Can America be "great" without great culture?

[Eric the Green]

(04-03-2017, 06:37 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(04-01-2017, 01:20 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I watched Larry Summers on Charlie Rose; not that I agree with him on everything, but he made the good point that Trump's budget cuts for arts and science do the opposite of "make America great again." The greatness of a nation, what it's remembered for, is its culture, Summers reminded us. When I was growing up, I noticed that I live in a country that doesn't value the arts; that is focused on commerce and technology. For me, the psychedelics, the human potential movements, the new age spirituality of the Awakening period of the mid-sixties and seventies, represented the chance for the USA to develop sensitivity, to learn to appreciate beauty, to unleash creativity, for the USA culture to bloom. Now, as the people who lived through those years get older, I wonder if this breakthrough has borne fruit, or when it might happen again. This sensitivity, this new light, seemed to vanish through the 3T/Reagan-Bush era, and now our nation's priorities are consumed with either making money through unleashing commerce from government restraints again, or else the need to resist this and get political in our 4T. Good business skills and political decisions are not enough to "make America great." It must be our culture, and we remain the "nation of dollar trappers with no past or future," as Oswald Spengler once called us.

Eric: RE: "When I was growing up, I noticed that I live in a country that doesn't value the arts"

Seriously? You grew up when Cool Jazz was coming on scene and rock and roll was freaking everyone out. Plus much other very interesting music. Sure, the immediate post War and the 1950s were not the 1960s. But they were pretty exciting for music.

I also agreed with bronsin's comment. And it's true money doesn't help all that much.

I didn't care for fifties rock n roll at all; it was one of the reasons I thought as I did, for sure. Now, I do appreciate some of those 1T rock oldies, and added some of them to my "famous" top 400 list, at least if you get below #100, there are some here and there.
http://philosopherswheel.com/ericrock.html
And of course we covered the fifties on our best songs ever thread.

HOWEVER, I still think Elvis Prestley is way over-rated by many folks, and early rock'n'roll scarcely created a sensitive culture. Most of the singers and the sounds were too harsh and macho. Cool Jazz? A few good things, but I remain mostly not-so-impressed. But, I didn't know about it then, anyway. The Jazz I heard did not impress me at all.

What I noticed was the general crassness of the culture, of lousy movies and lousy music, and the dedication of our nation to materialistic goals. It was just like Strauss and Howe describe it: spirit dead. But it's true, as in most times, there were some interesting cultural things going on, if you looked more closely. Sometimes you really have to search, and all I could do was read books. I read a lot of books in those days. Not Arthur Miller though. Just not in my perview. But the Perry Mason TV show was great, when we finally got a TV.