Thanks for your reply. The bit about American and creativity was a short piece on the radio. They came at it from a slightly different angle, that's why I remembered it.
But there is no doubt, American is a violent place. I mean just this recent experience of me getting acquainted with my two guns was kind of strange. Having a gun can imbue one with a sudden sense of power. And that feeling in the hands of an immature kid, without much discipline doesn't make for a good outcome. I defer to your analysis of content on TV etc. I tend not to be a large consumer. I watch for a few minutes and then I find I've spent more time than I planned. Now, lately we've been going to a lot more movies. The independents. So, I think I'm developing more of a critical eye along those lines. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : From: "steve.sundur@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2014 1:24 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: It turns out that America is more insane than I thought Not really my conversation, but I thought it was also mentioned that diversity plays a factor. Holland is probably more homogeneous in terms of population make up, and probably has a higher per capita income than the places in the US where there is more gun violence. While the higher income may be true for many people, it isn't for all. And according to the last figures I've seen for both countries, the U.S. and the Netherlands have around the same percentage of their population representing European Caucasian descent. The Netherlands is the most *diverse* place I've ever lived in terms of seeing people from other countries and cultures "settle in" and become Dutch citizens. Over 40% of the population of Leiden are ex-pats from some foreign country. On the other hand, I just read or heard somewhere that when it comes to traits that make people more prone to be creative, the US, is at the top. So, for all the problems, there are quite a few offsets. I would have to see the actual study and examine its protocols and the measures used to define "creativity" before I'd believe this. If you know of the source of the actual study (*not* the Abstract or a pop writeup of it), I'd be interested in seeing it. And let's face it, you feel the same way as evidenced by the fact that you are a large consumer of American culture, much of it violent based. Onscreen violence doesn't bother me. Never has. So I look for *quality* in the movies and TV I watch. Whether that quality content is violent or not is not a factor. It's just that violence *sells*, which is why there is so much of it, whether you're watching Dutch TV or French TV or American TV. The producers are afraid to make much of anything that isn't a clone of something that was already popular elsewhere, or in another form. But if you were trying to say that I consider America the "most creative" in the arts, that is simply not true. I consider a tiny, tiny portion of American TV and movie content good enough to watch. The best and most consistently creative television in the world is being made in Denmark right now, with other parts of Scandinavia close behind. Many of the TV series you probably consider "American" and thus "creative" were pure ripoffs of Danish TV series, from "The Killing" to "The Bridge" to (soon) "Mammon." There is no "creativity" in remaking a foreign TV series, and succeeding only in making a shittier version in English.
