Let me set the scene for you. It is Saturday night. A group of friends and I are driving to dinner to celebrate a friend’s birthday. All in all, a relatively festive occasion. We make the unfortunate mistake of driving through a parking lot near Comcast just as a crowd of tailgaters makes its way to Byrd Stadium for the Boston College game. Nothing is more enjoyable than seeing mobs of people, ages 15 to 50, stumbling around like overweight toddlers just learning to walk. Beer can in hand? Check. Vomit-soaked girlfriend? Check. Football just wouldn’t be the same without it.

Do not worry – I will try to save how hilariously irrational tailgating is for another column. I want to talk a little bit about American culture. There is no argument that tailgating and football have evolved into essential elements of the American brand. I have no problem with either. However, when did American culture degenerate into nothing more than just an excess of everything?

As the trite and over-hyped melting pot of the world, America is truly an amalgamation of the worst aspects of human society: gluttony, laziness and all-around stupidity. We have hundreds of years of development, a centuries-old democratic institution and one of the highest standards of living in the world. And all we have to show for it is a society that prides US Weekly and Cosmopolitan over Walt Whitman and Elizabeth Bishop, cheap gags and gore at the box office over plot and development and the proven heart-clogging ease of McDonald’s to the much more time-consuming alternative of actually cooking for ourselves. I love America, but pardon me for not jumping on the bandwagon quite yet.

If America truly were a melting pot, land of the free, home of the brave, wouldn’t we see more of a mix of different cultures, traditions and ideologies? I mean, we do have Chinese, Italian and Mexican food on every corner. Doesn’t that count for something? We also have deeply rooted American icons such as George Washington and apple pie. The only problem that comes along is that the Chinese, Italian and Mexican food is anything but Chinese, Italian or Mexican, being made by someone who doesn’t know linguine from manicotti, using recipes that are about as authentic as a Canal Street knockoff. People may know that George Washington was our first president, but how many can name the capital of their state, let alone every president and vice president from the past thirty years?

I am enamored with Italian- and Jewish-American culture because both manage to retain the culture, traditions and history of a dynamic and diverse group of individuals. This is not to say every Italian American or Jewish American is the same, or that their level of cultural appreciation is equal. However, many people in both groups (and many other ethnic groups at the university) have really incorporated their cultural background into an American lifestyle.

Part of my fascination with culture is that I grew up without any. According to Mary C. Waters, author of “Ethnic Options” and a professor of sociology at Harvard University, low-income families have a more difficult time retaining cultural elements. I grew up in a fairly poor family, and there were more pressing things to worry about. One side of my family also came over on the Mayflower, so any lingering traces of British culture in me have, I am sure, diminished.

So here I am, with no ethnic culture, expected to adopt the culture of America. Does this mean I am expected to shop only at Wal-Mart, eat only McDonalds and deep fry everything? Should I renew my Sam’s Club membership, prepared to buy gallon-sized containers of mayonnaise and cream of halibut?

Wake up, people. We need to come realize this is the culture we have developed. We are blindly accepting a lifestyle filled with no quality whatsoever. Do we all need to go out and research our family tree to find something valuable to hold on to? I don’t believe we do. All of the things we already have – history, traditions, national pride – can easily be reinvented to create something real and not mass-produced. Let’s do something with the tools we have been given for once. I may not have the answers for what the outcome should be, but I know what we have now just isn’t doing it for me.

Matthew John Phillips is a junior English major. He can be reached at mjphilli@umd.edu.