American Value System Research Articles

Этнические миры в прозе Е.В. Рудашевского

The article deals with the research of Russian and American so called ethnic worlds (cultural backgrounds) in the novel «Bessonitsa» (“Insomnia”) by E.V. Rudashevsky. The other of the novel is a representative of YA literature in modern Russian literature. The relevance of the research is due to the investigating a possible links between American and European cultures in the novel, and the comparison of the American and Russian value systems. The article examines the genetic links between “Insomnia” and new journalism, a popular trend in the US press in the 1970s, as well as American cinema and the work of European writers, artists, and film Directors. Much attention is paid to the generic nature of the novel, the form of the narrative, the problems and images of the characters. The research results make the following conclusions: the idea to describe and compare different ethnic and cultural worlds is characteristic of Rudashevsky’s novel; the depth of Den's inner world disclosure makes the work an important event in modern Russian prose; the poetics of “Insomnia” is largely based on the thematic and aesthetic settings of the American new journalism.

РОЛЬ ХРИСТИЯНСТВА У ФОРМУВАННІ АМЕРИКАНСЬКОЇ ІДЕОЛОГІЇ

This article addresses the role of Christianity in the formation of the US ideology, particularly its influence on the formation of the concept of American exceptionalism. Although the recent decades have witnessed the increasing attention of American and European scholars to the influence of Christianity on the history of the United States, the body of historical research, and especially the Ukrainian one, still lacks general comprehensive analyses of the role of Christianity in the formation of American ideology and political culture. The article pays a particular attention to the messianic ideas preached by the Puritan leaders in the early history of the New World. These ideas have deeply rooted in the political ideology of the U.S. and still have a strong influence on its development. The article covers the role of Christian rhetoric, which is widely used in the addresses to the nation, and proves its significant role in the shaping of public opinion. Special attention is also paid to the characterizing of Protestant ethic, which basic principles had an impact on the formation of the American value system and influenced the development of the most crucial features of American identity – deep individualism and entrepreneurial mindset.

Explaining Canada–US differences in attitudes toward the role of government: a test of S.M. Lipset’s ‘Continental Divide’

ABSTRACTFor decades scholars have engaged in a lively debate about the distinctiveness of Canadian and American value systems. Lipset (1990) argues that divergent responses to the American Revolution led Canada to embrace Tory values of ‘peace, order, and good government’ while Americans pursued classical liberal values of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’. Other scholars question the extent, or even the existence, of the differences Lipset describes. Using surveys of students from Canadian and American universities close to the Canada–US border, we identify compelling support for Lipset’s hypothesised differences on the role of government in the least likely setting imaginable.

A Political Companion to Philip Roth

A Political Companion to Philip Roth Maggie McKinley (bio) Claudia Franziska Brühwiler and Lee Trepanier, eds. A Political Companion to Philip Roth. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2017. xi+284 pp. $60.00. Philip Roth has always had a fraught relationship with his own public role, particularly with regards to politics. He has been famously resistant to any kind of politicized label, from his chagrin at being categorized as a "Jewish American Writer" to his reluctance to accept the title of "Public Intellectual." He has also pushed back against those who would interpret some of his work as a symbolic commentary on contemporary politics: for example, when The Plot Against America was published in 2004 and was promptly read as a critique of the second Bush administration, Roth asserted that he wrote the novel "not so as to illuminate the present through the past but to illuminate the past through the past" ("The Story"). Yet Roth has never been able to completely distance himself or his writing from the political realm: as recently as January 2017, in fact, in an email about the perils of the Trump administration published in the New Yorker, Roth alluded to a political responsibility unique to writers. As he wrote, "I imagine writers will continue robustly to exploit the enormous American freedom that exists to write what they please, to speak out about the political situation, or to organize as they see fit" (Thurman). A Political Companion to Philip Roth confronts this conundrum of sorts, acknowledging Roth's reluctance to make fiction political while also exploring the way politics seems inextricable from Roth's writing. Indeed, the collection opens with Roth's published remarks for the 2013 PEN Literary Gala, wherein he uses his platform to criticize the government and attendant censorship he encountered in Prague in the 1970s. Each contributor thereafter deftly navigates Roth's caginess about politics, examining manifestations of political themes in his work while justly refusing to pin Roth down to any one political ideology or dogma, likely mindful of his remark that while so many forces in society attempt to "persuade, tempt, and control," readers "come to fiction to be free of all that noise" (Lee 186). [End Page 94] One of the merits of the collection is the way that it highlights the many variant ways the term "politics" itself can be understood across Roth's body of work. In doing so, it demonstrates a refreshing breadth of approaches and methodologies, likely arising from the fact that the contributors hail from a range of disciplines and draw from diverse areas of expertise. For example, Aimee Pozorski engages with trauma theory to argue that I Married a Communist "offers a politics of listening" (16) that "becomes the most effective form of engagement" (21). Michael Festl applies a methodology of political philosophy to the American Trilogy, finding pathologies in each novel that prevent Roth's characters from becoming reconciled to an American value system. Louis Gordon addresses the conflicting views on Zionism offered by different characters in The Facts, The Counterlife, and Operation Shylock, highlighting the dialogism that defines Roth's work. Andy Connolly explores politics of race and class in The Human Stain. Till Kinzel, Yael Maurer, and Debra Shostak all investigate various iterations of the politics of the body: Kinzel connects physical suffering in "Novotny's Pain" to the problems of American democracy; Maurer explores the relationship between the male body and political anxiety; and Shostak investigates gender politics in an array of Roth's novels, focusing primarily on the men but also devoting an intriguing and much-needed "coda" to Roth's less-discussed female characters. While each chapter offers a valuable contribution to the discussion of Roth and politics, there are some particular highlights that ground the collection, delivering especially focused readings of the political dimensions of Roth's writing and drawing together elements of surrounding essays. For example, Claudia Brühwiler's essay mines Roth's writing and biography for evidence of his role as a public intellectual, and her piece provides a throughway of sorts for ensuing essays to engage more deeply with political themes in Roth's individual works. In "The Politics of...

American Woman: Feminine Speech and the Reformation of National Identity Through Female Community in louisa May Alcott’s An Old-Fashioned Girl

ABSTRACTThe insecurity of American identity in the years immediately after the Civil War added to fears about the dissolution of a simple, “old-fashioned” American past. Louisa May Alcott in particular worries about the Frenchified influence of “The Girl of the Period,” a fear that she addresses in An Old-Fashioned Girl (1870). After the Civil War, Alcott saw an opportunity for women to play an essential part in the creation of a revised American identity. This article argues that the “Old-Fashioned Girl” embodies what Alcott sees as a more American value system while inspiring cultural and social change. In contrast to Republican motherhood, in which women gain power through influencing their husbands and sons, Alcott emphasizes a rhizomatic female community where women gain power through their influence on and support of other women. Furthermore, the old-fashioned girl crosses age and class boundaries by building an identity and community that Alcott characterizes as distinctly American; through their speech, women (and girls) can help render not only the home but the nation “what it should be.”

Not ‘Taking the Easy Way Out’: Reframing Bariatric Surgery from Low-effort Weight Loss to Hard Work

ABSTRACTCultural notions equating greater morality and virtue with hard work and productive output are deeply embedded in American value systems. This is exemplified in how people understand and execute personal body projects, including efforts to become slim. Bariatric surgery is commonly viewed as a ‘low-effort’ means of losing weight, and individuals who opt for this surgery are often perceived to be ‘cheating.’ This extended ethnographic study within one bariatric program in the Southwestern United States shows how patients conscientiously perform this productivity. By prioritizing discourses that focus on their own hard work and the inherent value and necessity of their surgery, patients and practitioners alike contest the dominant public views of surgically-induced weight loss.

“All My Sons”- The Tragic Conflict between Family Loyalties and Social Responsibilities

Abstract. The play “All My Sons” takes its title from the swan-song of Joe Keller, the tragic character in the play. His sens of guilt drives him to suicide, and before taking his life,he refers to his son Larry’s statement that he was ending his life to make amends for the twenty-one pilots, who met their end by using the cracked cylinder heads dispatched from the factory of Joe Keller. Larry’s death brings home to Joe the truth that not only Larry but also those twenty-one pilots were his sons. The major theme of ”All My Sons” is the tragic conflict between family loyalties and the social responsibility. Joe Keller is an ordinary fair-to medium individual whose love for his family is boundless. Being an uneducated man, not given to much reading,he lives in a narrow world consisting of his family and a few neighbors. A confusion of values overwhelms his mind, for he is obsessed with his own happiness and of those he loves, but his son Chris speaks of the universe of people to which he has the responsibility. His personal tragedy triggers from his adherence to the American value system which is antagonistic to social welfare.

Core values in American life: living with contradictions

What values do Americans hold dear? What happens when real-world situations cause those values to conflict? To better understand the intellectual map of how American society works, Arthur G. Neal and Helen Youngelson-Neal analyze values prominent in American word and deed. These values appear in our nation's formal documents-rights and privileges prominently emphasized in the US Constitution and inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. They have shaped the historical destiny and, indeed, include those values most extensively propagated by the general population. Using these criteria, the authors identify individualism, the pursuit of happiness, freedom, consumerism, materialism, equality of opportunity, technology, mastery of the environment, quality of marriage, and national unity as the core American values. Core values provide the raw materials for the construction of contemporary society as a moral community, wherever that community is located. Such values are clusters of ideas that are central to self-identities; they generate a sense of collective belonging and membership. As such, core values define the existing social order and advance a set of ideas for depicting a desirable future. The analysis presented here helps us understand contemporary conflicts inherent in the American value system and the problems confronted by Americans as they try to live within the limitations and contradictions of value systems.

Cults and Cultural Change

During the latter half of the Twentieth Century, North America saw an upsurge in the popularity of cults and new religious movements, such as Scientology, the Unification Church and Wicca.Using a sociological lens, this paper will examine the changes in North American value systems amongst particular demographics during the 1960s and 70s and will provide explanations for the popularity of various types of emergent cults amongst said demographics. The phenomenon of cult involvement was analyzed through the context of sociological models including Emile Durkheim’s concept of 'anomie.' It is then shown how cult activity is a by-product of the cultural turmoil and clash of value systems (i.e. the ‘counter culture’) amongst the population, as well as the relegation of major social institutions (such as institutionalized religion and the church) into more peripheral roles, and the ensuing need amongst certain groups for a sense of social belonging which could not be met by such institutions. This paper concludes that the rise of new religious movements during the late Twentieth Century was a response to feelings of normlessness and identity conflict amongst younger generation following the age of the counter culture.

The Impact of Asian American Value Systems on Palliative Care

Clinicians meet people from different ethnic backgrounds, yet need to respond in culturally sensitive ways. This article focuses on Asian American families. Within a randomized controlled trial of family therapy commenced during palliative care and continued into bereavement, 3 families of Asian American background were examined qualitatively from a cultural perspective by listening to recordings of 26 therapy sessions and reviewing detailed supervision notes compiled by each therapist. A synopsis of each family's therapy narrative is presented. Prominent themes include family closeness, respect for hierarchy within the family, gender-determined roles, intergenerational tensions, preoccupation with shame and limited emotional expressiveness. Family therapists working with culturally diverse families need to pay thoughtful attention to ethnic issues as they strive to support them during palliative care and bereavement.

Introduction: Culture and Psychiatry

Introduction: Culture and Psychiatry

Rap's Unruly Body The Postmodern Performance of Black Male Identity on the American Stage

In response to the question, Does rap bear any “social message,” Ice Cube was careful to make a distinction between the occasions when rappers are “just having fun” and when they are performing a more serious “social message.” “Gansta rap” or “reality rap” are self-conscious performances of the complexities and commodifications of black male identity in America. Gangsta rap, the most theatrical style of rap, comments on the place of black masculinity in the American value system, and imagines alternative spaces where the power structures may be redefined.

The value tensions in Korean–American mother–child relationships while facilitating academic success

The current study explored mothers’ perspectives concerning their experiences in facilitating the academic success of their adolescents in American schools, using a naturalistic study design, data from transcribed personal interviews of 17 Korean–American mothers, and a phenomenological analysis approach (Giorgi, 1985, 1997). The purposes of this study were to (a) reveal the layers of context that influenced mothers’ thoughts, actions, and mother–child relationships as they assisted their adolescents in realizing academic success, a core value in Korean culture, and (b) uncover the relationship difficulties mothers perceived in these processes. The results indicated that mothers were influenced by their individualistic and collectivist cultural (meta) contexts as they tried to facilitate the academic success for their adolescents. Second, they were struggling with their competing Korean and American value systems (general context) in the adjustment processes of “becoming an American” and “remaining a Korean.” Third, mothers revealed their value tensions with adolescents (specific context) in school and family settings. In the family setting the tensions involved balancing obedience and respect with freedom and equality, similarity preference with diversity tolerance, and achievement and recognition with happiness and fulfillment.

The gas pedal and the brake … toward a global balance of diverging cultural determinants in managerial mindsets

AbstractIs the American culturally driven inclination for short‐term results and constant change coupled with a focus on the individual as opposed to the group influencing the way transnational corporate business is conducted? Such an issue is raised via an introduction to cultural determinants as theorized by the underlying research of Hofstede, Tromprenaars, and Hampden‐Turrner regarding time orientation as well as the contrasting of American and foreign value systems in respect to change acceptance as driven by the culturally limiting national mind set of the company manager. Using global, publicly traded companies and the pressure on them for quarterly performance attainment as fueled by the Street, financial analysts, the effect of the American culturally driven need to continually show financial progress at abbreviated intervals or provide for some pronounced judicious changes in the interim may have begun to spiral out to managerial decision making around the world. Such phenomenon may begin to upset the historic balance that the polar culturally based applications of time, change, and decision making provided the historic global commercial environment. Such proposed effect could also influence traditional worldwide economic and social development. This concept is raised but not empirically answered, and is offered to stimulate further evaluation and research into the potential conflict in international decision making when opposite mindsets collide. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Beyond "Modernization" and "Colonization"

Recent scholarship on foreign relations focuses increasingly on its cultural dimensions. Definitions of “American culture” in such investigations vary greatly, ranging from exports produced by industries situated in the United States, to interactions between “ordinary” Americans and “ordinary” people abroad, to the value systems that Americans bring to their interactions with foreign nations. Frequently, assessments of the impact of American culture abroad employ the term “Americanization.” Although what constitutes “American culture,” “American values,” or “Americanization” has been highly contested, two main interpretive paradigms have emerged to make sense of U.S. foreign cultural relations. The “modernization paradigm” links American culture to economic development and political democratization and presents Americanization as a process by which the United States, through its political, economic, and cultural presence, manages the development of liberal democracies, market economies, and consumer cultures abroad. Constructed in the postwar period, this paradigm builds on a firm belief in the American superiority over totalitarianism, over both the fascist losers of World War II and Cold War enemies. The experiences of postwar Western European countries and especially the democratization and growing wealth of West Germany seem to confirm that U.S. power applied abroad brings peace, progress, and prosperity. Crudely put, this paradigm, which has shaped much scholarship on post-World War II Europe, posits the existence of an American culture that reflects and transports a uniform, democratic American value system.1

Health reform in America: the mystery of the missing moral momentum.

Examining health policy and its recent reform misadventures in the United States from a moral viewpoint is painful. That the nation devotes 14% of its Gross Domestic Product to health services—sometimes of doubtful clinical efficacy and value for money—and yet lets more than 40 million citizens go without health coverage strikes critics, both foreign and domestic, as a disgrace explicable only by ethical deficiencies distinctive to the American value system. There is certainly merit in this critique, which understandably incites fire and brimstone about the urgent moral imperative of getting the nation on the path of righteousness at last.

Do me a favor: A descriptive analysis of favor asking sequences in American English

This paper investigates the linguistic realization of a particular speech act, culturally defined as favor asking among speakers of American English. Favor asking belongs to the directive type of speech acts, of which the request is prototypical and is a type of “control act” (Ervin-Tripp et al., 1984: 116) or manipulation of language which attempts to accomplish a goal through another's actions. Through an in-depth analysis of favor asking, insight may be gained into aspects of a particular American value system as it is reflected in the types of favors deemed appropriate to ask, and the kinds of responses and negotiations which follow upon such requests for help and/or service. The present paper focuses on the choices people make when asking and responding to favors in terms of their rights and obligations to one another, thus fitting neatly into pragmatics as a function of communication.

Native Americans and Leisure: State of the Research and Future Directions

Though leisure researchers have in recent years established a growing interest in cross-cultural leisure research, they have paid little attention to Native American communities. This evaluative review of literature examines Native American leisure beliefs and behaviors through related concepts such as play, games and parks. The article is also an examination of Native American value systems in general, with their relationships to leisure beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. Specific recommended guidelines for conducting research in Native American communities are given, as well as a number of recommendations for future research directions.

The New Zealand experience.

The public opinion polls show in New Zealand that accident compensation is an accepted part of the social support system. Therein lies the reason why the most recent changes have not really disturbed the most fundamental aspects of the scheme although some important changes have been made to some of the details. This paper discusses the author’s experience in tort law, both academic and reform, and the introduction of accident compensation in New Zealand. The author refers to his difficulty in trying to find coherent, intellectually honest arguments in favour of the tort system. Its retention in the United States appears to depend upon a combination of vested interests and inability to reach a consensus on the nature of the replacement. The problems of dealing with issues one at a time rather than approaching reform comprehensively are considerable. Inequities and inequalities are created which cannot be defended and which create social resentment. This remains one of the central difficulties in the mixture of systems that the United States has. It is important to observe that the New Zealand tort system never exhibited the same characteristics as the United States tort system. While both are common law countries, the diversity that exists within common law countries is not always capable of being analysed in terms of the legal rules which are operating. A number of factors help to explain the differences in the way the law of negligence works. New Zealand law reform is the responsibility of the government, to be accomplished by legislation. And New Zealand’s governmental system is not democracy as Americans know it. It is more akin to an elective dictatorship. The principle of community responsibility on which the Royal Commission report, and the eventual accident compensation scheme, was based is a socially acceptable principle in New Zealand. Suing is a very prominent characteristic of the American legal system and of the American value system, but it was not availed of nearly with the same vigor or determination in New Zealand and was a very moderate system. More broadly, New Zealand has always had a developed welfare state which now includes an extremely generous national superannuation scheme. All of these factors led to accident compensation being accepted in New Zealand. The widespread acceptance of the scheme by the New Zealand public has insulated it against efforts of those in government and in the Treasury who are interested in reducing government expenditure on income maintenance across the board. The significant feature of the Accident Rehabilitation and Compensation Insurance Act 1992 is the clear indication that the new National government wants to fence accident compensation off. It does not want accident compensation to be the instrument which remakes the income maintenance system. It wants to restrict it, and to have the scheme remain as the vehicle for dealing with accidents but nothing else. There also remains a determination in the government to avoid bringing common law remedy back. The basic principle of the reform was to eliminate common law actions. In order to do that, it was necessary to introduce sufficient benefits that it could not be said that this was a mean scheme. 20 years later the common law remains gone. But the benefits have also been sharply reduced. There will be many legal and technical problems with the definitions in the new Act. The new legislation has also been attacked by Sir Owen Woodhouse as not compatible with the principles of his scheme. It is unprincipled, inconsistent and lacking in a coherent policy approach.

The Cost of Tolerance for Violence

Our society evinces a high tolerance for violence. This acceptance of certain forms of violent behavior is ingrained in the American value system, established through our history in the simple struggle to survive. Beginning with the colonial era, through the settlement of the western frontier, and during the wave of immigrant arrivals, Americans often used violence to establish basic rights. Sociobiological explanations of individual violent tendencies focus on genetic predisposition established through natural selection--or survival of the fittest--while psychoanalytical perspectives define extreme violence as a deviant form of natural aggression. On the other hand, criminologists define all violence as deviant. In today's society, physical force is considered to be justifiable when expressing political dissent and protecting self and property, and less so during domestic disputes.