What are the "American values"

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

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

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

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.

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

Those communes involved community ownership of property, etc.

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.

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

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.

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

-- 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

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.

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

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

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

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?

And what definition of " bow " are you using?

Dan

"They":

"They":

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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.

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

jsw

Yeah, those are stupid, unnecessary examples of diplomatic buffoonery. Unfortunately, being physically isolated and culturally insular, with a politicized gang of semi-pro diplomats, we have that kind of thing embedded deep in our national character.

Not that we're alone in that. I'm sure that France has changed since I was a student in Europe, but when I was there I thought they were worse at it than we were -- in terms of regular people, anyway. Their diplomatic corps, on the other hand, is very professional and cosmopolitan. Ours is always a political pick-up team.