Individualism.doc

Individualism-the Core of American Cultural ValuesAbstract: Individualism is the core of the social philosophy and value in American culture. It plays a significant role in the development of American history. We can say that individualism has been influencing all the fields of American society, even the character of the nation. The United States is regarded as the cradle of the trend of individualism. Americans who believe in individualism hold that they need to think for themselves, judge for themselves and make their own decisions. And individualism takes up the most important position in American ideology, and it is so deeply rooted in peoples heart that it permeates every aspect of American society and is embodied directly in American daily life, education, family and so on. In recent years, at the background of globalization, intercultural communication has been more and more frequent. When we come across strange people from different cultures, we always experience culture shock, which is because people from different cultures are endowed with different values. But in my eyes, America is a special country. Though the United States is a country of immigrants with so many citizens coming from a world-wide location, we can see that people get along with each other peacefully, live together and develop, the reason of which is inseparable from its individualism of universality.When talking about America, most of people always recollect the freedom in their brain at once. Actually, to some extent, the word Freedom belongs to the concept of Individualism. Some Americans even consider the American and the individualism as the same thing. Just as Robert Jounce said” When I say I love America, it means loving the freedom and the individualism1 in his book called The Dream of Rebuilding America.In the United States, people always worship different kinds of heroes. Every hero admired by Americans has some respectable qualities-bravery, courage, diligence, honesty and so on, but all of them have something in common. That is they are all successful individuals. They realize their dreams by mainly depending on their own ability, wisdom, courage and hard work. In other words, American heroes have outstanding abilities. Because they themselves are successful individuals, they can lead and help others. The success of American people results from the success of each individual. Unlike Chinese, Americans stress the consciousness of individual instead of the concept of unity in Chinese values. And the consciousness of individual, the individualism, is the core of American culture values.Indeed, the individualism plays a very important role in American culture, like Robert N Balkans saying “Individualism is the main center of American culture, and Richard Softs saying “Individualism is deeply rooted in American social history.” 2 Obviously, individualism leads the way for Americans. The individualism has become deep- rooted in Americans mind and influenced all aspects of life ranging from political to social fields in the American history. The American people attach great important to individualism. Why American people cherish such a doctrine? In my opinion, from the point of the origin of individualism, there are many factors that helped American build up such a belief.For one thing is the cause of the settlers. In the beginning years of American history, the first American immigrants came to the North American continent looking for better life and shaking off control they had experienced in Europe and the persecute from all kinds of powerful classes. They wanted to be free from such controls. They believed that the resolution for freedom should be the American people character and each individual is supremely important.For another is the cause of the religion. In the 1600s, many religions experienced religious persecution and a number of people were even killed because of their beliefs. 3 Therefore, Europeans who believe in the Protestants left their native countries to America in order to have freedom to practice their particular religious beliefs. Protestantism has been a powerful force in shaping the values and beliefs of Americans. Protestants emphasize personality and self-improvement. Consequently, it also strengthened the American individualism. In addition, the American frontier also has become a particularly important factor in shaping American individuals. In the American frontier, millions of landless peasants sailed over to the United States in order to buy the fertile and cheap land and establish themselves as independent farmers, such freedom provide a great sense of individual value and achievement. Throughout their history, Americans have tended to view the frontier settlers as the model of the free individual. This is probably because there was less control and there were few laws and few established social or political institution to confine people living on the frontier. The people in frontier pay more attention on individual ability, inventiveness, independence and equality of opportunity. In this way, it also helps America reinforce the individualism.Roughly speaking, there is a long history that American individualism has subsequently evolved during the period of American Revolution when the Declaration of Independence came into being. This famous document states that every man is an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. 4 It actually indicates the awareness of the value of equality, individual freedom and determination of independence, which is also the basic essence of the philosophy of individualism. This document defends all those rights that have been equally bestowed to all men by God or prescribed by laws. As Marx put it, the Declaration approached the problem of independence from the angle of human rights for the first time. It unequivocally raised the slogan of equality and freedom for all men. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” 5In recent decades, the important factor helping to accelerate the development of individualism is modernization, which is characterized as hundreds, even thousands of technologies and inventions having been putted into service. So we draw the conclusion that the Industrial Revolution liberated people from their farmland, enabled them to seek their fortune in cities, and provided them with a grate deal of newly invented articles which met their self-needs varying from one person to another. Here we pay little attention to academic theories, though some of which actually had great influence on the trend of individualism in America, such as Social Darwinism sponsored by Herbert Spencer, Corporative Individualism by Herbert Croly. 6And also, Religious Individualism, Christian Individualism, Atom Individualism, etc. had all played remarkably prominent roles in shaping the whole concept of Individualism as well.Individualism is a kind of concept of value and ideological system, as an outcome of western capitalism, together with self-interest and satisfaction. It emphasizes the initiative to satisfy and carry out personal desires and requests. According to the individualist, all values are human-centered, the individual is of supreme importance, and all individuals are morally equal. But, what is the specific content of individualism?From my perspective, the main content of individualism is emphasis on individual rights and freedom, respecting privacy, self-reliance and equality. And we can see these four attractive characters of individualism are reflected in every field of American peoples life. For example, American people think that they have the rights to be equal and have freedom. At the same time, personal privacy is respected highly and protected by the Privacy Law in individualistic culture countries. Anyone who infringes upon any other persons personal privacy with the motivation of profit, curiosity or malice will be punished. They are not like Chinese people who always ask about peoples age, marital status, job or salary when they meet with each other. Americans always avoid asking or answering private questions. The greetings or salutations are very generic and superficial. For example, they begin their conversation with “How are you?”, “It is a fine day, isnt it?” rather than the Chinese way, “Where are you going?”, “Have you eaten your meal?” That is because they believe that this is their own privacy, none of anyone else business. They regard those greetings that are considered very common in China as cultural prohibit because Americans believe all these are personal privacy.Furthermore, they will be uncomfortable when mentioned some sensitive things about their bodies such as being overweight, going bald, going gray by others in public. Here, we suppose a pair of good friends: one is a Chinese girl Li and another is an American girl Lily. One day, Li noticed that Lily had some visible gray hair on her. She told her so. But Lily was very angry. The reason is that Li shouldnt have told her that because there were men around. Going gray is a powerful symbol of increasing age for many western women. Getting older has so many negative connotations: the loss of child-bearing capacity, the loss of physical attractiveness to men, increasing infirmity, decreasing opportunities in ones life and so on. In addition, peoples right of privacy can be found in peoples personal life. “A mans house is his castle.” “Good fences make good neighbors.” 7 All these reflect Americans attitude towards privacy which shows that personal space is very important in their minds. Americans hate the inquisitive person who pokes their nose into their business or meddles in their affairs.Also, the individualism is embodied directly in American education. In modern society of the United States, it seems that home education is becoming more and more popular and important. Parents believe that it is a good idea to arrange some certain courses for their children according to their unique interests and give some specific attention to their potentials. As for American schools, the goal of the education system is to teach children how to learn and to help them reach their maximum potentials. The American schools tend to put more emphasis on developing critical-thinking skills than what they do on acquiring quantities of facts. American students are encouraged to ask questions no matter how dull or creative the questions are. They should think for themselves, and express their opinions freely in class, which reflect the American values of individual freedom and self-reliance. Whats more, they decide their major field of study, perhaps with or without their parents influence, and students even get to select some of their courses according to their own interests. They do not expect a rigid curriculum at all. It reflects more of the spirits of freedom and democracy. In class, they are left more space and time for self-study and free discussion. They are supposed to find out the answers themselves not rely on others. So when they encounter difficulties, it is themselves who will help. In this way, when they enter the society in the future, theyll depend less on people around. There is no wonder that there are so many Nobel winners and celebrities of various kinds who are creative and independent, free and open-minded in America.Even in the American family, we can see one of the most attractive characters of most American people- personal equality. Within the family, they firstly treat each other as an individual human being, and then as a family member. The husband is no longer the main provider of the family income, and the wife no longer has the main responsibilities for household duties and raising children. The husband and wife usually have an equal voice in decision-making. Children also have a vote on certain matters. They have the right to disagree, even argue with their parents while in most other cultures such action would be a sign of disrespect. It is simply a part of developing ones independence. Family members are regarded as friends and they should be treated equally in daily life.Generally speaking, the rooted concept of individualism leads Americans to attach great importance to personal equality, self-reliance, individual freedom and personality development. Individuals think that they have the very right to have privacy, to count on their own and to have equal role in their life. All the spirits of indiv