Comparative Analysis of Dominant Russian and American Values

Comparative analysis of dominant Russian and American Values The question of values becomes important when we cannot understand and explain the behavior of foreigners. Probably you know this from your own experience of communication with people from other countries: sometimes we think that foreigners behave strangely or rudely or just differently from what we expect. In most cases this is what is usually called "cultural misunderstanding". OK, now let’s dwell on the concept “value”. There is a considerable confusion surrounding the definition of values. In spite of the fact that there are many definitions and innumerable studies, no definition has attracted widespread consensus. Kurt Baier notes that to define values sociologists employ a bewildering profusion of terms, raging from what a person wants, desires, needs, enjoys, prefers to what the community enjoys, sanctions or enforces. The concept of value refers to two contrasting ideas. At one extreme we speak of economic values based on products, wealth, prices – on highly material things. In another context, however, the word “value” acquires an abstract, intangible and non-measurable meaning. Among such spiritual values are freedom, peace, justice, equity. In many societies we find a growing antagonism between some of the new values propagated by the mass-media, and the traditional values inherited from the past. For example, we can single out such pairs as: traditional sex roles/blurring of sex roles or traditional family life/alternative families. But let’s analyse all this stuff by looking at two countries, America and Russia. First of all, we’ll give some descriptive information, then we’ll compare them. America. Before we can fully understand the dominant American worldview we need to analyze the historical and cultural roots of mainstream American society. The earliest settlers who came to the North American continent were motivated by the desire to escape the control and