11-27-2008, 08:59 AM
voodoopenguin wrote:
I have always wondered whether some of the myths and rituals that the USA now seem to have developed are down to a desire for its own history. It's all very well that the USA is/was a new, modern forward thinking nation but I have often felt when talking to US friends that there is also a slight jealousy about the European countries much longer history. For example we have so many incredible buildings, magnificent cathedrals that are over 800 years old and the oldest building in the USA is...? Europe, of the last few hundred years of course, also had this jealousy of previous great civilisations, the Greeks, the Egyptians and further afield India and China.
I see where you're going but I think you may be projecting your awareness of history and its importance onto americans.
I don't think most americans have a sense that the're missing hundreds or thousands of years in their historical sensibility. You can't miss something you never had.