Parameters of Western Culture

I'm curious to see how others would attempt to encapsulate such an immense project as defining Western Culture. I find it very interesting that Benedict chooses to focus on the more minute, centralized, yet varied primitive cultures. These groups rely on distinctive cultural characteristics to carry on daily life, one closely linked to the land, spirituality, and creativity. Where does the West reach for its sense of dailiness, spirituality, artistic merit in a constantly changing world? Obviously the moderns tapped into the primitive culturescapes and in some instances the influence is reciprocated. With that said, I believe a series of questions is in order.

Do the moderns affiliate with the primitive as a neatly articulated culture, as people, and/or subjects (not exclusively in the imperial sense) and does their assimilation of otherness distort or disrupt the utility of primitive culture as it adheres in its own element? Is primitivism a cultural grab-bag used to revitalize moments of sterility in Western artistic tradition?

Furthermore, how do we define Western Culture, Americanness, Nationhood? Is being American simply sharing a land mass with other people or are there cultural demarcations setting us apart? What is homogenous about Americanness or Westernness? How about flags, tanks, spaceships, fences, planes, dogs, wives, kids, pies, hunting, honky-tonk, suburbia, malts, McDonalds, baseball football basketball, cowboy hats, personal freedom, models, beer, celebrities, reality shows, and the list could, but needn't, go on. These terms are all very arbitrary and, I know, cliched, but I think people still associate with this crap on some level. So, is there anything authentic about the experience of being in and of America? Are these the emblems comprising the Modern American totem?

Maybe culture is more suited to families or small groups, which may or may not reflect any type of idealized, national cultural consciousness. Maybe it's more suitable for culture to exist in the local rather than on a national level, especially in a place as diverse and (un)consciously fragmented as America.

I'm very interested in contemporary pop music and its endless permutations. Today, many American bands are resorting to a revitalized folk tradition which incorporates many of the technological advancements of the age (loop stations, recorders, samplers etc.). This creates a multi-layered sound which, paired with elements such as spiky, West-African guitar riffs, hand-claps and multi-part harmonies, begs for a revisitation of music as a communal experience while also consolidating sound as community property. This conflux of influences fixes the music in the ahistorical.

Sometimes I wonder if this is a new way to initiate what one critic calls an "unrooted internationalism," or what Dave Longstreth of the Dirty Projectors humorously refers to as "ethnomusicological folk music." In some ways I think of it as the purest use of technology for pleasure in shared experience.

On the flipside, I'm not sure what any of this music has to do with the styles it incorporates from around the world. And finally, what does it mean for American artists to revert back to a "folk" culture--especially one where the music or art perhaps doesn't carry the same utility as it did in its natural environment or historical context? I don't want to stray any further so I'll end with something tangible. Enjoy the links.

http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/221-yeasayer/1
http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/247-dirty-projectors/1
http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/1984-vampire-weekend-at-pitchfork-music-festival-08/3
http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/17-pitchfork-music-festival-07/16
http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/17-pitchfork-music-festival-07/5
http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/7-pitchfork-music-festival-08/19
http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/1989-animal-collective-at-pitchfork-music-festival-08/3