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Before delving into what exactly makes up 20th century American culture, a short summary of the 20th century in America must be given. To sum it up in the shortest way possible, the 20th century in America was a century of ups and downs, a rollercoaster, if you will. Post-WWI mirth and a booming economy lead to the Roaring Twenties, a time of recklessness and over-indulgence; no one was concerned for America's future. Only years after, the Great Depression hit, and America learned a powerful lesson. Years later, the end of the Second World War resulted in both an economic boom and the start of the Cold War. In short, the 20th century for America was one of wildly disparate highs and lows, a history best described as cyclical. These events, when combined, have planted a certain mindset inside the minds of many Americans: in bad times, Americans are adamant that things will get better, in good times, we are adamant that they will not last. This feeling has acted as an engine for America's famous materialism; even when times are good, we can always use more, because the good will ultimately pass away. Going in a different direction, other societies, particularly societies whom we deal with often, have a different feeling as to what twentieth century American culture is. Their definitions are at times more positive, at times more negative, but the key component of their definition is that America as a whole has treated their society in a different way than how America treats its populace. Take Japan for example: During World War Two, not only did we unleash a nuclear bomb on Japanese soil, but we also put many of America's Japanese Americans in internment camps. Thus, from a Japanese perspective Americans were, at least near in the beginning of the 20th century, inhumane and discriminatory. However, as US-Japan relations soon improved, Japan saw qualities in the U.S. which they saw in themselves, and began to view America as such: industrious and committed to work. As another example, Mexico was treated in an up-and-down fashion by the U.S. in the 20th century, and thus their opinion of America is somewhat mixed. America's steady economy and the immigration reforms of the 1980s portrayed America as prosperous, progressive, and open. However, nativism still existed, and rather prominently so, throughout the century, which in turn could characterize 20th century American culture as one of stereotyping and narrow-mindedness. These examples go to show that, as we Americans are treated better by America than members of other societies, and that we are looking at our culture from the inside, our definition of twentieth century America is inherently better. Thus, the definition of 20th century American culture often depend on the nationality of who you ask. Touching upon an earlier reference to the Great Depression, and what we learned from it, another key component of 20th century American culture is that in that time period we learned from our mistakes. The Depression helped us realize that we needed more regulation on the economy, and after such regulation was imposed, no such crisis occurred again in the 20th century. The end of World War II brought the formation of the United Nations, and no war of such magnitude has occurred since. These events, and others, had created a nationwide cultural emphasis on not making the same mistake twice. However, despite this emphasis on learning from mistakes and moving on, America and its populace, in not being perfect, still made them. This is possible because, in the twentieth century, most of the mistakes America made were "new mistakes", decisions involving new variables, resulting in newer, more challenging problems. For example, the century's other significant economic crisis, occurring in the mid-1970s, involved fuel shortages and the Middle East, a far cry from the causes of the Great Depression. This unceasing change in the nature of our problems, however, did do something positive: it created within our citizenry a culture of resilience, a national feeling that we couldn't ever give up, and, if we did so, our new problems wouldn't seem as big. This description of 20th Century American culture has included descriptions of past mistakes we have made, and the idea that most of our mistakes are new in nature. However these descriptions do not justly sum up the nature of our mistakes, as our mistakes have yet another crucial element to them: many of America's bad decisions were first thought to be good ones, and in only in retrospect did we see that they were bad. This is possible because of one reason: the twentieth century in America was one of unprecedented patriotism. To reiterate, all of our decisions, whether good or bad in retrospect, were made in the name of love for our country. Take the rise in McCarthyism, for example. The idea of secret Communist spies infiltrating our country may sounds ludicrous to us, but during the 1950s Communism was a very real threat, and thus the proponents of McCarthyism were simply trying to protect the country they loved. Although patriotism was, as evidenced by the previous example, occasionally the source of something bad, the more common form of 20th century American patriotism is cheering on our country when we need it the most. When the odds weren't necessarily in our favor in World Wars one and two, Americans everywhere supported the war effort in any way we could, a key contributor to our victories in those wars. During the 1950s, Americans felt obligated to help the post-war economy, and their spending spree resulted in the best economy in a long time. Even the divisive nature of elections are patriotic: Americans, regardless or beliefs and views, cast their votes in the 20th century for who the felt would help America the most. This love of our country, embedded deeply in America's culture, trumps the previously mentioned feelings of insecurity, resulting in a feeling that even when met with great new challenges, we will come out on top.