Somehow, over the course of the last six decades, America has evolved into the world’s rhetorical whipping boy. Negative opinions about the United States abound, even domestically. Whether discussing the government, economic system, or the everyday lives of its citizens, the country has become a symbol to many of all that is wrong with humanity.
Although some of this criticism is probably warranted, America’s detractors often exhibit an arrogance that unfairly belittles many of the country’s great contributions to the world, especially in the realm of culture. And I’m not talking about the New York theatre scene here, or Mark Twain either. I’m talking about mass-market, middle-class popular culture, the kind so often derided for its lack of sophistication.
In Canada, we have an entire bureaucracy dedicated to defending us from the “threat” of American cultural exports. The Europeans too, obsessed with their own histories, carefully protect their aristocratic culture from the “low” culture of the New World masses. Many Americans have themselves bought into this myth of cultural inferiority.
I recently came back from a road trip to the northeast United States. After staying in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland, while taking in numerous baseball games and a wonderful trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I came to a much different conclusion.
Baseball and rock n’ roll are rich cultural enterprises, with deep histories and a global outreach. Otherwise known as the National Pastime, professional baseball has been around since the 19th century and continues to be an important aspect of American life. While sitting in a sold out, 85-year-old Yankee Stadium, I could only imagine the millions of people before me who had sat down with a hotdog and beer and witnessed the defining moments of one of the greatest sports franchises the world has ever seen.
In Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I explored the complex web of music that is rock n’ roll. From the early influences of gospel, blues, and jazz to the emergence of funk, punk, alternative, and hip hop, American popular music has reflected the country’s diversity and defined generations, while constantly reinventing itself along the way.
Although baseball and rock music are in many ways uniquely American, they have both become important aspects of global culture that have shaped, and been shaped, by the rest of the world.
Baseball, for example, was heavily influenced by British cricket. Today, much of the world has fallen in love with the game. In Latin America, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, two very anti-American leaders, are avid baseball fans. In Asia, professional baseball leagues are producing many talented players that are increasingly making inroads in the United States.
As for rock and roll, some of its roots can be traced to music brought over by African slaves, and since its emergence in the mid 20th century, it has been in a constant cultural interplay with European, especially British, music. American blues influenced the Beatles, who in turn shaped American rock in the 1960s. Since then, its been a musical ping-pong match with bands like Led Zeppelin and Metallica, the Strokes and the Arctic Monkeys playing off one another, pushing themselves to greater musical heights.
Contrary to being a disease spread by imperialists, American culture has intrinsic value, best shown by the way people around the world embrace and add to it. In fact, labelling it simply as “American” ignores the role it has had in defining the identities of millions, if not billions of individuals.
So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go throw on some Green Day and watch the Jays game.
