Is America's Political Culture Conflictual or Consensual?
By Collin Casey
In todays society, most people would say the America's political culture is conflictual, and they aren't wrong. People live their day to day lives in their own unique way, such as starting the day off with coffee at a local starbucks or maybe going out to feed the cattle, but no matter what, nobody will ever do the same exact thing as another person. In other words, we're divided. America, the country of "unity and togetherness," is divided? That doesn't sound right. But believe it or not, it is. America is split into many different political groups, religious groups, factions, etc. It's what makes us the mosted united yet diverse country in the world. Though we were not always this way. Back in the 1700's when our nation was born, almost everybody lived the same. Same clothes, same lifestyle, pretty much the only difference was the kind of beer you drank. So what happened? How did our nation transition from a healthy, happy way of living into something so violent and diverse?
Red America and Blue America, the most well known division of our country. You have the men and women who are highly patriotic, wear ripped clothing, and aren't very educated but love working on the farm. These people are classified as Red Americans, or red-necks some may say. Then you have the people that are very sophisticated, drink coffee, and spend all day at work in the city. They're also highly educated and have a higher annual income than those who live out in the midwest. These men and women are called Blue Americans.
Back in the 1700's when our nation finally started coming together, everyone was basically the same. Men wore huge, baggy pants with wigs and weird, collard shirts while women wore bonnets and yellow blouses. Every man would talk about how they were gonna win the war and every woman would say how their husbands need to stop drinking so much and start working to support their family. Though they may not have been exactly the same, they all agreed on most things. Like problem solving and how decisions would be made. But then, after the Declaration of Independance was signed, nobody really knew what to do, anything really. They were a free country and had rights so as long as they obeyed those rights they could be whoever they wanted to be. Things remained similar up until the 1800's when suits were becoming more popular and people began to change their lifestyles.
So what happened? I believe that over time, as more and more manufacturers appeared and new products started becoming more popular, this gave people the option the change their way of living. They could design their own wardrobe like nobody had ever seen before and have more unique hobbies like walking their dog rather than weaving baskets all day. This especially began to take off in the 1900's with the production of cell phones and cars and many other fascinations. In other words, people began to live life their own way, whether they chose the right way or the wrong way was up to them. They formed their own opinions and could also build off other people's lifestyles to form their own. This is was created our conflictual society today.
Sources:
Content and Creativity = 2
ReplyDeleteVoice = 4
Text layout & Use of graphics/multimedia = 1
Quality of Writing & Proofreading = 3
Timeliness = 4
Total = 15
You're talking too much about general culture and not enough about POLITICAL culture.