Two American Traditional Culture and Modern Design
01. European History of the United States
When we face the skyscrapers of the United States, we often ask these questions: What are the skyscrapers without personality? What is supporting them? Are they representative of American culture? When we continue to deepen these issues, we will come to a new interpretation - the United States is not a skyscraper everywhere, under the skyscrapers, there are also a large number of European classicism; also active in the European culture and Art, although this culture and art is no longer the original European culture and art. Therefore, we can conclude that supporting the culture of skyscrapers in the United States is not just the American commercial culture. The starting point of American commercial culture is still the so-called "ocean culture" in Europe. In other words, the essence of American modern art design is still the variation of European culture.
We know that the U.S. is a colonial country with only 200 years of history, or an immigration country. Even if Americans are all elites, it is impossible for them to establish a deep and profound record in two hundred years. The world has a huge influence on the cultural system. This point, even the Americans themselves do not believe it. As mentioned earlier, Americans believe that “without writing the history of Indians, the history of the United States could not be written; without talking about Indian culture, the contemporary culture of the United States lacks a foundationâ€, which also contradicts the United States. The fact that culture is far from being formed. What is the cultural foundation of the United States? The above point of view is just a rhetoric. The true foundation is European culture. Because of the cultural causes of colonialism, it is Europe's so-called "ocean culture."
As we all know, after the conclusion of our discussion in the previous section, we ended Europe in the “dark medieval†and began to embark on the path of capitalist development. The madness of the primitive accumulation of capital has caused European capitalism to embark on the plunder of resources from the outset. The road, then, is the most distinctive feature of entering capitalism, that is, entering the period of colonialism, that is, the era of the so-called "Columbus discovered the New World." In his own diary, Columbus said that he prayed day and night to God for giving him gold-producing land. He wrote: "Gold is an amazing thing. Whoever has it can control everything he wants. With gold, it is also possible to send souls to heaven." It is this. The “golden aspirations†drove the European colonialists - merchants, navigators and feudal lords began crazy expansion activities around the world. The American continent has thus become a target of plunder by European colonialists. Colonialists have gone to the American continent to "gold rush." As Marx said, “The discovery of gold and silver origins in the Americas, the indigenous people were annihilated, were slaved, buried in mines, the East Indian conquests and lootings that were beginning, and Africa was transformed into a commercial black hunting ground. The dawn of the age of capitalist production was expressed.†(Das Kapital, vol. 1, vol. 948) “The markets of East India and China, the colonization of the Americas, the trade in colonies, the means of exchange, and the increase in general merchandise, The seafaring industry and industry have risen unprecedentedly, ""opening up a new place of activity for the emerging bourgeoisie." ("Communist Manifesto") It is in this situation that the Americas began the era of Europeanization.
The European colonialists' Europeanization of the Americas is an out-and-out Europeanization. It is from the Europeanization of ethnicity to the full Europeanization of politics, economy and culture. Europeans with a golden dream poured into the Americas. The sparsely populated Aboriginal people were either annihilated or driven away. Millions of European immigrants flocked with their political systems, means of livelihood and cultural traditions to occupy the territory of Aboriginal people. By 1835, European immigrants in North America had reached 13.8 million. The ultimate result of this great migration is the Europeanization of the Americas. With the Europeanization of race, the inevitable result is political, economic, and cultural Europeanization.
European colonialists brought their own national political system to the land they invaded. This kind of political system is also very diverse with the colonialists' home countries. For example, Spain was dictatorially governed by the Madrid court. Naturally, the Spanish colony was ruled in the same way. The French colony was also subject to authoritarian rule, because the power there was concentrated in the hands of the Governor and the local administrator; the Governor was responsible for the defense of each colony, and the local administrator was dealing with economic affairs. All British colonies have elected representative institutions. This reflects the parliamentary system of the United Kingdom at the time.
The Europeanization of the economic sphere is as common as the Europeanization of the political sphere. As far as European capitalist powers are concerned, their economic purposes and methods were basically the same. They believed in the mercantilist principle that made the colonial economy subordinate to the economy of the home country. In the 18th century, the actual rulers of the European capitalist powers in the American colonies had already possessed a powerful and mature ruling power. Thus, they began to separate from their home countries. In 1776, the call of the rulers of the colonies to mobilize armed forces led to prolonged armed uprisings. From 1776 to 1837, 60 years, these uprisings engulfed all the colonies of the American continent, leading to independence. The establishment of the United States of America led to the relative independence of Canada, a Commonwealth country. In fact, the American Revolutionary War is a struggle that seeks both political independence and economic independence. Since then, the United States has obtained large swathes of territory through various means: by purchasing "Louisiana to purchase land" from France, it has obtained the Mississippi River Valley; through aggression and purchase, it has obtained the southwest region from Mexico; it has negotiated with Britain and won In the northwest region, Alaska was acquired from Russia through the purchase... In these new areas, Americans built a series of states and finally increased to 50 states to form the United States of America today.
The U.S. economy has developed at a rapid pace between the War of Independence and the Civil War. This is especially true for industries that have adopted protection tariffs since 1816. In the textile industry, the number of spindles has increased from 87,000 in 1810 to 250,000 in 1820 and it has risen to more than 12 million in 1860. The steel industry has expanded from the eastern coastal areas to the west and arrived in Lake Superior in 1860. . At the same time, the roads have been improved and ditches and railroads have been built. In 1830, the railroads did not exist and by 1860 the railway had risen to more than 30,000 miles. After the Civil War, due to the opening of the west and the completion of the transcontinental railroad, a large amount of grain and various raw materials were transported by rail and ship to the rapidly growing urban centers in the eastern United States and western Europe. At the same time, millions of immigrants have provided a large amount of cheap labor for American industrialists and farmers, further expanding the domestic market. In 1860, the United States ranked fourth among the world's industrial countries, and it ranked first in 1894. From 1860 to 1900, the number of industrial enterprises increased threefold; the number of industrial wage labourers increased fourfold; the value of industrial manufactured goods increased sevenfold; the total industrial investment increased ninefold. In 1890, the value of industrial manufactured goods was equal to the value of agricultural products. By 1900, it was more than double the value of agricultural products. In 1860, industry was still largely concentrated in the eastern coastal regions, but by 1900 it had expanded to the Great Lakes region, and it also extended to many areas in the south and west.
Europeans believe that the development of the U.S. economy is the result of Europeanization. Europe, to a large extent, provides the United States with manpower, capital, technology, and markets. For example, after the American colonies had won independence, their trade with Britain had not declined but had risen sharply. 1765 was the last year of normal trade before the outbreak of the War of Independence. In that year, the value of goods exported by the United Kingdom to 13 colonies was 1,944,114 pounds. In 1784, it was the first year after the war returned to normal. In this year, the value of British exports to 13 colonies was 3,679,467. Between 1820 and 1830, 36% of the total U.S. exports were shipped to the United Kingdom, and 43% of U.S. imports were from the United Kingdom. During the 19th century, especially when laying railways, the capital of Europe—mainly the capital of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany—flowed continuously into the United States. By 1914, total foreign investment was no less than 7.2 billion U.S. dollars.
With the Europeanization of race, politics, and economy comes cultural Europeanization. American culture is less influenced by indigenous Indians than Latin American culture. The main reason is that American Indians are fewer in number and are also less developed. However, the influence of Indians cannot be completely ignored: 25 of the 50 states in the United States are named after Indian; in English, there are at least 300 Indian vocabulary; Indians have many inventions, including deerskin. Boots, canoes, toboggans and snowshoes have all been used.
Similarly, the United States is also influenced by African culture. Blacks account for 10% of the total population of the United States, while Indians only account for 0.5%. The influence of black people is mainly in folk culture. The first is folk tales, such as the ones popularized by Joel Chandler Harris in "Uncle Rahms Epic Collection"; the other is folk music, including so-called hymns and secular songs such as labor. The songs of the chanters, prisoners, railways and ships, the narratives such as Frank and Johnny and John Henry, and world famous jazz music.
Although American culture contains the components of these Indian cultures and African cultures, it is mainly from Europe. However, its European characteristics have undergone drastic changes in its transplantation and adaptation process. In the more profound field of formal literature and art, the Americans of the 19th century obviously felt that they were not as Europeans of the time—this is a very good reason. Americans are busy in subduing the wilderness. They simply have no time to pretend to be gentle and aesthetically pleasing. In addition, the Puritan tradition holds that hard work and saving souls are more valuable than artistic cultivation. In 1835, the French traveler Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: “In addition to the week’s return to worship, people who spend every day of the week on earning money have nothing to entertain with the comedy goddess. "Until 1820, at least 80% of books in the United States were imported from the United Kingdom. By 1830, this figure was still as high as 70%. For European intellectuals, American culture does not exist. The British critic Sidney Smith’s attitude is quite representative. In 1820, he asked: “Anyone across the globe, who read an American book, saw an American drama, and saw a United States? Or a statue of the United States?†This kind of supreme attitude gradually absorbed by the Americans themselves. Henry Adams wrote: "Over a lifetime, people have seen that Americans always bow their knees to Europeans in literature."
As a result, Americans of the 19th century conscientiously and diligently imitated European culture. They went to London, Paris, Vienna and Rome to study, built Greek-style sanctuaries as public buildings and churches, introduced European musicians and singers, and helped establish opera houses and orchestras. Some wealthy giants sent agents to Europe to buy works of European painters from the 18th century. Some people even bought the castle, removed the stone from the castle and built it again in the United States. As expected, these efforts did not leave a deep impression on most European intellectuals; they still despise Americans and think that Americans are a “being weak, spurned, guessing, calculating, betting, and playingâ€. Slaves, people who love shallow drinking and slow drinking."
Near the end of the 19th century, this attitude began to have some obvious changes. "With all the weakness in Europe, and with the last vestiges of the feudal culture disappearing, Walt Whitman and Mark Twain, especially Mark Twain, became very true American writer, their style " It is both local, western and North American continent." With the end of the 19th century, European intellectuals have increasingly noticed a group of increasingly prominent American stars: John Dewey, William James, Oliver Wendel, Holmes, Thorstein van Buren and William Dean Howells. However, the guardianship in Europe is still difficult to shake. At the end of the 19th century, Henry Cabot Lodge was still able to write: "The first step for Americans to start their writing career is to be self-styled as a Briton, so as to be recognized, not to be recognized by the British, but to obtain it. Nationals' recognition."
From the above discussion, we have seen that in culture
