What America Means to Me: Mediocre Titles

American culture is a mixture of everything from around the world. One could say that America is a veritable "best of..." collection of the rest of the world. J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur said that "He [the American] is either an European, or the descendant of an European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country." America is not just one homogeneous group of people, with all the same thoughts, and beliefs. America is different people who have all come together to put on display to the rest of the world our relative diversity. We are basically Epcot's World Showcase. De Crevecoeur goes on to say, "I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations." This just continues on with the point I was making that America is a conglomeration of many different people, whom all come together and create a society and a culture that is uniquely the same. It was like Vanilla Coke. We know Coca-Cola, we love vanilla, and put them together and you have magical nectar. But, there is a downside. This smorgasbord of great things leads us down a slippery slope. What is great becomes almost as democratic as the Presidential elections. Once this happens, democracy comes along and squashes the things that may truly be great, and fills it with what is democratically great.

Alexis de Toqueville gives America one of its most grand backhanded compliments by essentially saying, in his book Democracy in America that America has a democracy that has made us wonderfully mediocre. But don't worry, de Toqueville later apologized by saying, "I'm sorry you thought it was a backhanded compliment." But to be fair, de Toqueville does have a point. Elections can sometimes come down to popularity contests. In 2000, for example, Al Gore may have had more experience and a better knowledge of the inner workings of Washington, but Bush won for other reasons-foremost, a likeable personality. America is a society that tries hard to keep as many people as they can from "falling between the cracks" and lagging behind, even at the expense of the greatest among us.

Take, for example, a school in Wyandotte, Michigan. This is not a rich school district with many gifted students. This is a school that can have 95% of its senior class graduate, most don't go to college, or go to a community college. Few go to a good university (like Michigan State, or Detroit-Mercy), and maybe two or three go to a great school (like Michigan, Northwestern, or Stanford), and once every three or four years a student gets accepted to an Ivy League school. This school could tailor its curriculum toward the best and brightest and have 20 Wolverines and five Ivy Leaguers a year, but the less advanced students would find it to be too much of a challenge and fail classes and drop out. The school's graduation rate might be around 70%. In the end, although the ivy leaguers are nice, the school will take the graduation rate, because they want to see as many people pass though the halls and walk out with a diploma in their hands. Oh, and also every once in awhile someone goes to Ohio State to get a B.A. in Grunting.

However, this all goes along with what de Toqueville says, "The nation, taken as a whole, will be less brilliant, less glorious, and perhaps less strong; but the majority of the citizens will enjoy a greater degree of prosperity, and the people will remain quiet, not because it despairs of melioration, but because it is conscious of the advantages of its condition." It is a conservative way of taking greatness. Americans sacrifice the chances of becoming great at the near guarantee that everything will be okay, and that the average American will not suffer. It is a type of American social contract. And this is why Vanilla Coke, the magical nectar was taken off the shelves-because the American public wouldn't know good if it had the word "good" stamped on it. However that is only because Americans would be suspicious of the blatant display of the word good, and think they were being tricked.

So, to answer the question of "what does it mean to be an American?" would take a much longer paper than this. However, you can count on America being diverse and different, but also similar. America becomes great through the collections of all the things that are great from many different cultures. However, all these people having a voice in a Democratic society holds back the truly great people who might have been world shakers. Americans are the ultimate hedge bettors, and America is the world's largest hedged bet. But, that's okay, because for the most part, everything will work out all right. Well, all except for the absence of Vanilla Coke. But then again, I could always put a few drops of vanilla into a regular Coke. That way, everybody's happy!

Crevecoeur, Hector St. John De. "What is an American?" 1781, (accessed January 31, 2007).

De Toqueville never said this. I made it up for comical purposes. If you don't get it, ask me.

Toqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. 1835, 1840, (accessed January 31, 2007).

Vice President Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama