Dryness and Developing Country Values

The Dryness of US Culture, and how once you see it, you can't unsee it

The arguments made about American culture in this time of Trump often tend to almost obsessively revolve around ruralism versus urbanism and liberalism versus conservatism. Much of the time the argument that the conservatives make tends to revolve around the idea that liberals are "polluting spiritual culture" and - what?- too arrogant and overly educated and snobby et cetera. Then of course there's also the additional and rather new thing that the modern conservatives are angry about , which is the LGBT community and the rising feminism movement, which to me seems to be growing by the day, and thus of course also more hated by the day, by conservative factions.

Now , the one thing I find very intriguing about all of tis is the way that , even throughout all of this arguing-- about what so many of us feel are such absolutely complex topics-- the idea that there is perhaps something much more simple below the surface of all these arguments never really seems to occur to many of us. We are utterly convinced , after all, that this is an unbelievably complex country and a complex time period, so on so forth. We thus tend - or so I feel anyways-- to shy away from simple and  straight forward explanations about things and the reason they are the way they are. And all of this of course brings me to the point I made in the title, about what I believe is the "dryness" of the traditional  US culture. What do I mean by it?

It's simple really: the traditional US culture that the conservatives here are , deep down, trying to preserve, and now getting very angry to see passing away, is not - I am forever saying - something that has just begun in this most recent election. It's something that has, in fact, been going on for years, it predates feminism, it predates the LGBT argument, it predates all of these modern things you think are so vital to the conservative and liberal argument , and what it really spirals back to , in my opinion, is that one word over and over again: Dryness. Dryness. Dryness.

The traditional Americans like to live a "dry" lifestyle and they like to live it more than, basically,  the entire rest of the white world at this point. What's a dry lifestyle of course some might ask? That's an easy answer: it's the lifestyle that is lived frugally, rather to the bone or the marrow, one that is not filled with too many things, one that does not revolve consistently around "pleasure" but rather grit and lack and of course strength. Its basically "Spartan" by design, and the idea is that the absolute best life is the one that is lived with as little as possible. No frills. No smoothness. No comfort. Just teeth to the grindstone. The conservative adoration of the men in uniform, whom Trump has, if you listened, consistently said "they all love me, I don't know why, but people in uniform, they all love me" ..goes straight back to this concept. Uniforms are dry, plain, bland, rigorous, and reserved, just like the citizens who wear them. Cops, soldiers, judges and politicians , so on and so forth, these are all generally rather colorless individuals (at least while doing their duties) who all have at least a few "Spartan details" about them. Especially in the eyes of the youths. Even myself as a writer and a diligent reader, the conservative American idea has, I must admit, actually helped me, at certain times, because the country is rather quiet, so what else are you going to do really besides read? 

And this conservative idea of dryness and wanting to remain plain and void of any flares or frills, and instead forever focused solely on strength and trying to fight pleasures, is, at the end of the day, the *real* origin of the entire conservative argument, whether they're able to see it or not, or even whether they themselves are actually living it in reality or not. All the traditional conservative heroes display the Spartan lifestyle in one way or another. John Wayne for example is essentially the shining star of a modern style Spartan. The entire idea surrounding him is that nothing ought to ever get too complicated, and you can always find a simple way to solve anything and everything. Camping and fishing is a rather popular pastime in the states, in my opinion, especially in conservative circles, you might notice, for this exact reason, and most Americans, even many who grew up in cities, often have Spartan details about them that I find they themselves don't even realize. It's literally been built straight into the Us Culture. It's a very important part of the countrys history... 

A lot of people might not believe me, of course, about what I am saying, because many people, even Americans themselves, have been brought  up with this very stereotypical idea that the American culture is all about materialism or plastic surgery, et cetera. They'll think I'm crazy, perhaps, trying to say that the US culture is very much, by my estimate, still quite a dry one , and not nearly as materialistic as many would make it sound, even now in 2017.  

The truth however is that, despite the stereotype about materialism, the dryness of the US culture reveals itself in a number of ways. Circumcision, for starters, which is a practice that literally cuts the wet part of the penis off, and is not performed in literally any other white nation aside from America, is the greatest example, and the one that I use most often to reveal the inherent and literal "dryness" of this culture, but there are also other, less serious and less shocking areas. The lack of appreciation for wine , for instance . The complete inability that most Americans have when it comes to really connecting with not just cities in their own country but literally  any culture outside of this one. The strange prohibitive history with alcohol. The way you'll find that most typical American men,unless they're trying to be different, tend to actually avoid wearing jewelry and have a disdain for it (not found in other cultures). The fact that this is one of the only developed countries still criminalizing prostitutes. The obsession with keeping any and all drugs that are thought of as "recreational outlawed . The obsession with the weight lifting culture and the physical fitness culture and the weapon culture as actual "passions". The lack of spices in the general American diet.  These are all enormous signs of the dry obsession we have here, as a culture. They are completely undeniable signs. Even if you participate and love those various ideas, the fact still remains that those are dry ideas. Trying to deny that they are dry interests is like trying to say that a man who doesn't drink isn't sober. There is no way around it: if you are a conservative American, you are inherently aligned with what is, for many people, an intolerably dry culture. It is not just an old time traditional culture your aligned with, nor just a religious one, it's also a dry one.It's perhaps easier to see if you are yourself a man, (I don't know) because the current conservative American idea of who is or who is not a "real man" is perhaps one of the most rigid currently at work in the entirety of the developed world. This is why the Americans, of course, seem to be having a particularly hard time getting their men to go to college, whereas the girls are currently shining examples of scholars in many fields. There is a disproportion here, statistically speaking, between educated women and then educated men, and this inherent dryness of the US culture in particular is the exact reason why. An American conservative man even looks at books as being almost too "wet" for him. There is a ticket of shame that the conservative American man , or even the conservative sympathizer, carries in his pocket , even just for being scholarly. Education is almost thought of in the States as a rather feminine realm.... 

Conservative Americans of course will explain to us that all of these things being the way they are ought to remain that way, however, and they'll tell you that a culture being in this way is the best way,  because, well, how else can a society really function, If these ideas about dryness and prohibiting 'bad things' and keeping folks strong and full of grit, and not flair,  aren't its main ingredients? And the truth is that their argument, even as a liberal, I'll admit, makes a whole lot of sense, and in many ways is completely and absolutely the truth. A dry country where no fun or water or "wetness" flows is oftentimes a very highly productive culture. They get things done. Conservatives are very right about that. The issue , however, is that the things that a dry culture tends to get done are...well...(and this is the biggest plot point) just the early things. Which means to say that a dry culture is often the ideal culture when a country is just beginning and it's in desperate need of a foundation, but once that foundation has been built, all the attempts to try and force the culture to remain dry - as it was in its beginning chapters- are not just futile, but also very dangerous. This is essentially because putting a country together in its early stages is just like putting together a house: when you're first putting the house together, you're generally in a rush to get it done, usually you're rather desperate, and there's no time for jerking around whilst you're In the process. Everyone in the grojp needs to be as focused as possible on getting that house built and up and running, so you can make sure you'll survive to the next day. Naturally at this point in the project, you're going to have a serious disdain for those people who can't lift the wood and who keep goofing off. There's no time for playing here . No time for looking up at the stars and asking silly philosophical questions. No time to Let your muscles get weak.  The house must be built.

Once the house is built, however, what happens next? I'm sure you already know: You start bringing the good stuff in. You run the water, the bath gets wet. Maybe you build a wine cellar. You start a library. You sleep on a feather bed instead of on the hard ground. You finally get a chance to occasionally relax. You have successfully constructed the house. Now you just have to make sure it keeps standing , which is also an important game ---but nothing at all like the initial game of getting it built.

The modern America is just like this theoretical house that has now been built, you see, and what the liberals essentially are, are the people who are now trying to bring the goodies in and decorate the house in a beautiful "wet" way. They're trying to bring in a nice bathtub, a couple paintings, some wine, a nicer bed, some flowers and some spices and fancier recipes to throw on the dinner table. They're trying to fill up the library with books.

The conservatives do not like them of course, and find them to be preposterous , because the American conservatives are still running with that old idea of what is and was pretty much a developing country in their heads. That's the heart of the whole American argument In fact : the conservatives have developing country values. They're sitting here right now long after the American house has been built, and they're still obsessively trying to apply the rules that everyone had to abide by back in the early foundational period, when all we had were just a few planks of wood on the ground, instead of a fully completed house.

Many people, myself included, often look off at other white countries in pure bewilderment , unable to comprehend how on earth they don't have these same hardcore conservatives that we have here. Somehow, I have often noticed,  it goes entirely over most people's heads that those European countries are basically infinitely older than our own. This is not just a small detail to be disregarded . It's enormous. And it's the entire reason that our American conservatives act the way they do, it's the only reason. Our country was essentially just built last night, and so we have now gotten stuck, for the time being, with this very odd set of conservatives who are absolutely convinced that what it means to be conservative and traditional is to have these dry values , which revolve around, as I said, getting the house built, rather than what to do once it's done and already built.

Many people of course are aware of the fact that our conservatives are stuck in the past, it's often said, and this won't come as news to people. Here's the catch though: Our conservatives are not just  stuck in any random "past". They're stuck in a very specific, wholly American, "developing country" past. The same cannot at all be said for literally any other west European country, all of which got past this stage a thousand years ago. When someone in england looks to their recent 1800s and 1700s "past" , they still see something that was fully  developed, fully urbanized, fully organized, fully built (by the standards of the time) and they don't see these 'developing country'  values. They don't see dust and tumbleweeds blowing by, or Indians running around in teepees et cetera.  The English house has been built for a millennium. London was once Londinium, and it began, literally, in the ancient world. 

When we look in America however, to our "recent past" we see , in fact, the Wild West.We see an undeveloped set of values, and these values, though the 1800s seem oh so "far away" to us, are still  kind of close to us, because that is the only past that many of us know or understand and have to look back to, and ironically Hollywood (now the big enemy of the conservative) is largely responsible for a lot of this misinterpretation of what the 'past' is , thanks to how often they endlessly focused on the Wild West developmental period, rather than the original colonies in the northeast, which though even our original colonies aren't as old as anything in England, they're still older than the mid-west and southeast cities et cetera. The argument between liberal and conservative values is very much an argument betweena developed country and an undeveloped country. Conservatives in the USA are looking backwards and seeing this traditional culture of dryness and foundation laying, and they don't understand that the time for that adherence to dryness and plainness and foundation building is long since past, since this country has now evolved, and been built, and is now more than ready, as they should be beginning to see, and  very eager - if not downright desperate -- to begin its next stages of further development...   

 This makes absolutely all the difference. And it's the entire reason and, I promise you, the only reason, why our conservatives act the way they do. 

That's pretty much the end of it ....