Priyanka Chandraker Lack of Culture Creates Violence The word America brings forth ideas of liberty, individualism, and

the freedom to live out a dream. These cherished virtues have caused many people from all over the world to immigrate to the United States in the hopes for a better life. Each different group has brought over its own cultures and traditions, strangely leaving America with the anomaly of having so many separate, different cultures that there is no one overarching, truly American culture that reflects present day society. This has created the lack of a strongly united society, and furthermore, the true implications of this eccentricity are lack of a moral standard which keeps society in check and the creation of a violent nation which places greater emphasis on self than on the whole. America was created as a nation which fled the oppressive British crown and allowed its people to have the freedom to choose how to live. As such, generations of immigrants have come to the United States for the chance to make it big from rags to riches and to live without the fear of a dictating government. We have become an amalgam of many different people with completely separate backgrounds and traditions, thus eliminating the existence of an overarching race, religion, or indication of homogenous society. This means that all different groups are free to practice their ethnic backgrounds without subjugation; however, it does not mean that our multiculturalism necessarily brings us together, because the conventions of one heritage do not unite those of another. So, we Americans are not tied by the same old cultures which have been passed down generation to generation; instead, we come together and feel

strongly about the rights given in the documents written two hundred years ago which structure our uniquely American privileges. The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution enumerate the birthrights of the American people and therefore set the values of this nation: each man is equal to another, the written law provides a moral standard which we must abide by, and that murder, lying, and stealing are wrong. While these are all very existent protectors of our daily liberties, we easily forget about them since they are the basic and ever-present principles that have always been present. Without the statements and freedoms in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, we would not live as we do today, but since we expect the privileges granted in these documents and do not fathom having them taken away, the words which were once grand, sweeping gestures of insurrection and bravery have now been reduced to the banalities of everyday life. In other words, the one thing that we all have in common has been generally overlooked because we dont think about these rights in daily life due to their omnipresence throughout our entire lives. Arguably, there are some elements of culture which can be attributed as specifically American, such as baseball, apple pie, and Thanksgiving, but none of these are rooted deeply enough to unite an entire body of over 300 million people. Over time, America has come to value rugged youth, enthusiasm for riches, selfreliance, and individualism over family, tradition, and hierarchy. Due to our historyrevolution, westward expansion, and civil warwe have created generations of bold, rebellious Americans who are not afraid to fight for what they believe in. In return, we have had much social and political progress and are generally open to liberal viewpoints, but this has all been done at the expense of the so-called collective ideals, which are still present in homogenous Eastern

societies. In India, for example, it is not uncommon for children to live with grandparents, aunts, and uncles, because the entire family is seen as one whole unit, and the concept of the separate, individual nuclear families does not exist. A large joint family establishes a safe atmosphere, where children are taught values, the worth of an honest living, and form extremely tight bonds with relatives because everyone works, worships, eats and cooperates communally under one roof (IndiaNetzone). The tight kinship, in and of itself, forms social order, where people base their actions on how it would impact their families, rather than thinking of themselves solely as individuals. The wholeness and sense of large community which comes together to foster a child helps eliminate many developmental problems of alienation or loneliness which could reprise and cause future violence or aggression. America has a vastly distinct and separate populace structure than any homogenous Eastern country. Manifest Destiny and the political impact of the Jacksonian Era created the individual, elevated the moral status of violence in society by relating guns to heroism and the ability to expand westward, and paved the idea of using armaments for self-defense. The concept of self-defense and needing protection from others, in itself, implies that there exists a fear of other people because those individuals are separate, estranged, and may have wrongful intentions. This was when the American people transitioned from being a whole society to being a collection of individuals within a larger group. Our rugged individualism, accompanied with the lack of common background due to the modern super-multiculturalism, has transitioned into a country whose people are almost alienated from one another on the fundamental level.

Without strong connections to keep us stable and together, the American people have become morally decrepit and susceptible to greed, violence, and wrongfulness. Everywhere from the news stations to the cinema screenshows violence and action as exciting and has normalized these into daily life. Furthermore, the violence rate is actually significantly higher in America than in other developed countries, a fact which can be directly related to the overall nature of the violent society we have now created. Disputably, it would not be accurate to say that the lack of an overarching culture creates violence, but this, accompanied with our constant exposure to the violent media has led us to accept violence and to view the Second Amendment as a vital part of life in order to protect ourselves and our basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Essentially, the lack of common customs is directly correlated with the existence of violence in our nation. If we did have a sound foundation upon which our similarities were structured upon, the communities in this country would be tighter-knit and our violence rate would be significantly lowered.