Tartan-wearing conventions among Scots

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

With reference to the United States it was said:

I guess in a society which has no real culture of it's own, people reach back to what they believe is their culture from the past...

I have to disagree. The United States has a distinct culture, which has developed over 400 years. I will give you five examples of your uniquely "American" culture:

Literature: Mark Twain
Poetry: Carl Sandburg
Music: Scott Joplin
Art: Georgia O'Keeffe
Cinema: D.W. Griffith

Now, can you do the same-- without getting up from your chair-- for Denmark? Probably not, which in no way implies that the Danes have no culture of their own. Rather it suggests a lack of awareness-- nothing more, nothing less. I would put it to you that the average "man in the street" in Glasgow is no more "aware" of Scottish culture than his counterpart in Chicago is "aware" of American culture because they both live it every day.

Having cultural affinity-- be it the Frenchman in Paris who longs to ride the open plains of the American West, or the Mexican in Tiajuana who comes home to an apartment filled with Japanese prints-- is just that, and doesn't imply that the afficianado has no "native" culture, or that that native culture is in someway inferior.

I think that when one suggests that their country lacks a distinctive culture they run the risk of being one of those people Gilbert & Sullivan satirized in The Mikado---