Long Island Culture
Posted 08-18-2011 at 10:38 AM by James1202
The current Wikipedia entry states: "the word "culture" is most commonly used in three basic senses:
1) Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture
2) An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning
3) The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group
Culture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I think Long Island culture, because of it's proximity to NYC and that many former NYC residents move to Long Island (especially in the formative post-WWII years) created no one "culture" but a number of competing cultures which have not been reconciled with each other over several generations.
For example, the most prominant culture is centered around the automobile (the suburbia culture) where most live, work, and play in the different communities among which they commute. These people may tend to change homes and jobs more frequently and, therefore, don't develop a loyalty or pride in any particular community. Attitude about home are more closely akin to being a renter...it's for a short time so long-term investments are not popular.
Then there's the less common "hometown" culture in which an allegiance to a particular community is stronger. I can't comment about the Long Island Hometown culture. Maybe someone else can give their take on it.
Then there's people like me whom are new to Long Island and are reluctant to give up the culture their used to. For me it's a more small town, Swedish culture. I will leave it up to the reader to Google the meaning of that.
1) Excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture
2) An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning
3) The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group
Culture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I think Long Island culture, because of it's proximity to NYC and that many former NYC residents move to Long Island (especially in the formative post-WWII years) created no one "culture" but a number of competing cultures which have not been reconciled with each other over several generations.
For example, the most prominant culture is centered around the automobile (the suburbia culture) where most live, work, and play in the different communities among which they commute. These people may tend to change homes and jobs more frequently and, therefore, don't develop a loyalty or pride in any particular community. Attitude about home are more closely akin to being a renter...it's for a short time so long-term investments are not popular.
Then there's the less common "hometown" culture in which an allegiance to a particular community is stronger. I can't comment about the Long Island Hometown culture. Maybe someone else can give their take on it.
Then there's people like me whom are new to Long Island and are reluctant to give up the culture their used to. For me it's a more small town, Swedish culture. I will leave it up to the reader to Google the meaning of that.
