American Pop Culture Feeds the War on Peace The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds Demonstration Squadron flyover during the Super Bowl LIII Pregame at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on February 3, 2019, in Atlanta, Georgia. Kevin Mazur / WireImage . The old cliché about a fish not knowing it’s in water has survived for a reason. Our cultural currents can drive us toward normalizing or, worse, glorifying what we might otherwise find objectionable. This can take shape in blatant or subtle ways, but there can be no doubt that by underscoring certain narratives and opinion to the exclusion of others, culture is a powerful forger of both material conditions and psychology. As Americans we swim in cultural waters that glorify war.