What are the "American values"

It seems to me that there are lots of countries where the values you've listed are more prevalent than they are here. I think this is a fair way to rate by results.

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Reply to
whoyakidding
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What is it you're trying to accomplish here, Iggy? Are you looking for the values of the founding fathers, or those of the early colonizers? Or are you trying to find the core values of Americans today?

For example, my ancestors (who arrived here in the 1650s) would have told you that a good Quaker is a dead Quaker, and that the value of an Iroquois scalp was 12 pounds in Boston. The Puritans were quite communistic, as were the many utopian communes established in the New World by sects driven out of Europe.

Attitudes and values were far more diverse in the early times than the simplistic stereotypes we learn in school.

As for values today, you may come up with a list of ideals, of which your short list is not a bad start. Despite what some rightists will claim, individual responsibility is generally recognized as an ideal, regardless of how it's practiced. Civility, likewise.

But these are abstractions built upon legends and some shared historical ideas. If you want to know how values had shaped up by the early 19th century, which is a very good snapshot of the evolving America and its behaviors and ideals, you won't do better than de Toqueville's _Democracy in America_:

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You can find some summaries that will give you a quick idea.

I haven't read it since the late '60s so I'm sure it would all be a surprise to me, if I re-read it. d8-)

Reply to
Ed Huntress

It used to be called the Protestant Work Ethic, to distinguish its emphasis on how we live this life from the Catholic concept of striving for a reward in Heaven, virtuous actions vs thoughts. The underlying assumptions are that the world is fundamentally just and fair and morality is absolute.

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

I agree with Ed here. Read de Toqueville's "Democracy in America".

de Toqueville was trying to answer exactly your question, and has the advantage of not being involved in present-day politics and their divers agendas.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

That book is a remarkably perceptive analysis of America. de Toqueville's France had tried and failed to institute Liberte', Egalite' & Humanite' themselves.

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they got a reactionary government that bred the socialist revolutions of 1848:
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Marx and Engels observed America as correspondents for the New York Daily Herald.
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jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

I do.

My values.

My honesty. My civility. My fairness. My respect for others. My hypocrisy too. My faith, my family, my life. I don't ha'e to pretend to live by them, they are my very characteristics.

And yours...

We together hold these "truths" to be "American Values". Self evident.

Those talking heads are there for questionable purposes. Their usual purpose is to increase _your_ anxiety levels. Quit watching that stuff.

Reply to
Richard

Yeah, two letters and an aversion to the use of the word "communism."

Those communes involved community ownership of property, etc.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

What you are describing above is known as "equal opportunity", and it = also happens to be one of the very cornerstones of the liberal = ideology, regardless of what most right wingers would like you to think.

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" Liberalism (from the Latin liberalis)[1] is a political ideology or = worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality.[2] Liberals espouse = a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these = principles, but generally liberals support ideas such as = constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human = rights, capitalism, and the free exercise of religion.[3][4][5][6][7]

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Reply to
PrecisionmachinisT

I think the old cowboy movies had the right idea with ideas like:

I won't be shoved around. I will be treated fairly. Protect the weak. and more...

Find the western channel on your tv and waste a day watching cowboys.

technomaNge

Reply to
technomaNge

Where the hell did you get those four? There's nothing exclusive about those. Although some of those values are dead in some countries, they sure aren't unique to us, nor does any serious person claim that they are.

Here are a couple:

#1 - Don't bow to royalty.

#2 - Watch infotainment so you can make incredibly stupid decisions like electing a president who doesn't even know #1.

Reply to
Tom Del Rosso

George Will had a canny article last January on what it is to be an American. I saved my clipping.

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-- In an industrial society which confuses work and productivity, the necessity of producing has always been an enemy of the desire to create. -- Raoul Vaneigem

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Yeah, that's a good one. That one sounds exactly like George Will delivering a lecture. He could go on for an hour or more like that, with no letup. I never took so many notes in my life.

It's interesting that he quotes Huntington's 1981 book on "creedalism." Will himself was using that term back in the late '60s. It's one way contemporary intellectual conservatives explain Iggy's question about values and our country's fundamental principles.

There's one point with which I'll take issue:

'After the Founding, there was, Huntington thought, a change in Americans' "dominant conception of human nature." The image of man as inherently sinful, dangerous and in need of control by cleverly contrived political institutions yielded to a much more benign image of man as essentially good and potentially perfectible. But, Huntington wrote, "both views were used to justify limitations on government." If men are bad, government should be weak lest men put it to bad uses. If men are well-intentioned and reasonable, strong government is not necessary to control them, so "government should be weak because men are good."'

That one has the ring of a theorist being a bit too clever in constructing an explanation for something that isn't really so neat and tidy. It just sounds good.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Wow, most of the people who use these code words are referring to a VERY NARROW set of personal prejudices, some of them fairly noxious. Certainly, most of them could care less about your four, especially #3. Fairness and equal treatment of THEIR OWN, only, everybody else can be treated unfairly. Oh, make that "must be" treated unfairly.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

This is a "code word", ie. it means something to the person speaking it, and he hopes it means the same thing to the person he's speaking to. There absolutely is no common, accepted meaning of this phrase! If you talk to skinheads, you will get a totally different meaning than if you talk to, perhaps a Catholic bishop. And, that is practically the whole POINT of this phrase, the "I know what I mean when I say it".

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

I do not know how you can know what he meant when the statement is only

"#1 - Don't bow to royalty." Although I am pretty sure he does not mean bow as in playing the Cello.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

Well maybe, as you suggested in your previous post, he was talking about the bow of a ship or an archery bow. Why don't you ask him?

Reply to
Ed Huntress

And what definition of " bow " are you using?

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

"They":

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Eisenhower was our most experienced expert at dealing properly and effectively with the British government.
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jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

"They":

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Eisenhower was our most experienced expert at dealing properly and effectively with the British government.
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jsw

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Exactly. Knee-jerkers on the right ought to take a little time and see how other presidents have handled state protocol. Tom's reaction, and that of the others who objected to Obama's courtesy, seem to have no idea that it's a common thing.

There are some old legends about a Marine officer in Tripoli, and possibly others, refusing to bow to heads of state when they were ordered to do so. What Tom and others should take from that is that it is not appropriate to accept such an order or other coercion. But in a friendly context, it is perfectly appropriate to bow as an expression of courtesy and respect.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

An associate offended visiting Saudi dignitaries at dinner by telling them Americans had no special respect for royalty.

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

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