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As you will learn throughout this book, the American culture exhibits many of the traits consistent with adolescence: intense focus on "the now," dramatic mood swings, constant need for exploration and challenge to authority, a fascination with extremes, openness to change and reinvention, and a strong belief that mistakes warrant second chances. As Americans, we feel we know more than our elders do (for instance, we rarely consult France, Germany, Russia, or England on our foreign policy), that their answers are out of date (we pay little heed to the opinions of these cultures when it comes to global matters), and that we must reject their lessons and re-make the world (few of us — including many of our leaders — are students of world history, choosing to make our own mistakes rather than learning from the mistakes these other cultures have already made).

Like all adolescents, we are preoccupied with love, seduction, and sex. We are not unique in this regard. People in many cultures throughout the world are fascinated with these things — perhaps more so than anything else. After all, as human beings, we need sex at the very least to ensure the continuation of our species. The unconscious attitudes we Americans hold about these matters, however, are unique and very much related to our cultural adolescence.

Adolescence is a time of confusion and contradictions. New discoveries are promising one day and disappointing the next. Dreams sprout, flower, and wilt as quickly as daffodils in the spring. Certainties become uncertainties in the blink of an eye. This is as true with adolescent cultures as it is with adolescent children and never is it clearer than in the Codes revealed in this chapter.

Some of you will find the following pages disturbing. Some of you will insist that you don't see yourself in these Codes in any way. (You might even be right about that. Of course, every individual is different, as he or she is also governed by his or her individual unconscious.) The revelation of the following Codes might be upsetting to you, but please remember that Codes are value-neutral. The Codes themselves do not pass judgment on a particular culture. The American Codes simply reflect our cultural adolescence. This is very good and empowering in many cases, as you will see in subsequent chapters, and explains why we are the best in the world at many things and why we have been such innovators and reformers.

If one were to compile a list of things at which the American culture excels, however, love, seduction, and sex would not be on that list. You know this already. After all, when we consider someone a great ladies' man, we might call him a "Don Juan" or a "Casanova." We will never, however, call him a "Joe Smith." The function of the new set of glasses provided by the Culture Code is to show us why we do the things we do:

Why are American women so concerned with finding "Mr. Right?"

Why does the FCC frown on (and even prosecute) televising a woman breastfeeding, but allow the exhibition of fictionalized bloodbaths during network Prime Time?

Why are American women offended when construction workers whistle at them in New York but flattered when a man does the same in Milan?

The answers are in the Codes.

What's love got to do with it?

I held imprinting sessions all over the country searching for the Code for love. During these sessions, I asked participants to focus on the word "love" without specifying whether I meant romantic love, parental love, sibling love, love of country, love of pets, or even love of a sports team. When I guided participants back to their first imprint though, a vast majority of them went to the same place.

"My first experience with the word love, or related to love, was when I was four or five. In the kitchen, mother was preparing a cake, my favorite cake, a cheesecake. The smell was the smell of love. She opened the oven and I told her, 'I love you!' She closed the oven, came to give me a kiss, and told me, 'I love you, too.' Then she gave me a big portion of the cake and I knew she really meant it when she said, 'I love you'."

— 40-year-old man

"Mother loved us so much, she cooked all Thanksgiving day. She was so happy to see her family all together again, around the table, eating ... so much love around the table, so much food. We could not stop eating."

— 36-year-old woman

"When you are little, parents are there to care for and protect you. You have no care or worries. If something bad happens, your family is there for you. I miss this protection."

— 58-year-old woman

"The best way to describe my parents' room is a nest. The carpet was light brown and the walls were blue. The bed was in the center of the room and had a huge white comforter. It was on this bed that I sat with my mother as a child and asked her about the world."

— 21-year-old man

"I remember lying in my mother's lap in my early years. I remember talking with my mother and sharing caresses."

— 65-year-old man

Consistently, participants related their first experience of love to their mother's care — feeding them, holding them, making them feel safe. This is entirely understandable. After all, for nine months, our mothers provide us with the most perfect "resort hotel" imaginable. The room service is first-rate and available immediately upon demand, the space is neither too hot nor too cold, transportation is free, and there's even a musical backdrop (her heartbeat) for entertainment. And even though we ultimately must leave this vacation paradise, our mothers are there for us to guide us through the transition, feeding us with their bodies, keeping us coddled and warm, taking us out to see the world, and providing numerous ways for us to occupy our time and delight in the act of learning.

The nature of these responses was very consistent with the thinking of an adolescent culture. Adolescents, after all, flit from pressing for independence to acting like children throughout this period of their lives. When in the latter mode, they seek the succor (inwardly if not outwardly) of their mothers, the safe harbor provided by that all-encompassing love.

Then there is the former mode, the mode that demands a rejection of home and the right to make one's own mistakes. When I asked participants to recall their most powerful memories of love, different stories emerged.

"I went to college. I was so happy. Free at last. But it did not go so well. First time I started drinking, I could not stop. Then I don't know what happened next, I was so sick. None of the boys who were after me the night before were there to help me."

— 50-year-old woman

"I was 13 and I liked a boy but he liked someone else. This taught me a big lesson because I thought that I was prettier than her and she was fat, but I was spoiled and sometimes mean."

— 24-year-old woman

"My most powerful experience is when my parents decided to separate. I found out eavesdropping on their discussions late at night. Things were tense, but everyone wanted to be normal."

— 37-year-old man

"I have an image of a white beautiful horse and a blonde beautiful woman in a flowing crepe-like dress with a lush green forest and waterfall and a handsome man meeting and embracing her. I long to be that woman."

— 38-year-old woman

This was a different component of the adolescent experience: the part where experimentation leads to exhilaration and disappointment, to success and failure. The vast majority of these stories expressed some level of discomfort, of uneasiness with the events described, much in the way an adolescent describes experiences he doesn't like and doesn't understand. Remember, these stories were about the most powerful memory of love.

Perhaps the most significant element of the adolescent experience, however, is the loss of innocence. There comes a point in every adolescent's life when he realizes his ideals aren't as gilded as they once seemed. This realization usually leads to new maturity and the acquisition of new coping tools. It also often comes, though, with a sense of disillusionment. When participants wrote of their most recent memory of love, they repeatedly told the story of lost ideals.

"I know what boys want. They say they love you, but I know what they want."

— A 35-year-old woman

"I have three children from three different fathers who died in drive-by shootings. Before I die, I want once again to have a baby, to feed him, to love him, and to be loved unconditionally."

— A 15-year old woman

"I purchased a diamond for my girlfriend. I recall her taking it off in the car while we were arguing and I became infuriated. I took the ring and threw it out the window. I told her since it meant so little to her I threw it away."

— 31-year-old man

These three sets of stories — the first imprint, the most powerful memory, and the most recent memory — revealed a distinctly American pattern. Participants spoke repeatedly about the desire for love, the need for love, the belief in something called "True Love," but they also spoke consistently about being disappointed in this quest. A very large percentage of the "most recent memory" stories spoke of loss, bitterness, and sadness. When it comes to love, Americans — regardless of their ages — view love the way an adolescent views the world: as an exciting dream that rarely reaches fulfillment.

Copyright © 2006 by Clotaire Rapaille. Excerpted by permission of Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Tags: Society

About the Author

Dr. Clotaire Rapaille is the chairman of Archetype Discoveries Worldwide and has used this decoding approach for thirty years. He is the personal adviser to ten high-ranking CEOs and is kept on retainer by fifty Fortune 100 companies. He has been profiled in many national media outlets, including 60 Minutes II and on the front page of the New York Times Sunday Styles section. He lives in Tuxedo Park, New York.