Many of the prominent characteristics of our culture—venal politicians, callous and stupid bureaucrats and police, promiscuous and perverted clergymen, debased currency—were inherited from the Old World, where they have a long history. However, we Americans are proverbially an inventive people and we have made many innovative cultural contributions of our own to the world. Like . . .

• Hip-hop (at least in its present form)
• “The Battle Hymn of the Republic’’
• A Constitution that “evolves”
• “Subprime” mortgages
• Televangelists
• Heads of government who hear God telling them to go to war. (I am not entirely sure this is new. Perhaps the claim should be limited to elected heads of government.)
• Lincoln worship
• Michael Jackson
• Sex therapists?
• Nuclear weapons
• William F. Buckley
• Oprah Winfrey
• Public relations as an industry
• “Fast” food
• Chain “fast food” stores
• Therapeutic dictatorship
• Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
• Grade inflation
• The Teenager
• “A nation of immigrants”
• The Republican Party
• Bill and Hillary Clinton

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