Patrice:
Anyway, there is in old Europe this hackneyed cliche of America being too young to have a culture. Surprisingly, many Americans (usually among the educated ones) confirm it and apologize.
I've experienced the same thing, especially with intellectuals which still associate e.g. Germany with Nietzsche and Kant and give even the mediocrest German a credit for that.
The argument used is: look, we (European) have been around for so long and you (American) are still a young country. This is almost as ridiculous as a clueless adult talking to a talended young kid about the experience that age brings...
I didn't mean to count years to infer cultural matureness... I was just bothered by the someone's implication that compared with the U.S. the rest of the world consists only of developing countries. I've heard that too often from Americans which politely ask if one can buy tooth paste in Europe or if they have to bring some when they visit. (Oddly, this kind of questions often comes from people which drive a Mercedes or Porsche... and who state that there was one good thing with Hitler: he invented the Highway)
I could almost say the most important cultural revolution of the past century was the explosion of talent and creativity coming out of the USA (and no doubt that that created a lot of jealousy and resentment in the old world).
I agree. One could even claim that this is a reason for this list to exist. Fritz (who also loves the creative side of the U.S.)