The more serious challenge, for Americans new and old, is to make a common culture that’s greater than the sum of our increasingly diverse parts. It’s not enough for the United States to be a neutral zone where a million little niches of identity might flourish; in order to make our diversity a true asset, Americans need those niches to be able to share a vocabulary. Americans need to be able to have a broad base of common knowledge so that diversity can be most fully activated.
Interesting article. I have my reservations about the necessity to create a common cultural "vocabulary"; the exercise seems forced, and it's impossible for any author to divine out how much of which cultural influences should make up this vocabulary. How African, Mexican, German, or English should we make our "shared culture"? Taken seriously as a call to action, the entire exercise seems ridiculous. Nonetheless, it's a good starting point from which to discuss the commonalities of our national identity. With all of that said, what would you put on such a list?
I don't even know how to define a single culture. The best way that I heard is: A member of your culture is someone you don't need to explain a joke to. That makes culture fluid and you could be a member of several different ones (which I like). It also means that the US is not even close to a single culture and that is absolutely fine. There is also a problem with a list that it doesn't tell you how to define a term. American Exceptionalism can go in very different ways. I admit when trying to think of the list I tried to think of things that are in the air of conversation but are either ill-defined, never explicit, or just not mentioned enough (for my taste):
4th of July, Human Rights, Depression (economic and personal), Fascism, Communism, Middle Passage, Manifest Destiny (and Trail of Tears), World War (I & II), Rights (absolute, non-absolute, restricted) Citizenship, PTSD. Admittedly, that is eleven(ish). And also it came to be a bit more political than I wanted it to be. Also both the article and I fail at mentioning that Hirsch added terms from the sciences (I don't have the book on me, but I remember things like Electron on the list). But in all honesty, I don't want the list to exist. Common core is a mess. No Child Left Behind is a pain to every college instructor (I am one of them, it is a problem). I don't think a list can or should exist. I much prefer a better education system that will allow people to find things that they are looking for rather than have a checklist for the establishment to tick off.