Comment by nonrandomstring
4 years ago
>>We’re one country but we don’t share a single set of values.
> This is a popular sentiment, but I don't think it's true
My personal experience is of a diverse USA. In the late 90s I toured the states, a gig in a different city each night then back to the tour bus and off to the next one by daybreak. Okay, not a great sampling of ordinary life because on the road you mostly meet audiences, people in bars, diner waitresses etc. But while I recall how the USA looks superficially similar (giant cars on giant roads and the same brand logos in every city) it's not. I saw quite a range of poverty and wealth, segregation and integration, friendliness and aloofness, dense cities and wide open country. Much like travelling around Europe.
Maybe we're working off of different overloads for the word "values". While there is no doubt a great diversity of experience per all the things you mentioned, to me "values" is a very small set of first principles that maps closely (or is identical) to ethics. I believe there is little to no diversity in that regard.
That's an easy thing to say if you reduce "values" to lowest common denominator ethical abstractions that are pretty much shared among all human beings.
If you include e.g. "not wearing shoes in the house", "treating animals well", "Buddhist supremacy", or "proper lawn care" as values, however, things diverge quickly.
Half of your examples pertain to habits rather than values.
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I think the recent SCOTUS changes are all about core values, whether it's bodily autonomy, separation of church and state, indigenous rights, right of a suspect to know their rights, or the double-speak of states' rights when it comes to states limiting violent crime.
At least some of that probably touches on your core values, however you state them.
The partisan court has shown us how clearly the country is split along partisan lines. We are not the same.
And I am neither of those two partisan factions.
Unfortunately, one side wants to destroy our democracy while the other is completely feeble and inept at even pushing back against them. You still need to pick a side in our first past the post elections. Sitting independently in the middle is to sit and watch the world burn.
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I need to think about that. Maybe you're right. Not wishing to insult Americans with generalisations I'll just say I didn't get to know their values at a deep level.