Summary Of American Character, By Teo Hui Yee

American Character by Teo Hui Yee (5013 5531)

The author characterizes the USA as consisting of many “nations” because each region has its own culture norms and practices, specifically, eleven different regional cultures are competing with each other, which make the country hard to reach a consensus. The USA has never been united in terms of widely accepted values and behaviors, but rather a federation, each state giving up some govern power to a supra-state organization while maintaining its cultural and social matters, similar to the European Union. An interesting example would be the words Americans used to refer to soft drinks: “Coke” in southern part, “Pop” in Midwest and “Soda” in East and West coastal areas. The regional differences
And I think it is hard to change the thinking of people especially they have existed for a very long time, but we cannot predict the future, these differences may disappear after fifty or hundred years followed by increasingly globalization and high mobility. People are moving around, bringing along their thinking and beliefs to a new place, plus some inputs from Asian or African immigrants that may blurry the distinction or actually complicated the
In this case, everyone is independent: one has the freedom to pursue what he or she wants and take responsible for his or her own actions, but restrictions are imposed to guard against human selfishness that harms the society’s benefits. Thus, government is important to surveillance the pursue of self-interest, collect taxes to balance the income disparity and promote equality for individuals to have economic opportunities. In social context, individuals are giving up some of their freedoms to eliminate unsatisfied individuals’ wants. Let’s take an example, the freedom of speech, everyone has the freedom to speak out their thoughts but with limitations, e.g. one cannot touch on the sensitive issues that may create chaos and hatred in the country. No matter the limitations are set for the reason of peace or as a respect to others, one is learned to express their thoughts and emotions out in a neutral way when they are facing some limitations. So, one can speak out his or her feeling while others will not feel being offended. This mechanism keeps the country stable while individuals still have the right to speak or to criticize, that is the least ugly system that we have (there