The greatest paradox in the study of anthropology is the reality that by the time a cultural phenomenon is investigated and understood, that phenomenon is no longer relevant to that culture. Simply put, the one consistent variable of cultural development across time and space on this planet is change itself. In fact, throughout recorded history (and strongly suggested by the prehistoric archaeological record) mankind has illustrated its seeming inability to remain static, often seeking change with no apparent rhyme or reason. This is no better demonstrated than in our own American society where acceptance of the status quo is regarded as somehow less than acceptable; less than tolerable by our lofty cultural standards.
As a result of this unquenchable thirst for something new, something better, something no one else has ever had, we have become a society prone to replacing the old with the new–simply because it is new. (Look at the number of TVs, phones, computers, and other items we throw away long before they’re broken.) And while admittedly our insatiable pursuits–what psychologists often refer to as “our innate need for perfection”–have resulted in many valuable medical, technological, and socially useful advances, others do nothing more than feed our fundamental drive toward discovery and invention, two halves of the same cultural coin that lie at the heart of our creative being and serve no apparent practical purpose at all. But could the rubbing together of two sticks 800,000 years ago sufficiently explain our incessant thirst today?
Unlike many nations with whom we are frequently compared (Japan, Germany, England, China, Russia), the United States is unlike many nations of the world in that we have occupied our homeland for just over 500 years. Because of our relatively new arrival to this land, we had many other cultures (both past and present-day) from which to model our own, centuries of technologies to aid in our bid for control, and knowledge that far exceeded the sum of our individual eruditic parts. Accordingly, we borrowed heavily from the French in constructing our governing doctrines, adapted the land to serve our needs using ancient Roman farming methods, and established a banking and trade system borrowed from the masters of banking, the Dutch.
Then, of course, we imported every other invention, discovery, idea, concept, method, and philosophy born of man (and a few learned from our plant and animal brethren) to assure our continued success. And when our independence and autonomy was threatened by powers from without and within, we used the most advanced military methodology the world had known to defend it–including but certainly not limited to Sun Tzu’s Art of War. But, does this proverbial ‘head start’ explain our continued American drive for always wanting something more than we have?
While we Americans like to consider ourselves a breed apart, we often forget that unlike most other countries, we were an amalgamation of many nationalities from our very inception: a mixture of cultures (French, Dutch, English, Spanish, Portuguese), ideals (Laissez-faire, bourgeoisie, sovereignty, republicanism, international law), religions (Huguenotism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Calvinism, Celt-paganism) and philosophies (Freemasonry, mysticism, anti-imperialism, Machiavellianism, humanism). And in this ethnosocioreligiophilosophic mélange that constitutes our culture, components of all these diverse ingredients can still be found–the ultimate infusion of discovery, invention, diffusion, syncretism, acculturation, and revolution. In short, American culture optimizes what is means to utilize all the processes of cultural change and adaptation–as they ebb, flow and grow. (Yet oddly, many people still believe that America is a culturally pure society that must remain pure to survive.)
. . . And that is precisely why our drive to exceed our limitations has become the primary driving force of our culture; of our society. We hit this land running, and in many ways, that collective worldview has come to define us. We may not have been the first to rub those two sticks together, or even to have built the first bonfire. But we won’t settle until we have found a means to build a fire so big that it can be seen from outer space so that one day aliens on a distant planet will see it and say, “Just look at those Americans! Mark my words . . . it won’t be long before they’ll be building fires here, too!” But for that to happen, we need the cultural diversity that has come to define us. Our strength is in the mixing of our ideas and ideals.
