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The culture of the United States encompasses various social behaviors, institutions, and norms in the United States, including forms of speech, literature, music, visual arts, performing arts, food, sports, religion, law, technology, as well as other customs, beliefs, and forms of knowledge.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s American Idea. He co-founded The Atlantic 162 years ago this month. His vision of progress shaped the magazine—and helped define American culture, in his time and in...
- Individualism
- Freedom
- Competitiveness
- Privacy
- Equality
- Informality
- The Future, Change, and Progress
- The Goodness of Humanity
- Time
- Achievement, Action, Work, and Materialism
According to Althen (2003), “the most important thing to understand about Americans is probably their devotion to individualism. They are trained from very early in their lives to consider themselves as separate individuals who are responsible for their own situations . . . and . . . destinies. They’re not trained to see themselves as members of a ...
Americans feel strongly about their freedom as individuals. They don’t want the government or other authorities meddling in their personal affairs or telling them what they can and cannot do. One consequence of this respect for the individuality of persons, Althen claims is that Americans tend not to show the kind of deference to parents that peopl...
The strong emphasis on individualism pushes Americans to be highly competitive. Althen sees this reflected not only in the American enthusiasm for athletic events and sports heroes, who are praised for being “real competitors,” but also in the competitiveness that pervades schools and extracurricular activities. According to Althen, Americans are c...
Americans assign great value to personal privacy, says Althen, assuming that everyone needs time alone to reflect or replenish his or her psychic energy. Althen claims that Americans don’t understand people who think they always have to be in the company of others. He thinks foreigners are often puzzled by the invisible boundaries that seem to surr...
The American Declaration of Independence asserted (among other things) that “all men are created equal.” Perhaps most Americans are aware that equality is an ideal rather than a fully realized state of affairs; nevertheless, says Althen, most Americans “have a deep faith that in some fundamental way all people . . . are of equal value, that no one ...
American social behavior is marked by extraordinary informality. Althen sees this reflected in the tendency of Americans to move quickly, after introductions, to the use of first names rather than titles (like Mr. or Mrs.) with family names. Americans, says Althen, typically interact in casual and friendly ways. Informality is also reflected in spe...
The United States is a relatively young country. Although the first European colonies appeared in North America nearly 400 years ago, the United States is only 240 years old as I write these words. Perhaps this is why the U.S. tends to seem less tied to the past and more oriented towards the future. Moreover, the country has changed dramatically si...
Although some Americans belong to religious groups that emphasize the inherent sinfulness of man, Althen claims that the basic American attitude is more optimistic. For one thing, the American belief in progress and a better future, Althen argues, would not be possible if Americans did not believe human nature was basically good, or at least that p...
Americans regard time as a precious resource, says Althen. They believe time should always be used wisely and never wasted. Americans are obsessed with efficiency, or getting the best possible results with the least expenditure of resources, including time.
American society is action oriented. Contemplation and reflection are not valued much unless they contribute to improved performance. Americans admire hard work, but especially hard work that results in substantial achievement. “Americans tend to define and evaluate people,” says Althen, “by the jobs they have.” On the other hand, “family backgroun...
- Symbols. Every culture is filled with symbols, or things that stand for something else and that often evoke various reactions and emotions. Some symbols are actually types of nonverbal communication, while other symbols are in fact material objects.
- Language. Perhaps our most important set of symbols is language. In English, the word chair means something we sit on. In Spanish, the word silla means the same thing.
- Norms. Cultures differ widely in their norms, or standards and expectations for behaving. We already saw that the nature of drunken behavior depends on society’s expectations of how people should behave when drunk.
- Values. Values are another important element of culture and involve judgments of what is good or bad and desirable or undesirable. A culture’s values shape its norms.
3 days ago · The theory of cultural relativism, supported by pioneering German-American anthropologist Franz Boas, argued that one could only understand a person’s beliefs and behaviors in the context of his or her own culture. To put societies in cultural context, anthropologists began to live in these societies for long periods of time.
Culture was defined earlier as the symbols, language, beliefs, values, and artifacts that are part of any society. As this definition suggests, there are two basic components of culture: ideas and symbols on the one hand and artifacts (material objects) on the other.
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The culture of the United States encompasses various social behaviors, institutions, and norms in the United States, including forms of speech, literature, music, visual arts, performing arts, food, sports, religion, law, technology as well as other customs, beliefs, and forms of knowledge.
