The Americans are not a proper civ

[RallyK]

I wouldn't call this a good influence when European people find American superficial, prouds and without depth or real culture (gastronomy, litterature, philosophy, or even knowledge of its own language when I see all the mistake "native" American speaker make when they write),

Without real culture? That surely isn't true.
Gastronomy: When you think of Irish or Italian food what do you think of? Would it surprise you to learn that both potatoes and tomatoes are indigenous to the Americas? I suppose you think we eat fastfood all the time. The next time I enjoy a plate full of BBQ spare ribs, turnip greens, and sweet corn-on-the-cob I'll be sure to remember how European or Oriental I am being.

Literature: Melville, Poe, Twain, Crane, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Beck, Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis... How many Nobel prize laureates have I named? I don't think any country could argue that we neglect the arts.

Philosophy: (Western) Philosophy is strange in that it really transcends nationalities. How about Peirce, James, and Dewey? Without getting to far in depth I would say we have made some contributions? I'd even throw T Jefferson into the mix.

Language: Let's not judge the American culture on the gramatical mistakes of the younger CFC members in the forums.

It's really strange to see someone say that the Americans are not a civilization because they are a mix of people from other countries, while others comment that they can recognize an American from a glance before he/she speaks.

My dictionary gives the definition of a civilization as "an advanced state of human society, in which a high level of culture, science, industry, and government has been reached." I think the American civilization should be represented in Civ3. I used a US government dictionary though, so they could be lying to me.

 

[Julien]

Originally posted by RallyK

Without real culture? That surely isn't true.
Gastronomy: When you think of Irish or Italian food what do you think of? Would it surprise you to learn that both potatoes and tomatoes are indigenous to the Americas? I suppose you think we eat fastfood all the time. The next time I enjoy a plate full of BBQ spare ribs, turnip greens, and sweet corn-on-the-cob I'll be sure to remember how European or Oriental I am being.

Literature: Melville, Poe, Twain, Crane, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Beck, Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis... How many Nobel prize laureates have I named? I don't think any country could argue that we neglect the arts.

Philosophy: (Western) Philosophy is strange in that it really transcends nationalities. How about Peirce, James, and Dewey? Without getting to far in depth I would say we have made some contributions? I'd even throw T Jefferson into the mix.

Language: Let's not judge the American culture on the gramatical mistakes of the younger CFC members in the forums.

All right, I was a little bit hot when I say that. I didn't mean to be offensive. But to reply to your comments, BBQ spareribs are also European (in any country I guess) and very much Australian as well. I saw more sweet corn on the pop in India than anywhere else (even though, I'd not call it gastronony as you can hardly call a snack gastronomy). I know like everybody that potatoes and tomatoes (and tobacco) come from America, but what does it have to do with American people ? Is it because sugar cane is American (and with really speak of the continent, not the US) that any sweet that contain it is a product of American culture (agriculture, maybe ) ? Irish and Italian food as you name them are European, the name just tell it. You'd better have taken Texan or Mexican food as a reference.

In Litterature, many (smaller) European countries have a much longer list of famous names than the giant America. Everything is realtive, as Albert said, so relate to the size of the country as well. Portugal, Belgium, Hungary, Czech Rep. or Greece have 10millions people each, Sweden 8, Switzerland 7, Danemark or Finland 5, Norway 4 and Ireland 3 ! You put them all together and you still have less than a third of the US in population. Single out France, Italy, England or Germany and I wouldn't have enough of one page to cite just the famous names. And Shakespeare, Moliere, Goethe, Dante, Herder, Voltaire, Dickens, Heide, or any others didn't get any Nobel prize. It's too you for that.

Same comment for philosophy. Well I studied philosophy, it's pretty much a European thing anyway.

 

[Ethics]

Are we using the anthropological definition of culture or the humanistic version?

Edward Tylor's "given life of a given people"(anthropological)

or

Mathew Arnold's "the best that a people can produce"(humanist)

 

[Robespierre]

Who the hell says that someone is or isn't a "proper" civilization anyway? I mean, you could have questioned whether they were a "real" civilization, but "proper"? Sounds like a Britticism to me...
just another diehard fan of King George who's still sore over 1776.

America is in the game for gameplay's sake - what's more fun than invading the United States, sacking the government, and lining up all those Washington bureacrats in front of a firing squad? Or capturing your home town and repealing those damned public intoxiation laws?

 

[stormerne]

(To remind you guys of one of the rules of the Civ3 forums
Topics must start closely Civ3 related and must stay that way.

I notice this thread has ceased being constructive as far as Civ3 is concerned. It's gone on for a lot of posts and there's only so many times people can say "the U.S.A should be included in CIV III" before it starts getting tedious. The only new interesting stuff really deserves to be posted somewhere in the Colosseum forums.

WarAndPeace said, "what's the point of this, Civ just a game not national pride". More specifically, whereas national pride may (or may not) be a good thing (depending on your point of view), the Civ3 forums are not the place to flaunt it or debate it.

Thread closed