Beyond the answer of Americans being citizens/long term residents of the United State of America and Europeans as citizens/long term residents of countries that are located in Europe all I can say is that anything else would simply be a contextual generalization of characteristics, behaviour and very loose knit beliefs that (seem to be) are shared by those living in either the USA or withing the boraders of Europe.

I really cannot find any concrete definitions that would fit to 320+ million people living in America or the 733+ million people living in Europe other than this general one of being citizens/long term residents of either the USA or of Europe.

Meow!

GREG

With great distaste and reluctance I recognize both white gun-toting libertarian cowboys and black ghetto thugs as "American"--not "my America" but America, none the less.

And you? — Bitter Crank

I do love your leftist, or should I say in the American terms, "liberal", view of the "correct" America, Bitter Crank. I would feel it very far fetched to describe the America (that I would despise) as a gun-toting libertarian cowboys with black ghetto thugs. Those gun-toting cowboys are actually quite far from actual libertarianism, in my view. True libertarians aren't fascists. I remember my old dad laughing about those praising (or worshipping) the Founding Fathers being the most fascist element in the US society. Yeah, well he was a leftist.

But to the subject of this thread.

The US with it's fixation on things like "The Constitution" and the "Bill of Rights" and it's mythical "Founding Fathers" and above all, with the idea that everybody can be "an American", is far more viable and strong as Americans themselves view it. Reading these forums (this one, the old PF and others), I've come to the conclusion that Americans actually don't think much of their state, they somehow don't believe it is a melting pot anymore. Seems like pessimism is trendy: as if those ideals they (personally) believe aren't believed anymore by the majority. But of those who come to the US and want to live there really want to become Americans. Being a "US Citizen" is very far from the outdated ideas that you find in the historical dustbin like being a "Soviet Citizen" or a "Yugoslav Citizen". Even the extremely whimsical idea of Europeans being "EU Citizen" is far from the so-called "invented" idea of being an "American". The idea of being an "American" is quite real.

You can be far more easier an "American", meaning that you are an US Citizen or an "Canadian" than you can be "French", a "German" or a "Finn".

And that's the problem in Europe.

Unfortunately the incredibly stupid elite or intelligentsia hasn't been able to truly reinvent being European and left it to a dismal bunch of bureaucrats in Brussells to sort something out. And hence EU is in the crisis it is in. Because even however the French may rally around some Charlie Hedbo or whatever, their nation building enterprise stopped a long time ago. And nobody of the elite made it an effort to truly create a EU in the hearts of Europeans. Because "nationalism" is bad. And the stupid elite came up with nothing to replace it. Inventing an idea like being "British" is really something that the elite invents and makes the masses believe. Yet here in the EU the elite thinks that nothing of the sort would have had to be done.

Reading these forums (this one, the old PF and others), I've come to the conclusion that Americans actually don't think much of their state, they somehow don't believe it is a melting pot anymore. — ssu

The concern is that many of the newer immigrants don't wish to assimilate like the old ones. That's really less a matter of opinion than an empirical question.

A reason to believe the concern is real is because the Mexican immigrants (as opposed to earlier rounds of immigrants) are more likely to retain their culture due to their proximity to their homeland and their ability to move back and forth without having to fully commit to immigration. There has also seemingly been a shift in ideology, where it was once accepted that one should assimilate to it now being advocated that there be an acceptance of other cultural norms. I'm not condemning that ideology, but whether there has been such a shift is again an empirical question, and not simply one of opinion.

The question is whether the US is a melting pot or whether it is becoming a mosaic of all sorts of cultures living side by side without "melting" together as one. Typically assimilation takes a number of generations, so it is too early to tell. My expectation is that the concerns among English speaking Americans today will be replaced with the concerns of Hispanic Americans tomorrow, when they note that with each generation, fewer will speak Spanish or retain that culture. The monster that will eat them up is the American economy, which will demand they speak and act a particular way in order to find financial success. There is no question that the typical American will benefit from learning Spanish, but not nearly as much as one will benefit from learning English.

The point being that I do think there are legitimate concerns about what it means for a person to be an American, but I don't think those concerns will amount to much. The status quo isn't maintained by accident. There's a machine in place keeping it as is.

"They will be assimilated; resistance is futile." the Borg

Yes, yes they will. Other than bellying up to an occasional smorgasbord, you likely retain little of your Scandinavian culture.

I agree with Mikhail Bakhtin:

In the realm of culture outsideness is the most powerful to understanding. It is only in the eyes of another culture that foreign culture reveals itself fully and profoundly... A meaning only reveals its depths once it has encountered and come into contact with another, foreign meaning they engage is a kind of dialogue, which surmounts the closedness and one-sidedness of these particular meanings, these cultures ...Such a dialogic encounter of two cultures does not result in a merging or mixing. Each retains its own unity and open totality but they are mutually enriched.


Canada:

The Canadians I work with are very polite. The ones who come down to Florida this time of year are always smiling. The ones I work with are now crying about the decline of their Loonie. They make every nickel scream...and me too sometimes.
There are two official languages in Canada - French and English. The Provence of Quebec is almost like another country (with better food, and they are better dressed).
They tend to export their talent (Neil Young!)
Canadians are more socially conscious and the government has better programs to support its citizens.
Better a health care system who's citizens do not go bankrupt after a couple day visit to a hospital.
In Canada - they do not bear arms. Their crime rate is nill compared to the U.S.
Canada has provinces and territories - not states.
Canadians know more about the U.S. than Americans know about Canada.
Canada is a parliamentary system. There is a Prime Minister of Canada not President. There are 3 main parties. (PC, Liberal and NDP). Premiers of Provinces not Governors
Maternity Leave is government mandated from 17 up to 52 weeks
When people get laid off in Canada- severance packages are significantly greater than their American counterparts. There are no "at will" employees.
Canada is to hockey as the U.S. is to football.

I'm a Brit married to an American. Well, she is now a Brit too though you wouldn't know to hear her accent, but she has pledged allegiance to the Queen (something us Brits don't have to do in the ordinary course of things). I feel increasingly European; at university, in the city, wherever I go in the UK there are people from other European countries being smarter than us Brits. It will be odd if we Brexit, now that we've got such a lovely tunnel and Germans buy Land Rovers and everything, but even if 'we' vote that way it will take years of negotiations to fail to reach an agreement about how to do it.

Oh and isn't America a continent rather than a country?

Oh and isn't America a continent rather than a country? — mcdoodle

Sure is, and actually the culture is amazingly similar in Latin America as in the US and Canada. But many people in the US make it to be a huge difference. Well, if the Aztecs would have kept out the marauding Europeans from their country and the Aztec Empire would have survived, then Mexico would be really different.

But so is it with the meaning of "European". Eastern Europeans, Central Europeans, Northern Europeans and Southern Europeans seem different also ...in Europe. Sometimes Russians aren't even called to be Europeans, which is one of the strangest things to me. And apart from the French and the Benelux countries, "Europe" seems pretty far sometimes from other Europeans, as some separate entity they have to cope with. The British typically see "Continental Europe" as something separate from them, the Spanish can see themselves as being far from Europe and here in Finland there has been a long tradition of seeing ourselves being very far, far away from the heart of Europe.

The question is whether the US is a melting pot or whether it is becoming a mosaic of all sorts of cultures living side by side without "melting" together as one. Typically assimilation takes a number of generations, so it is too early to tell. My expectation is that the concerns among English speaking Americans today will be replaced with the concerns of Hispanic Americans tomorrow, when they note that with each generation, fewer will speak Spanish or retain that culture. — Hanover

What's that culture they retain?

I think many Americans with for example Finnish roots do uphold Finnish traditions far more than Finns and are proud of their heritage, yet still are 100% Americans. It is far more about how one sees oneself in the country you live in. Are you looked upon as a foreigner, or are you accepted. It's in the end how others see you that defines a lot.

I lived few years in the states as a small kid and went to school in the first and second grade there. My father said then that if I had been longer there, I would have become an American. I think he was right. Going back to Finland really sucked! Especially then when you were a child, you made friends differently as an adult. And one got in touch with American families through their children. Somebody going to work for a while in the US will not likely see the place in the similar way.

Now I go a lot to Mexico and know many Mexicans. They are quite American to me, even if they don't like to be pointed out just how much similarity their culture has with the US culture. Yes, the fiestas and the folkmusic is different, but the actual lifestyle is quite the same.

Mexican and people in the US are far more similar than let's say Finns. Yet I think many Americans don't realize this.

Yes, the fiestas and the folkmusic is different, but the actual lifestyle is quite the same. — ssu

This is true, pretty much. Latin Americans fit. It is remarkable how well people from various places fit here. When a large number of Somalis were settled in Minneapolis, it didn't take long before they began working in all sorts of jobs. A second generation Somali was elected to the Minneapolis city council a couple of years ago. And to a remarkable extent, I think, Americans (Minnesotans, anyway) have accepted Somalis.

Vietnamese, Cambodians, Russians, Indians, West Africans, etc. have also found places to fit. I wouldn't say that everything is just perfect, but it's at least satisfactory.

It is remarkable how well people from various places fit here. — Bitter Crank

That "fitting in" does happen because it's a country made of immigrants. Hence there is a natural acceptance of immigrants turning into citizens. It's part of the national ethos, which is actually very important. Just a geographical distinction like being "Asian" or "African" doesn't connect people.

My country isn't made of immigrants. There are hardly any of them ...compared to countries like USA, Canada or even Sweden. On the summerplace that I went every summer, our neighbours were a family that had owned their farmstead and had cultivated their fields since the time Kolumbus discovered America, at least. When they found one of the oldest "cultures" here and checked the genes from the recovered bones to the genes of the present local people living nearby, there was a striking match. That a direct link was possible (if naturally not provable), especially because on the coast the same people have been living here from the Stone Ages as there hasn't been an influx of people coming from somewhere else. The only major demographic transition happened when the Finns pushed the Sami people to Northern Finland, perhaps during the time of the Roman Republic. Hence in the country like this it's obvious what makes the country: the language and the people that have lived basically here for ages. And even language doesn't matter so much, because the Swedish speaking here see themselves and are seen as Finns too, not Swedes. The Swedish speaking were never seen even as a separate ethnicity. So it's not a tale of "A Constitution", the "Founding Fathers" and people being able to be Americans. That's a problem for my country, but also for other Nordic countries as simply when the idea of the countries was made, there wasn't this idea that some other people could come here to the North and be part of the nation. Might be interesting to think what it could be if there would still exist a Kalmar Union, but then some national idea, Kalmarism or whatever would have had to be invented. Just like the idea of being British.

Interesting enough you gave an example of Somalis. Because just where in the Finnish nation do Somali's fit into is the problem. There were none here before the year 1990, so it's a new immigration. The younger generation of them speak fluent Finnish, but the 17 000 Somali's of which about 9 000 have been borne in Somalia don't have it so well here. Over a half of the Somali's are unemployed and basically are the most detested and hated ethnic group here. While a majority of them do feel hatred and racial attacks in some way in their ordinary life, I don't see a way that they would see themselves as fully being Finns. There's allways the dichotomy of them and the indigenous people.

Now this actually is a tragedy of all Europe, because integration could happen, but I'm not convinced at all that it is working the way it is handled now.

Another factor in the US is an enormous amount of mobility -- not just currently, but practically from the beginning. My ancestors came from England and Ireland; others' in this area came from Germany and Northwestern Europe -- including Finland. Almost no one landed, settled, and stayed put. They moved west, mostly, and when they reached some area which they liked, the upper midwest here, they still moved around a lot. There were a lot of economic failures; crop disasters, price collapses, the animals froze to death, insect plagues, wheat rust, spouses died, the barn burned down, one damned thing after another. Eventually people settled -- generally by the first third of the 20th century. Most families have stayed put, but still a substantial portion of the population moves to some other state--generally in search of employment opportunities or a better social environment. like gay guys moving out of the midwest to the coasts.

Wish I had done that, though if I had I'd probably have gotten ground up in the AIDS epidemic and then sic transit gloria mundi.

So, even the European emigrants to the US were getting continuously stirred and mixed. The population mixmaster also creates space for new people.

There is a Finnish community in Minneapolis. The run a Saturday Finnstyle culture club for their children at the church across the street (designed by two of your emigrant countrymen, Eliel and Eero Saarinen). The Kulture Klub Volk seem to be pretty affluent, kind of standoffish, snobbish. The Finns are sort of a hobby for the German/Norwegian heritage Lutheran congregation that built the building. I have found their "traditional festive pastries" to be appallingly dull, like the small soft-rye bread circles filled with potato and butter and not even salted. You'd think they could maybe put a piece of pickled herring on it, or something. It seemed more suitable for a Lenten act of contrition than a piece of yuletide festivity. Even a Vietnamese bean cake (which looks something like a deep fat fried tennis ball) is better. Give me krumkake, pastrami on a Kaiser roll, or several slices of stollen any day.

Here's what the Saarinens wrought:

(The Saarinen brother's are very famous here. Although I find their modernism a bit boring and some buildings here actually quite ugly.)

If the Finnish traditional food is dull, it's really authentic... traditional food from the start of the 20th Century and end of the 19th. (Btw. Finnish food isn't special at all, it really is simple and quite dull. No Mediterraenean to mix influncies and have a lively trade on various foods and nothing like the Russian Cuisine.) And some of those American-Finns who do speak Finnish speak a very old language; the one from a Century ago.

And here's one point that is actually important in a way for the melting pot: the immigrants uphold an "ancestral" culture alongside the American culture, keep old traditions and do not invent new culture, new music, new literature and so on. Hence when immigrant Americans are holding on to some customs, traditions and festival of the former country, that isn't anything to worry about. But when the immigrants basically form a diaspora and are linked to their own country, have family members there who they support from the US, travel back and forth, then that diaspora can actually be part of the culture of their "former" land. In some authoritarian countries the actual culture maybe something that is kept up in the US.

For many Third World countries this diaspora is an important economic and political group for the country itself.

So, even the European emigrants to the US were getting continuously stirred and mixed. The population mixmaster also creates space for new people. — Bitter Crank

This happens and this basically makes then the people who really are "American", they are quarter this, quarter that and so on. In these kinds of families English will prevail.

the immigrants uphold an "ancestral" culture alongside the American culture, keep old traditions and do not invent new culture — ssu

Like Norwegians, lutefisk, and lefsa. I doubt very much if people in Norway would eat either of these foods -- they are both low-grade peasant survival items. Blacks eat pork guts (chitlins) because it is a tradition from the slave days, not because they are particularly appetizing -- slimy, smelling like offal, even when cooked in tomato sauce. Sort of like the bitter herbs and unleavened bread of passover.

Like Norwegians, lutefisk, and lefsa. I doubt very much if people in Norway would eat either of these foods — Bitter Crank

Now that is true Norwegian heritage.

Oh yes, and the traditional Christmas cuisine: absolutely nothing fresh. Turkeys? Non-existent here, Pork only (traditionally). Canned beans, canned everything and we also have that lutefisk (called here "lipeäkala"), a traditional Christmas dish (in which the fish hopefully won't taste at all, and is eaten with a sauce and spices that gives it some nice flavour). Basically everything has been prepared in order to stay eatable without the fridge. Nice in Christmas, but not every day.

Lipeäkala, lutefisk, with canned beans and potatoes done in the traditional way (in Finland):


Medieval food is even a better example of this: it is actually great when done from fresh ingredients, but have everything salted and been preserved for a year. Uh...

But if a country has had an affluent court for the bourgeoisie to mimic, then you have today a true gastronomic food culture. Because now we are eating like the kings of the past. Or would be, if the people would demand such food when they go to a restaurant or cook for an special occasion. Again something that is culture dependent.

The term "American" is definitely a tricky one to define, since the country is such a melting pot of cultures. It's almost as if, in the case of not being able to identify what cultural background something is, the default position is "American".

I think there are certain things (oftentimes cuisine) that is endemic to a particular location. But I am skeptical of apparent entire cultures that are restricted to one single area.

Perhaps, if I had to place an answer on what these terms mean, I would say that "American" refers to anyone who was born in America or who currently lives in America and has taken the necessary steps to integrate themselves into the society. And a "European" would be someone who has a bladder problem.

American means from or born in USA. Canada is technically part of. North America but they are simply considered Canadian. So we have Canadians, Americans, South Americans, Europeans(Anyone from or born in Europe) and Asians is anyone from or born in any of the countries that make up Asia.

A Somali couple recently from Finland visited the church and asked about teaching Finnish in the Finn's school. That's America: A Moslem couple from Somalia, living in Finland long enough to become fluent offering to help the American Finns recover and maintain their culture in America.

Only in America.

That's the phrase that comes to mind when thinking about the US. The US is a country of extremes, both the good and the bad and that seems to be related to a principle of the "winner takes all". And although I'm not very familiar with Eastern Europe, my experience with West, North Europe, Italy, Spain, is a higher preparedness for consensus building - even if you have 51% of the votes you still take aboard the opinion on the other side. That's probably because majorities are more fragile in multi-party systems.

Europeans also tend to be a bit more reserved on the surface than Americans (US citizens) who in turn have a friendly facade that you need to pierce before you can get to know them. I suppose that's the US way of civility but at least to the Dutch it comes across as fake as the friendliness is always there but doesn't necessarily match behaviour.

Europeans depend on their governments more than Americans do. As a result I think Europeans are less charitable and socially active than Americans are (we're already paying taxes for the government to fix [insert social problem]).

Finally, Europeans have a shit load more free time than Americans do. Better work hours, more vacation, basic social life. Also paid for with aforementioned taxes.

America nowadays is a a civic concept, it's about civic association via an idea/ideal.

European is more of a racial concept, basically genetic (it means White, Europe is the ancestral homeland of that 8% of the world's population that is White - and it has been for tens of thousands of years). Of course that ancestral homelandeyness means there's also a good deal of shared culture implied (Graeco-Roman, Central European, Anglo Saxon, etc.).

However, America wasn't always a purely civic concept, it was at first more of a race-based idea (early immigration was for "White persons of good standing" or words to that effect, IIRC). But I think because of slavery most Americans came to think of America as a biracial society (with Blacks being a small minority who deserve some consideration because of slavery) - and that requires thinking of the "social glue" of the country as more in the realm of ideas.

The extension of that "civil rights" idea by the modern-day PC cult (which is basically Gramscian/Frankfurt School Communism) to immigrants from South America, and the idea of "PoC," is a complete nonsense, though, because "nation" is still largely about where you were born, and about living with people who are somewhat like you (because born from the same soil) - either in terms of genetics, ideas and culture, or both.

The Statue of Liberty poem idea of America (itself written by a socialist) doesn't represent a possible idea for a nation, because a nation can't be based on immigration (though it may have some). It has to be based on a society that's knit together by similarity, habituation and ancestral ties going back in history: what's called "rootedness." That's what makes for a relatively high-trust, relatively unified culture.

In this case, as always, the Left drinks its own Kool-Aid - it actually believes the nonsense about social constructionism (it actually believes the nonsensical idea that you can transform a society in a revolutionary way by changing words and social habits). That's why Communism is starting to fail now at the globalist/PC cult level, just as it failed at the national level numerous times in the 20th century: in fact, while some of the ideas that bind us in society are obviously socially constructed, the vast majority are grounded in, and partly shaped by our biology; and our biology forms a tether for the socially constructed ideas (they can "wander" a bit, but not too far).

Thought I'd just leave this here where @StreetlightX won't find it.

https://www.academia.edu/36644050/HORROR_VACUI_THE_MEANING_CRISIS_OF_THE_GLOBALIZED_WORLD_THE_CASE_OF_THE_EUROPEAN_UNION_._A_JUNGIAN_APPROACH

Agreed. To make a short story very long...

It's very difficult "to think straight" about race, class, and culture in the United States because of an unusually turbulent history. As is the custom around the world, the facts of history get paved over by stories with better PR value.

"Meaning what?" you ask.

Well, there's the actual history vs. the myth, to start with. The first chapter of American history was about colonialization by the English ruling class of the "wasteland" (meaning 'not developed') of North America. The business about pilgrims and puritans happened, but it wasn't the main event. Most of the white English folk that were shipped over here were riff-raff that the English RC wanted to see less of in Merry Olde England. Today they'd be called 'white trash'; they were indentured servants, low paid workers, etc. Then there were the English overseers, who were here to make sure production got and stayed underway.

We're still a long way from 1776; the English have already imported African slaves, already displaced and started killing off the natives. A lot of the indentured servants wandered off on their own to do whatever disreputable activities they could find. Meanwhile, the cavalier class of English overseers started turning into the southern planters, midatlantic merchants, German farmers, etc.

Once we wrested independence from England, and were soon sitting on this huge swath of land, we started receiving a lot of immigrants from Europe, and that lasted for about 150 years, into the first Qr. of the 20th Century. By this time the African Slaves had been freed, sort of, and were put under a reign of Jim Crow Fear Control. By 1918 we were a mixing bowl of Asians, Jews, Russians, Scandinavians, Italians, Greeks, Croats, Poles, Irish, Blacks, some South Americans, Native Americans (not too many left), and more besides.

Here we are, a century later, 2018. The myth has been stretched thin, and we have a not too large but very vocal batch of white people who feel guilty about not being a member of an oppressed colored group -- African, Asian, South American, Inuit, Tibetan--something--who self-flagellate over racism, sexism, classism, militarism, consumerism, capitalism, Marxism, and more. They could call themselves "white trash" -- in the minds of the plutocracy they are -- but they don't want to be oppressed that badly.

Are they to be believed? Are these social constructionist, SJW, leftists, college educated privileged SOBs to be taken seriously?

Well... they aren't entirely wrong. The US, like most nations, is run by a power elite that puts its interests first. Most power elites, red, yellow, black, or white, all follow that principle. There's that 90%/10% or 99%/1% income divide. The golden rule: them with the gold make the rules. Some people are oppressed. Actually, most people are oppressed, but the plaintiffs focus on certain oppressed groups -- everybody except straight white men, pretty much, because SWM couldn't possibly be oppressed.

They get some things wrong...

because "nation" is still largely about where you were born, and about living with people who are somewhat like you (because born from the same soil) - either in terms of genetics, ideas and culture, or both. — gurugeorge

The leftist-SJW-PC-types don't get right is the rootedness you are talking about. They are not, for some reason, rooted in the soil in which they were planted. What they share, but perhaps do not want to acknowledge, is:

They themselves are guilty of being a privileged group who have not surrendered their privileges.
Rational people do not surrender whatever few advantages they have.
People do not come to the US, legally or otherwise, to be leftist-SJW-PC types. They come to make money, mostly, by whatever means. That's pretty much the history of immigration.
Most white people, male and female, are as fucked over about as much as the various colored folk are.
If they want to talk about privileged people who really have something to give up, it's the 1% who have control of most of the wealth, or even the 1/100 of 1% in the world who have most of the wealth, many of whom are not white. There's no risk of that happening.

The United States is very much like other countries. Our mishmash of problems, virtues, and values is like--like, not the same as--other nations' mishmash.

The leftist-SJW-PC-types don't get right is the rootedness you are talking about. They are not, for some reason, rooted in the soil in which they were planted. — Bitter Crank

I think it's natural variation - the balance between the various psychological factors that people like Haidt, Pinker and Peterson talk about (e.g. high openness vs high loyalty). SJW types just don't have a strong feeling for their people, don't naturally have a strong sense of rootedness like I think most people do.

But there have always been people like that - it's just that formerly they didn't rule the commanding heights of culture.

The future will look back on Boomers with a great deal of contempt, as a generation of clowns: the generation that threw away centuries of accumulated culture and tradition that had been passed on down the generations, that took so long to build up. All thrown away in what amounted to a fit of adolescent rebellion by the first most spoiled generation in history.

The future will look back on Boomers with a great deal of contempt, as a generation of clowns: the generation that threw away centuries of accumulated culture and tradition that had been passed on down the generations, that took so long to build up. All thrown away in what amounted to a fit of adolescent rebellion by the first most spoiled generation in history. — gurugeorge

You have said this before, so I guess you're not joking. Do you really think that 75,000,000 baby boomers are all clowns? Come now! After all, a lot of these boomers are conservative culture keepers rather than leftist culture flushers. I'm a boomer, and I don't think I am clown like and haven't thrown away centuries of accumulated culture. (Besides, many of the types you are complaining about aren't even baby boomers.

I'm referring to the 60s generation who followed Marcuse, the New Left who became today's liberal establishment, etc.

The aetiology of it's quite simple, and in a way quite innocent: a generation born to parents who had lived through a tough war, and who wanted some peace and quiet, and to give their kids the best life possible at a time when technology was really coming into its own in terms of creating safer, healthier conditions than had ever existed before in the whole of human history.

Result: "arrested development" (as Churchill twitted socialism :) ). A generation without any real worries, with masses of disposable income, able to "live in the present" - in a way, the fact that such a thing was possible at all is quite a positive thing, it bodes well for a sort of Star Trekky future, it's like a foreshadowing of things to come. But unfortunately, at the time, it led to a whole bunch of narcissism and bad ideas, to a contempt for tradition and a desire to remake society (as encapsulated in Lennon's Imagine). A generation that thought it knew better than its parents.

I too am a very late Boomer (born 1959), so I'm familiar with the syndrome and take full responsibility for my formerly childish way of thinking :D

NABBALT and all that ofc, but it is the generation that frittered it all way, to the extent that people from that generation have been in a position to fritter away the European/American heritage for the past 40 years or so.

[Delete] @Baden

Although your post clarified nothing, I am touched by your devotion to the memory of Indian culture that the rest of us but for you would have forgotten.