Content by Addison
Posted at 2:46am on Sep. 11, 2005 Where is the most American place you've ever been?
By Addison
I have a question that I, myself, cannot answer. I'm reading Jean Baudrillard's America and -- amidst his reflections on the "desert" of American culture (not to imply sterility, necessarily, but lack of reference) and his assertions that we are the last primitive culture, I starting thinking along contrarian lines. I agree with his view of this country, but nevertheless a French philosopher cannot have gotten our country 100%, right?
So in developing an antithesis through which to view his thesis I came upon the question: what is quintessentially American? What is the single most American thing I can think of. I couldn't. I couldn't without falling back on cliches or places I knew couldn't possibly contain the idea of "American."
So I'm asking Y'ALL: in respect to its presence, its people and its purpose, what is the most American place you can think of? Is it a town? A store? A monument? A geographical region? An ecology? Something else?
And why?
I expect very few responses with such an abstract question and at so late an hour, but thanks if you can respond.