of houses look like they've been imported from the Middle East themselves, mostly ran down inhabited by hatebeards and black ghosts with feminime voices.

[Neu Leonstein]

It depends what their culture may be like before they came to Australia, and if their culture is at opposites with Australia's current culture. By 'don't "fit in"' do these right-wingers mean that the immigrants culture is incompatible or doesn't mix well? The rest of the paragraph I have no idea of what you're babbling on about.

I'm asking you to try and define these cultures. Surely, if they are "at opposites" you could at least tell me what they are? Like, actually useful descriptions that someone who hasn't been exposed to this stuff before could use to distinguish between them. It's not a difficult question, is it?

This is not troublesome to the notion of a national culture.

It can be, when people start to think of how groups relate to one another in terms of national cultures. If the differences between an Iranian skater and an American skater are smaller than the differences between an Iranian skater and an Iranian Ayatollah, then any notion of incompatible national cultures becomes a lot weaker.

Think of, say, a regression model:

y_i = b₀ + b₁x_i + e_i, where e_i is just the bog standard random error

It's pretty self evident that if we know a given observation's value of x, we don't actually know the corresponding value of y, right? However, it is equally self evident (assuming the model has been properly put together and we're not interested in prediction/have a high R²) that this fact is actually pretty trivial: the regression model still informs us of the relationship of x to y/can make a pretty good prediction.

We could, perhaps, think of y as describing national culture (which for whatever reason is quantitative now, just because). In this sense, x is now, say, the "attitudes, values, goals, and practices" of the ith person. In other words, it doesn't matter that, say, Tommy religiously observes Anzac day while Jonny doesn't even know the date. If we noticed patterns in the value of y for various i's that corresponded to particular nations we could then have an assessment of the culture of those nations. More reasonably, we could perhaps use a regression to estimate the probability that a person identifies as culturally y, given their "attitudes, values, goals, and practices". This presupposes that there is, in fact, a certain uniqueness to national culture.

Ok, if you put it in those terms, this thread is asking people the what the x's are, and what values they take for the culture they identify with. But people seem to struggle to do even that. And that's before we get to the ridoncolous size of the errors in this regression, and the possibility the the slope might just average out to 0, statistically speaking.

I would argue that national culture exists in a state of perpetual tension between what is observable and unacknowledged (e.g. fair weatherism, Wanderlust, apathy) and what is believed (e.g. biculturalism, rugbyism, equality), as well as the (semi-)acknowledged observed things... which you talked about somewhat.

I suspect that you're right about this. But my problem with the whole idea is that everyone starts out with the assumption that national culture exists, and then uses it as though it was a well-defined entity that one can use to base real life policy and behaviour on. But you ask them to stop and tell you what they're talking about, and you get blank stares.

Culture nowadays is more the mixture of all aspects of a nation that influences the lives of its citizens: Language, religiousness, religious or non-religious tradition, time to wake up, time to eat, what to eat, how important work is to her people, literature, way of swearing, tolerance (or lack thereof).

Culture is simply almost everything a people have, which is probably we have such a love for living in nation-states instead of a world hippie government.

Except that humans have lived in nationstates for a tiny fraction of their existence, and we know pretty exactly how and why they started to do it. Had everything to do with the interests of a few powerful people and nothing with what general populations were doing at the time. For most of history, our group associations were with, you know, actual groups. People you knew and who you could reasonably see as influencing you and vice versa.

Since then we've started to extrapolate how we feel about our actual social groups to these amorphous blobs of millions of people we've never met. I think that's why apparently no one can describe what links them to their national cultures satisfactorily, but everyone seems very sure that they are linked anyway. It's seems a lot more like faith than reason, until I'm shown otherwise.

European culture/society is almost the complete opposite of that of Islam, so you shouldn’t be surprised people are more against those migrants than migrants from Poland and other eastern European countries.

I know that's your claim. But how exactly do you mean to convince me that two things are opposite to one another if you can't accurately define what those two things are?

[Hydesland]

the majority of houses look like they've been imported from the Middle East

Can you show me photographs of these houses that look like they've been imported from the middle east?