Book 3   Unit 5

    The USA only became a world power in the 20th century, but has achieved a status unlike any other nation. How did the United States come to mean so much so fast? Strength is not the whole story, nor can wealth explain everything; for better or worse, America has somehow captured the attention of the whole world. At once naive and sophisticated, vulgar and brilliant, noble and terrifying, the USA is seen around the world as both a joke and a dream, a promise and a threat. The three texts in this unit attempt to explain different aspects of this controversial culture. Text A takes a light-hearted approach to some of the strange details of life in the USA, while Texts B and C discuss some puzzling features of the American national character.

Text B      American Values  & Assumptions

Gary Althen

    One of the most important things to understand about Americans is how devoted they are to "individualism". They have been trained since very early in their lives to consider themselves as separate individuals who are responsible for their own situations in life and their own destinies. They have not been trained to see themselves as members of a close-knit, tightly interdependent family, religious group, tribe or nation.

   You can see this in the way Americans treat their children. Even very young children are given opportunities to make their own choices and express their opinions. A parent will ask a one-year-old child what color balloon she wants, which dessert she prefers, or where she wants to sit. The child's preference will normally be accommodated. Through this process, Americans come to see themselves as separate human beings who have their own opinions and who are responsible for their own decisions.

    Indeed, American child-rearing manuals state that the parents' objective is for the child to move out of the parents' house and make his or her own way in life. Americans take this advice very seriously, so much so that someone who remains dependent on their parents longer than the norm may be thought to be "immature", "tied to the mother's apron strings," or otherwise unable to lead a normal independent life.

   Americans are trained to conceive of themselves as separate individuals, and they assume everyone else in the world is too. When they encounter a person from abroad who seems to them excessively concerned with the opinions of parents, with following traditions, or with fulfilling obligations to others, they assume that the person feels trapped, or is weak and "too dependent."

    Americans, then, consider the ideal person to be an individualistic, self-reliant, independent person. They assume, incorrectly, that people from elsewhere share this value and this self-concept. In the degree to which they glorify "the individual" who stands alone and makes his or her own decisions, Americans are quite distinctive.

   The American version of the "ideal individual" prefers an atmosphere of freedom, where neither the government nor any other external force or agency dictates what the individual does. For Americans, the idea of individual freedom is strongly positive. By contrast, people from many other cultures regard some of the behavior Americans justify as "individual freedom" to be self-centered and lacking in consideration for others.

    Foreigners who understand the degree to which Americans are imbued with the notion that the free, self-reliant individual is the ideal kind of human being will be able to understand many aspects of American behavior and thinking that otherwise might not make sense. A very few of the many possible examples:

   Americans see as heroes those individuals who "stand out from the crowd" by doing something first, longest, most often, or otherwise "best." Examples are aviators Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart.

    Americans admire people who have overcome adverse circumstances (for example, poverty or a physical handicap) and "succeeded" in life. Black educator Booker T. Washington is one example; the blind and deaf author and lecturer Helen Keller is another.

    Many Americans do not display the degree of respect for their parents that people in more traditional or family-oriented societies commonly display. They have the conception that it was a sort of historical or biological accident that put them in the hands of particular parents, that the parents fulfilled their responsibilities to the children while the children were young, and now that the children have reached "the age of independence" the close child-parent tie is loosened, if not broken.

   It isn't unusual for Americans who are beyond the age of about 22 and who are still living with their parents to pay their parents for room and board. Elderly parents living with their grown children may do likewise. Paying for room and board is a way of showing independence, self-reliance, and responsibility for oneself.

    Certain phrases one commonly hears among Americans which capture their devotion to individualism include:

“Do your own thing.”

“I did it my way.”

“You'll have to decide that for yourself.”

“You made your bed, now lie in it.”

“God helps those who help themselves.”

“Look out for number one.”

  Closely associated with the value they place on individualism is the importance Americans assign to privacy. Americans assume that people "need some time to themselves" or "some time alone" to think about things or recover their spent psychological energy. Americans have great difficulty understanding someone who always wants to be with another person, who dislikes being alone.

    If the parents can afford it, each child will have his or her own bedroom. Having one's own bedroom, even as an infant, imbues people with the notion that they're entitled to a place of their own where they can be by themselves and - notice -- keep their possessions. They have their own clothes, toys, books and so on. These things are theirs and no one else's.

   Americans assume that people have their "private thoughts" that might never be shared with anyone. Doctors, lawyers, psychiatrists, and others have rules governing "confidentiality" that are intended to prevent information about their clients’ personal situations from becoming known to others.

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