Culture is in the Air.........Defining culture

For our opening topic let's discuss cultures that are distinctly "American"...I love the diversity in the class, so for some there might be some actions and behaviors that we hadn't considered as a culture. Discuss those things that makes us unique and distinctive in the world. Some are looked on as positive attributes and some as reasons to want to hurt and harm us. 

Please share some examples..

I mentioned in the week's introduction that culture was a lot like air. It is all around us, but we really don't pay attention to it unless it is absent or smells odd. The same is true about our culture. We don't think much about it, and we go through our lives feeling that things are the way they are because that's the way they ought to be. This week, start sniffing the cultural air around you. What do you learn about our culture? Identify some things that are distinctively "American." Don't just use material culture (objects and physical symbols), but include non-material culture such as language, values, ideology, ethics, behaviors, and the like. What is it that makes us distinctive in the world?