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The Essence of American
Culture
——
Individualism
I.
Introduction
Individualism is the very core of
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.
Such
folks
think
that
they
owe
no
man
anything
and
hardly
expect
anything
from
others.
What
’
s
more,
they
imagine
that
their destinations are in their own
hands while nobody else can make much difference.
The spirits such as self-reliance,
individual freedom, hard work and equal
competition
are developed and
intensified in the United States. Individualism is
so deeply rooted
in
people
’
s heart that it
permeates every aspect of American society and is
embodied
directly in American daily
life, education, family and so on.
II.
Definition and
characteristics of individualism in American
culture
A.
Definition of individualism
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.
In fact, the word
“
Individualism
”
was created
by Tocqueville, a French socialist
and
first
used
in
the
book
Democracy
in
America
,
in
which
he
gave
a
description
rather than a definition:
“
Individualism is a mature
and calm feeling, which disposes
each
member of the community to sever himself from the
mass of his fellows and to
draw
apart
with
his
family
and
his
friends,
so
that
after
he
has
thus
formed
a
little
circle of his own, he
willingly leaves society at large to
itself.
”
Tocqueville also
made
a
contemplative
comparison
between
‘
Individualism
’
and
‘
Egoism
’
(selfishness
—
a
tendency
to
deceive
and
manipulate
others
for
personal
gain
or
do
what
is
in
their
self-interest) and pointed out that
this individualism was one of the products among
the
American
democracy.
In
Habits
of
the
Heart
,
the
authors
Robert
Bellah
and
Richard
Madsen
pointed
out
that
individualism
was
the
core
of
American
value.
Americans believed in personal dignity
and the sacred rights which were inviolable.
They
thought
for
themselves,
judged
for
themselves
and
made
decisions
for
themselves. They lived by their own
lifestyles. Anything violating these rights could
be considered morally wrong and a
blasphemy against the God. In this book, a clear
division
between
individualism
and egoism was made.
Egoism was considered as a
kind
of
concept
that
one
only
thought
about
himself
with
crazy
love
for
himself
in
front
of
everything.
Egoism
was
the
extreme
individualism
whose
core
was
to
see
personal
values high above everything, putting personal
desires above the interests of
the
nation, collective or others. For the sake of
personal benefits, they did not hesitate
to
injure
society,
collective
and
others
’
benefits.
However,
they
advocated
that
individualism
in
America
was
a
kind
of
calm
feeling
that
made
every
independent
citizen live
above others and live together with their families
and friends who agreed
with them.
B.
Characteristics of individualism
1.
Individual rights and
freedom
Much unlike the
Europeans
’
thoughts on
“
freedom
”
--
an entire freedom from any
string, the
counterpart in America seems to be more
reasonable, not meaning that one
can do
anything at will, but entitling people the right
“
to being
educated
”, “
to
work
”
,
“
to
have the
freedom
of thought,
conscience and
religion
”
,
“
to
gain
the
freedom
of
peaceful
assembly
and
association
”
,
etc.
The
basis
of
all
of
these
rights
are
“
Life,
liberty
and the pursuit of
happiness
”
, declared
by
The Declaration of
Independence
.
Of course, all
of these freedoms and rights should be under the
control of the States
’
legal system.
2.
Self-reliance
One
of
the
most
attractive
characters
of
most
American
people
is
their
self-reliance. Children in the United
States, as long as they are 18 years old, have to
earn
their
daily
bread
by
themselves,
while
senior
citizens
are
quite
used
to
living
alone
instead
of
sharing
the
same
ceiling
with
their
children.
In
the
family
of
the
United
States, children have great autonomy. Parents
seldom say,
“
Do not do it in
this
way.
”
If
the
child
is
too
naughty,
the
parents
will
say,
“Let
them
return
to
their
rooms.
”
Failure
to develop self-reliance is seen as a threat to
achieve material success.
Thus, it is
very common for students to work in America. For
most American students,
they work just
for developing their self-reliance spirits. Today,
under impact of this
cultural value,
many Chinese students who study in America will
find part-time jobs,
which have become
a required course.
3.
Equality
In general, most
Americans are fairly indifferent to the identity
of social rank and
belong themselves to
the middle class.
“
We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created
equal.
”
And we
can
’
t get a more valuable
heritage from Thomas
Jefferson and
Martin Luther King. Quite different from Europe,
the idea of equality in
the
United
States
assumes
that
everyone
has
equal
opportunities
rather
than
social
positions. That is to
say, every person has equal chance to achieve his
success. Based
on
personal
equality,
individual
competition
then
has
evolved
into
a
life
attitude
throughout
the
daily
life
of
American
people.
In
the
United
States,
a
fair
social
competition
is
protected
by
both
political
principles
and
organizational
structures,
ensuring an advantageous environment
for personal equal competition.
4.
Respect for others
For
Chinese,
when
they
meet,
they
are
used
to
talking
about
personal
things,
such
as
age,
marital
status,
job
and
income.
In
the
United
States,
the
situation
is
entirely different. In the view of
Americans, these are personal privacy, and should
be
respected
by
others.
For
example,
if
you
want
to
visit
others,
you
should
tell
the
family first. If not, the host shall
not allow you to enter the house.
In
the Fast Food
Shop, the American people
are just at their side of the plate, and do not
interfere with
others.
In
the
library,
the
American
students
don
’
t
sit
together
when
they
have
a
reading;
even
good
friends
are
not
an
exception.
They
just
want
to
have
their
own
individual space. That
phrase,
“
none of your
business
”
, springs easily to
the lips of an
American,
and
is
uttered
in
the
same
tone
as
“
Get
off
my
property
”
.
In
the
United
States,
personal
privacy
is
respected
and
protected
by
law.
If
a
person
violates
the
privacy of others for profits,
curiosity, or malicious motives, he must be
punished.
III.
Origin of individualism
in American culture
Individualism is a
western concept which has its origin in the west.
As the time
goes by, it has been
intensified greatly.
A.
Religion
America
is
a
Christian
country.
When
“
Mayflower
”
carried
the
British
to
the
continent
of
North
America,
it
was
doomed
that
individualism
would
be
fully
developed in this piece of land. On the
one hand, there were only millions of Indian
indigenous people living on this piece
of land. They lived the most primitive life, and
their
social
conditions
were
extremely
bad.
In
order
to
change
this
situation,
the
British had to rely on
their own to conquer the nature to survive. On the
other hand,
the
immigrants
were
Puritans
who
left
the
United
Kingdom
due
to
the
religious
persecution. They believed that there
is a direct
spiritual link between
every devout
Christian
and
God
(Zhu
Shida,
2000:
2).
Therefore,
whether
in
high
or
low
status,
being
rich or poor, every one is equal before God. Such
kind of relationship
—“
one to
many
”
between
God
and
people
is
the
base
for
the
survival
of
individualism.
As
puritans believed that all people were
equal before God, as a complete individual, the
individual should be in charge of their
lives, pursue their own happiness, and acquire
their material wealth and social
status. People
’
s spirits of
hard-working and progress
are
inseparable from the deep-rooted religious
influence.
B.
American
Revolution
The
awareness
of
individualism
can
also
be
traced
back
to
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. 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.
”
C.
Westward Movement
Individualism
was
greatly
intensified
in
the
Westward
Movement.
“
American
Westward Movement and life in the
border area promoted greatly to the development
of individualism. Some people believed
that individualism was actually a certain kind
of
cultural
heritage
of
frontier
life.
”
The
American
famous
historian
Frederick
J.
Turner held that the vast land in the
west area had endowed American people a deep
understanding of freedom. It can be
seen that in the American Frontier, to survive the
tough condition of living in the wild,
the pioneers must fight against the bad weather
and unexpected diseases, which can make
their characters strong, clear, sometimes in
a heroic way. In reality, they tried
their best to search for a better life for
themselves
and their families, such as
constructing their hometown and setting up many
school
buildings.
American pioneers lost their
comfortable life when they were trying to
extricate
themselves from the fetters
of the old social orders. From then on, they tried
to live on
their
own
with
their
independent
spirit
of
pioneering.
Individualism
emphasizes
the
concept of bountiful
freedom and independence of living by their own
life styles, so
they mostly count on
themselves.
D.
Industrial revolution and urbanization
Generally
speaking,
the
industrial
revolution
started
in
the
late
1800s,
which
appeared
to
be
a
gradually
accelerating
procedure
for
mass
production
instead
of
a
dramatic and
rapid transformation. In the first half of the
17
th
century or even
earlier,
the idea of a market-
orientated production had already permeated deeply
into people
’
s
minds. In the new industrial system,
the manufacturing process had been decomposed
into several
tiny sections
without much manual
labor as
before.
According to
Max,
this great
transformation made the industrial workers
severely alienated. In Germany,
Max
used the word
“
entaeusser
”
instead--which he thought was
both based on wage
labor
and
industrialism,
caused
by
the
products
and
themselves
in
the
acts
of
production.
Urbanization is
the next trend providing fertile soils to
individualism.
Roughly
speaking,
the
definition
of
urbanization
is
a
process
in
which
the
proportion
of
population
who
work
or
live
in
the
cities
has
been
relentlessly
increasing.
As
an
immigrant
country, the United States
’
procedure of urbanization appears to be more
complex, but it is quite manifest.
People from the North, the South, Asia as well as
Eastern
Europe
have
been
voluntarily
poured
into
the
Big
Melting
Pot.
The
final
product
is
“
a multitude
of
separate
corporations
”
.
In
this process, social differences
were
aroused and people were not so liable to be
connected together by loyalty, trust
or
that
of
this
kind
as
before.
A
new
era
has
come,
in
which
it
is
so
general
for
contracts replacing handshakes to keep
relationships between people.
IV
.
Reflection of individualism in American
culture
Individualism
can
be
reflected
in
every
field
of
American
people
’
s
life.
Individuals think that
they have the very right to have privacy, to count
on themselves
and to have equal role in
their life. All the spirits of individualism are
clearly reflected
in American culture.
A.
Daily life
Americans emphasize on personality and
individuality. They think that they have
the
very
rights
to
be
equal
and
have
freedom.
Simultaneously,
this
kind
of
right
is
protected
by
the
Privacy
Law.
Anyone
who
infringes
upon
any
other
’
s
personal
privacy with the
motivation of profit, curiosity or malice will be
punished. They are
not
like
Chinese
people
who
always
ask
about
people
’
s
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,
isn
’
t
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 any other
’
s
business. They regard those greetings
that are considered very common in China as
cultural taboo 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
shouldn
’
t have told
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