Jessi Snider

July 12, 2008

(1 hour and 35 minutes of writing)

The Dominant Culture:  Part Past, Part Future

The dominant culture of America is an elusive beast, amorphous and ever-morphing.  With one foot in capitalistic innovation, moving it continuously into the future, the dominant culture also keeps one foot solidly entrenched in the past, maintaining the ideals of our Protestant forefathers.  The story of America centers on its incredible ability to allow for diversity while still demanding continuity and some semblance of consensus, if not in ideologies, at least in emphasizing upward mobility, freedom through education, and hard work.  Yet while it is hard to pin down, the dominant culture can be abstracted from the narratives of immigrants, for when witnessed through their eyes, the dominant culture takes on distinct characteristics and its “unmarked” nature can come into high relief. 

            The dominant culture tends to resist or elude analysis because it is essentially “unmarked,” instead being characterized by cleanliness, odorlessness, colorlessness, and even blandness.  In contrast, immigrants initially appear “marked,” some with a preference for spicy foods, some dressing in brightly colored ornate outfits, and most speaking another language.  Anzia Yezierska in “Soap and Water” expresses frustration at the America penchant for the unmarked, declaring that she had “suffered the cruelty of their cleanliness and the tyranny of their culture to the breaking point” (106).  Regarded in this manner, it would seem that these values were contrived solely to torment newcomers, to discipline them and beat them into spotless submission.  More than just an “in-group” “out-group” differentiating mechanism, the “unmarked” nature of the dominant culture, like so much else, is historically determined and situated and while it may be a “tyranny” upon those unused to its rigors, it is merely carrying on traditions rooted deeply in Western culture.

            Yet there is a progressive nature to this preference for blandness and functionality which can be witnessed in Jonathan Raban’s “Hunting Mister Heartbreak:  A Discovery of America.”  As he walks through Macy’s, he is simultaneously fascinated by the high-tech aspects of the American shopping experience, yet finds the “’furnishings’ disappointingly dull in themselves,” which convey leisure in a decidedly dull, utilitarian fashion (345).  America, in its phenomenal marketing extravaganza, has found ways to make the “unmarked” preferences of the dominant culture status symbols to admire, though in and of themselves they are neither unique nor flashy. He witnesses firsthand that perpetually, innovation and markets will push on, selling simplicity and dreams.

            The dominant culture is assimilated to; it does not assimilate.  While it incorporates some aspects of other cultures into its own, it never fully cedes its identity to that of another, mirroring the Jews of the Bible’s Exodus story.  When God ordered Moses to lead the Jews out of bondage and into Canaan, the land of “milk and honey,” it was emphasized that the Jews were not to mingle with the native inhabitants of the land.  Instead, they were to maintain their own traditions and culture, separate from that of the Canaanites.  The Pilgrims, centuries later emulate a similar model of mass migration by moving to a new land with no intention of assimilating to the ways of the inhabitants already present.  Exodus 15.15 declares that the “inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away,” which is essentially what happened to the Native Americans as European immigrants continually flowed in, bringing with them disease and war.  The American dominant culture bears the heritage of these mass migrations, for it changes only on its own terms and has established a fairly impenetrable fortress, only surmountable to those willing to play by its rules.

            The dominant culture, like the Jews and the Pilgrims, retains its dominance by the written word:  contracts, covenants, deeds, and laws.  It is often said that the United States “is a nation of laws, not of men,” meaning that ideals trump individuals, and that the Constitutionality or legality of something far exceeds the power of a bribe or of merely being “connected.”  The Jews in the Exodus story were empowered likewise by the Scriptures they carried with them wherever they went while the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact to govern them in their new land.  Emphasis in all three cases is placed on literacy.  The Jews were to worship no graven image while the Pilgrims admired “the plain style” in all things.  The American dominant culture has seized upon these “unmarked” traditions, privileging the written word, retaining the preference for understated elegance, and holding others, perhaps unknowingly, to these standards.

            The Pilgrims’ mass migration to North America, bringing with them the written word, Protestant simplicity, and no wish to assimilate, set the stage for the American dominant culture of today.  While it is easy to praise today’s dominant culture and find great fault with it simultaneously, perhaps it is preferable to merely see it truly and label it:  its manifestations, foundations, and progressions.  Revealing an “unmarked” group in such a fashion is an accomplishment indeed, and just as the immigrant narrative perhaps reveals “the American dream” better than any other source, it too reveals the ideals and people that have made the dream narrative so attractive, however questionable the reality of that dream may ultimately be.