American Culture: Is There Such A Thing?

Quoting Alastair Roberts at mereorthodoxy.com,

To what extent can a society that so elevates, empowers, and facilitates unfettered choice truly be a "culture"? Without some sort of functional authority or principle whereby individual choices are coordinated with or ordered to common goods that transcend them, I doubt that we have a culture at all, just prevailing patterns of consumption.

"Just prevailing patterns of consumption." That pretty well sums up what has become the American way of life. From modern business corporations to neo-classical accounts of contract law to sexual autonomy as constitutional doctrine, there is no "good" much less a "common good." And without a common good--even a contested one--there is no culture.