torgoboi t1_j0i65lv wrote on December 16, 2022 at 8:40 PM

Reply to comment by Steak48 in How do countries that lack long, ancient histories and myths (or feel they lack it), or have lost all records of them, compensate for this loss or absence? Can these invented ancient myths become as "legitimate" as the truly old histories/myths of countries that have them? by raori921

I was thinking this as well. Our historical memory is super embedded into our culture in the US.

I think a lot of Americans also tend to look back to or identify with a mythologized version of the countries their families immigrated from, if they have that knowledge, because we don't have such a long history of being in one place and having the long origin story there. So they can look back at that cultural group and borrow material from there too.

Annomaander_Rake t1_j16sqr4 wrote on December 22, 2022 at 2:10 AM

I think you’re essentially correct. Being that we are a mongrel nation that has no clear ancestry beyond the 1600s, our long term mythology has to be borrow from the old world. I’m sure there are villiges in Romania with stories that go back millennia. Since people have been living there so damn long lol