RUTHFULLY YOURS

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Many Americans bemoan a decline in culture. But what do we mean by culture? Are we speaking of the arts, religion, traditions, or a shared history? Are we referring to behavior? In a review of Eliot Stein’s Custodians of Wonder, Brandy Schillace wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “Our lives are connected to the land and the animals. Yet we are also threads in the tapestry that stretches back into prehistory, a part of a superorganism that is culture itself.”

So, what is culture? Definitions have changed. Noah Webster, in his 1828 dictionary, defined the word according to its etymological roots: “The act of tilling and preparing the earth for crops.” Forty-three years later, Edward Burnett Tyler, in Primitive Culture, defined the term in words we better understand today: “Culture…is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” From the Oxford English Dictionary: “Culture –The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.” In 1952, U.S. anthropologists A.L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions, cited 164 definitions of culture. I think of culture, first as a system of shared beliefs, values, behavior and practices – based on our Judeo-Christian heritage and embedded in our founding documents – and second as works of art, literature and music.

For most of our nation’s history differences ruled. Rural and immigrant communities were often distinct entities. Until the mid-19th Century, most Americans never ventured far from their homes. But from the mid 19th Century on, technological advances unified us in a way unknown to earlier Americans. First we had steam ships, trains and then, later, the automobile, which allowed people to experience the size of our country. Radio then television brought other parts of the country and the world into our lives. The number of newspapers began to shrink. So that by my generation, people read the same news, listened to the same music, watched the same TV shows, saw the same movies, and heard the same nightly newscasts. In 1956 (in a country half the size it is today), Elvis Presley sold 10 million copies of a single song, “Hound Dog.” According to Pew Research, every evening during the 1960s between 27 and 29 million people listened to Walter Cronkite’s news on CBS, an audience greater than today’s combined daily audiences for ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/09/the-fall-of-the-house-of-mouse/

The legendary Walt Disney, watching from above, must be disgusted with what’s happened at the company he founded more than 100 years ago, October 16, 1923, to be exact. Under the leadership of Bob Iger for most of the past 20 years, the company has recently floundered, abandoning its roots in providing wholesome entertainment across its many platforms (theme parks, cruise lines, movies, broadcasting, streaming entertainment) and is now seen for what it has become, a woke institution dedicated to indoctrinating children. And parents have rebelled.

100 years ago, Walt Disney had a vision: to provide wholesome entertainment for families and “children of all ages.” He oversaw the creation of endearing classic movies, theme parks that allowed visitors to enter a whole new world, and his namesake brand of quality kid-safe content. It became world-famous for its uniquely “Disney” way of entertaining everyone. From his unabashedly patriotic content generated during World War II to the “Wonderful World of Disney” that brought families together in front of the TV beginning in the late 1950s, Walt’s world was shaped by his “America First” beliefs.

But all that has changed under the leadership of current CEO Bob Iger. Iger, who joined ABC (the American Broadcasting Company) in 1974, earning $175 a week, has steadily risen through the ranks at ABC through a series of positions at Capital Cities/ABC before it was acquired by Disney in 1995. His rise up toward the C-suite continued unabated until 2005 when the Walt Disney Board selected him to succeed the unpopular Michael Eisner as its CEO.

Since then he has presided over a period of rapid growth in its theme parks division as well as masterminding the acquisition of several intellectual property portfolios—Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Marvel, to name a few—to bolster its standing in Hollywood and become a dominating force in the entertainment industry.

But as of late, since the late 2010s, the company has become a leading force in the woke movement, which has caused problems for the company. It has run into a buzz saw of criticism over its forced introduction of LGBTQIA+ themes and characters into its TV programming and films.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/09/america-and-europe-can-hang-together-or-hang-separately/

Consider these European and American binaries.

On December 20, 2024, a terrorist, Taleb Al-Abdul Mohsen, rammed his SUV into a Christmas crowd in Magdeburg, Germany. He killed 6 pedestrians and injured 299 others.

Eleven days later, on New Year’s Eve in New Orleans, Louisiana, Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar smashed his pickup into a festive crowd. He murdered fifteen and hurt over 35.

Germany’s fertility rate is scarcely above 1.4—about average for a shrinking European Union. About 20 percent of the country is now foreign-born, a record high.

American fertility has precipitously dived to 1.6. The foreign-born now represent 15 percent of the American resident population, the highest in both actual numbers (50 million) and percentages in history.

The German military is a shell of its former self, with fewer than 200,000 soldiers and a shortage of almost all types of weapons.

The U.S. military, after being humiliated in Afghanistan, is currently down some 40,000-plus recruits. It faces shortages of anti-tank weapons, artillery shells, ships, and logistical support.

Germany may finally manage to spend 2% of its GDP on defense; the United States is heading downward below 3%—the lowest in over 80 years since the Great Depression.

Last year, the German economy shrank; this year, it will scarcely grow, in part because of shortages of affordable fossil fuels.

Germans pay four times what Americans on average do for electricity. Yet the Trump administration has promised an oil and natural gas renaissance, hoping to expand both production and exports with envisioned new pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21298/trump-crazy-ideas

Why is it that people are always calling for someone to think “outside the box,” then when someone does, say, “Aaaak! He thought outside the box!”

In that view, President-elect Donald J. Trump has already committed (at least) three heresies: Buy Greenland, stop China from controlling the Panama Canal and deepen America’s affiliation with Canada.

All three ideas are neither crazy nor even new.

President Harry S. Truman looked at acquiring Greenland in 1946. Thomas Jefferson, after the Louisiana Purchase, proposed buying Cuba – just think how the Cubans would be prospering now, politically and economically, if that deal had gone through. Those acquisitions didn’t take place but in 1917, the US did acquire Denmark’s Virgin Islands for $25 million. As historian Stephen Press writes,

“As secretary of state, John Quincy Adams arranged debt relief for Spain in exchange for Florida. Secretary of State William Seward acquired Alaska. What Mr. Trump proposes is consistent with this American tradition—and with our current borders. Sovereignty purchases are responsible for more than 40% of U.S. land…

“History suggests the benefits of being open-minded about this. Inhabitants of Alaska wouldn’t be better off under Russian sovereignty. Bringing Greenlanders into closer affiliation with the U.S., and sweetening the deal with economic subsidies, could conceivably prove beneficial to all parties”

As for the Panama Canal, President Jimmy Carter handed it to Panama for $1, but on the condition that it permanently remain a neutral zone – not one controlled at both ends by China. “We gave the Panama Canal to Panama,” Trump has pointed out. “We didn’t give it to China. They’ve abused that gift.”

The US built the Panama Canal in the first place to be able to avoid having commercial and military sea traffic avoid the long journey around South America’s southernmost sea route, the Strait of Magellan – where the Chinese Communist Party also located a base.