The Americans won their independence, but at the same time the Revolutionary War significantly handicapped their
intellectual life. The scientists, teachers abandoned their laboratories and schools to concentrate on defense rather than thesis and exams. Most schools were closed and collages disrupted. Harvard buildings, for example, were used as American army barracks. Also other universities were used for military purposes. Although the American historians try to find some upsides of this situation, like getting political education, or “getting better acquainted with their own country” (don’t ask me what it means), the truth is that, as they gained their political independence from Great Britain, at the same time the Americans lost touch with European culture. Actually, I was about to say “lost any contact”, but the American historians try to convince their compatriots that during the Revolution, there were not just soldiers and weapons that came from France, but also ideas, "giving further spread of the skeptical scientific notion of the Enlightenment". Excuse me, if it were the soldiers who “brought” them… OK, wars and revolutions happen everywhere, and never bring prosperity or cultural developmen, but I think that what really slowed down the cultural progress in this new republic, more than war and ravages, were the attempts to create their own, absolutely original culture, independent from the ‘Old Continent’. “The country must have its own textbooks so that the people would not be infected with the monarchical and aristocratic ideas of England”. Doesn’t it sound, kind of, familiar? OK, any comparisons to the “young Soviet republic” might seem like a stretch, but it seems to belong to the same “school of thought”, isn’t it? What’s more important in a country’s and nation’s culture than language, right? Today it seems obvious that this “proper” is the British English, and American just an almost “barbaric” version of it, slang at the best. As for me, since I was a kid, I fell in love with American accent, this “western like” English. Those deep, raspy voiceovers… (No, I didn’t turn out gay) However, when it comes to grammar… I don’t think my high school English education went beyond what the Canadian students learn in French, or young Americans Spanish classes, but even back than saying “if you will… I will”, or “he said he will” was considered a serious error. I had no idea that it’s not just sloppiness, but conscious decision to make these changes in order to “unify the nation”… It was Noah Webster, the Connecticut schoolmaster and lawyer, who also created a simplified and Americanized spelling, 'honor' instead of 'honour' etc. His American Spelling Book, published in 1783, became the second, after The Bible, bestseller of all time.
And what was an average American’s favourite read? A paper. Politics was all he was interested in, fiction a waste of time. No wonder that for decades American literature virtually didn’t exist! Until well into the nineteenth century, there were in the US no book publishers in the modern sense. And even when first publishing houses came to existence, they wouldn’t take the risk of publishing some unknown, local writers. Reprinting the works of popular English authors was more safe and… much cheaper! They didn’t have to be paid royalties… Lofty ideals gave in to simple economic principles.
There is no other place in the world where you can find so many different religions, sects (etc) than in the USA. And all this started also right after the Revolution. To get an idea what was the level of ‘disputes on religion’ in those times, let me quote the most influential writing on the subject, Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason, which was discussed at homes, taverns, and... colleges (!): “Christianity is the strangest religion ever to set up, for it (?!) committed murder upon Jesus in order to redeem mankind from the sin of eating an apple". End of quote. And end of days...