I think it has been a fair criticism of the old world that we are a bit snooty about our culture.
Perhaps you could tell me why you like the new world and what you think the advancements are that you have made.
I generally prefer our food, wine and cars. Don't get me wrong there are some great new world wines, but I still prefer the classics, and there are some incredible cars but I'd still have a Ferrari or Aston Martin.
Movies, Art, Literature, Architecture, Science, Medicine - what do you think?
Well..... there are many many things I love about the "old world"... but in the interest of the thread..
The '08 Viper looks better and goes faster than just about any Ferrari you can buy and costs a fraction of the price. My Viper looks better and goes faster than most Ferraris too, and cost a fraction of that fraction. Embarrassed quite a few Ferrari, Porshe, Mercedes and BMW drivers when I had my car over on the German autobahn. Nobody passed me. I'd rather have a Murcielago roadster, but my current ride is much cheaper and easier to maintain, and almost as fast.
In addition, Henry Ford's Model T, the muscle cars of the mid 20th century, etc.. many models and names that have had an incalculable impact on the motor world. Detroit has been kind of lazy the last couple decades but at a few points in history they led the world in terms of industry and innovation.
Food: Without the new world, Italy would have no tomatoes, Switzerland and France would have no chocolate, again... the contributions are incalculable. American cuisine is largely just an amalgamation of foods from all over the world, and appropriately so, as we are a country of immigrants. But even though we may have imported ice cream, hamburgers, hot dogs and pizza, we've made all of these things distinctly our own, and American-ized cuisine increasingly dominates world cuisine. Myself personally, I prefer food that has some kick to it... so in general I prefer Mexican, Tex-Mex, and Cajun cooking to anything that comes from the old world, most of which is pretty bland by comparison. Some Polish, Italian, and Spanish dishes possibly excepted, but even they usually aren't all that *spicy*. If you're going to count Asia as part of the old world, I'll give props to Indian, Thai, and Chinese food for being just as spicy as anything from the new world. But since the thread was started by an Englishman I'm assuming "old world" in this context is adopting the traditionally biased defintion of "Europe." Plus George Washington Carver invented 3 million things to do with a peanut. It's February so I have to mention that.
Movies: Film & Music in contemporary culture is so extremely heavily influenced by Hollywood, Nashville, Seattle, etc.. to try and imagine these things without that influence is absolutely impossible. I love Beethoven... but where would we be without Jazz, Blues, Rock and Roll, Hip Hop, or Rap? All distinctly American creations. American pop culture is often the target of criticism.... but for every Britney Spears there's a Trent Reznor. Okay... maybe for every 30 Britney Spears. But still. and for every ID4 or Con Air there's a Citizen Kane or Brokeback Mountain. Americans often get a bad rap for claiming that they're #1 or that they lead the world when in reality they do not... but in this one area at least, we actually do, and have been since the inception of film. Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, etc.
Art: hm.. must say I prefer the old world. Some influential modern art movements have been started in the new world or by new worlders... but in general I'm not a fan. Andy Warhol, Whistler, Ansel Adams, Boris Vallejo.... interesting people but none of them are exactly Da Vinci.
Literature: Chuck Palahniuk. Upton Sinclair. Mark Twain. Thomas Jefferson. C.S. Lewis. Thomas Paine. Frederick Douglas. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Henry David Thoreau. Nethaniel Hawthorne. Herman Melville. Isaac Asimov. Stephen King. Langston Hughes. Truman Capote. W.E.B. DuBois. Booker T Washington. John Updike. Brent Easton Ellis. Allen Ginsberg. Jack Kerouac. Tennessee Williams. Ernest Hemingway. T.S. Eliot. Ezra Pound. Walt Whitman. Emily Dickinson. Woody Allen. etc.
Architecture: Downtown DC is pretty I guess, and a clear reminder that NeoClassical architecture was in style in the late 18th century. The Vietnam war memorial a reminder that minimalist arhitecture was more the fad in the 1980s. Certain parts of Miami an interesting study in Art Deco arhitecture.
Science: The Manhatten Project changed the world about as much as the printing press or the wheel or any other scientific development that came before it. Interchangeable parts. The assembly line. Electricity. Airplanes. The lightbulb. The telephone. Broadcast television. Syncronized sound in film. the machine gun. the revolver. the computer. the internet. the phonograph. Skyscrapers. the zipper. Air conditioning. Frozen food. Optic fiber. Video games. The space shuttle. Genetic engineering. Photocopiers. The paper clip. Post-it notes. Those were all pretty good, too.
Medicine: Jonas Salk. the hearing aid. The electric defibrillator. Gibbon's heart-lung machine. Sabin's Polio vaccine. Jarvik's artificial heart.