Or just a different culture?
I was blessed to talk with an Italian girl going to school at our high school. She was very verbal about her belief that Americans have no culture. "I knew before I came here Americans had no culture, but I had no idea it was this bad!"
As someone who takes education VERY seriously and varies the nonfiction books I read into a wide range of subjects, I was a little curious about this remark. Not that long ago was I in college; there are plenty of cultured people there. I participate in community theater and attend the symphony, my best friend is a ballet dancer/artist/poet/medical lab technician, and my brother is a cuisine and wine snob. (And no one here makes a great deal of money -- forget that.) We're so cultured, we're practically yogurt.
She talked about the kids in the high school. I said, "Oh, well, you're just in a public high school. Everything is mainstreamed. It's all 'pop-culture.' That's your problem." Still, she had some points. "Americans watch stupid television, not educational things on television! And the music and the books they read!" She had a huge list.
She mentioned the people in New York city being like her, though.
I think I realized the problem right there.
She came from an almost entirely urban culture (Old Europe) and is not living in a very rural area. There's your problem. She could have traveled to a rural area in England and have felt the same way. Or a rural area in Denmark. Or Spain. There are places where you'd have to travel a bit to go to the theater or to a museam, albeit fewer than in the states. We're used to 30 minute, 1 hour, sometimes 2 hour commutes. It's unheard of in Europe on a daily basis. They have fingertip-access to a world of culture that's ages old.
I just thought I'd defend our poor little rural area against being uncultured as well. In case of a terrorist attack that would knock out electrical power, city water and services, and other amenities dependent on social living (groceries, et cetera), the culture that would survive most easily would be the rural cultures. (Alas, Babylon). Agriculture, hunting, fishing, camping, and survival are all still taught and staunchly believed in here. My brother the wine snob is camping in below-freezing weather in Indiana this Christmas break because he wants to test his survival skills and resourcefulness. He enjoys hunting, shooting, and learning rural culture as well as what is commonly referred to as "culture." I don't think it's a matter of "no culture" here. I think it's a different culture. Value's on different things.
My little Italian student is simply experiencing a new culture and is in culture shock. She'd rather not know about survivalist rural culture and therefore deems the rural area (in her eyes, America,) as cultureless and, hence, inferior.
Americans just places very high value on the great outdoors in general. I don't think it's a culture I'm ready to sacrifice no matter how the world may view us.