In thinking about our discussion about how a person might interpret our nation if they found our country in ruins in the future, I realized that our country worships material things in a way that could almost be interpreted as religious. Assuming that the person could not get the computers or TV’s working and was simply assessing our nation based on materials they found I think they might interpret the royal looking Starbucks logo as a symbol of our God.
In the past, many nations have, as a group, shared a common faith which manifests itself in their culture, dress, and art. For example, almost all the renaissance art in has a religious focus on Catholicism and is used for religious purposes such as in prayer books and as altarpieces. America is such a hodgepodge of cultures that we have no one religion that represents the beliefs of our nation. For this reason, anyone looking through the ruins of our country would possibly identify popular culture as our religion. Since celebrities are all over our magazines and Britney Spears has become a household name, it would be easy for anyone studying our culture to assume that they were royalty.
If the archeologists of the future were studying us believing that America was like these other countries that share a common faith, they could identify Starbucks as the place where we meet to worship. It is now easier to find a Starbucks than a church or a mosque and many people make it a part of their daily routine. Also, after looking in a magazine, they would take note of the fact that our idols are often photographed holding a cup with the queenly Starbucks logo on it. Religion was once something that unified nations, but with America as diverse as it is, we find something new to unite us, Starbucks.