A song for America.

Being a pretty big fan of and having a firm understanding of british humor, I found "Hugh Laurie's song for America" to be pretty funny. You can watch it here if you haven't seen it yet. It's pretty obvious that they tend to to think we are pretty full of ourselves. And I would have to agree with them. We Americans definitely are. I don't think this is a problem usually though. It has helped us in many ways but this video definitely makes you think about our music. After watching the video I went through my iTunes and looked at the songs I have on my computer. I listen to a lot of different music but I would have to say that I tend to listen to more country music than any other genre, and the theme of "America rocks" is definitely prevalent in country music more so than anywhere else. Just scanning my playlists i can see that a good 30%-40% of country music is written about how great it is to live here, or in one of Toby Keith's songs, about how if you mess with us we'll put a boot in your @#$. Our culture is by far the most individualist culture I can think of. We value the exceptional. We strive for it in everything we do. We try to get it on an individual level as well as a national level. We want to be the best in everything and anyone that isn't, well, they just don't quite match up to how awesome we are. This desire for greatness can be both a good and bad thing. It can do great things when we focus it and use it to better ourselves and in doing so help others. But it can be very bad if we focus too hard on it to the detriment of the world. Many other countries see us as bullies or self centered. Rightly so. We act as such often and vocally. But at the same time we do it out of a desire to excel. We would love the whole world to be successful. To be powerful and wealthy. But you know...not as awesome as we are. So we'll keep singing songs about how great america is, the Bruce Springsteens and Toby Keiths of america with continue to spout endless pro america songs and the rest of the world will sit back and say "Those Americans...so full of themselves."