America is the acceptable face of cultural imperialism

„I have been in America for the past few days, coincidental to the Prime Minister's visit here, during which he stressed the closeness of our two nations. This is not the place to deal with the politics of such an idea; but I have been thinking about the cultural aspects of it. We know the old joke about two peoples separated by a common language; but are we sure, despite there being much evidence to the contrary, that we now even have a common culture to separate us? In Britain, we are exposed to American culture so extensively and in such depth that one might be led to imagine that we have absorbed it entirely. We might, indeed, be presented as the ultimate example of the American cultural imperialism that has aggrieved so many people around the world – even, in some cases, to the extreme point of persuading a few of the most insane to engage in terrorist acts against America and Americanism.

It is so easy for us to be colonised in this way, precisely because of the almost-common language. The pervasive pop music is in a language we can understand – assuming we can make out the words. Films and television programmes are immediately comprehensible, even if The Wire has to be subtitled. Our young people readily imitate American urban fashion. Our architects have borrowed (and, to be fair to them, developed) the skyscraper. Nor is it just the artistic elements of the culture that have come across to us. The obesity "epidemic" that we find ourselves overwhelmed by is blamed roundly on the bread-potatoes-and-lard-based fast food on which America nourishes itself. However, we do, for the moment, maintain important cultural distinctions that make America a foreign country to us – indeed, I always find it infinitely more foreign than France or Italy. America is a country that still professes widespread belief in God, and this faith seeps into every aspect of life, including politics. It is not least because of this fundamentalism that it still retains a death penalty in the majority of states, something that makes it seem strange to most Europeans.”