Key Words in American Life Flashcards
The promised Land:
New Jerusalem and El Dorado
“Chosen people” Americans frequently compare themselves to the Hebrew as being God’s favorite people. There follow a trend of philo-setism, a strong admiration for the jews and this explains the US support for Israel. The natural beauty and variety of the country parallels it to the Garden of Eden: The Americans love for nature also emerge from their belief that their country’s wild nature can be linked to paradise. Slaves also compared themselves to the Jews living under Egyptian rule and yearning for freedom and salvation, as can be heard in Negro-Spirituals (a traditional black hymns)
Innocence:
The American Dream
“John Locke”: The American belief in the good nature of Man is based on the writings of John Locke, as well as other writers of the Englishtenment, such as Rousseau. The American Drean, founded on the optimistic assumption that every one can rise up the social ladder with self-righteousness, drives from the creed that Americans are a new species in the moral evolution of Man.
Freedom:
The voice of ocnscience
America defined itself as the Land of Freedom, likening the Promised Land for the Hebrews. As early as it beginning dissenter and puritans sought to guarantee religious toleration and political pluralism. Yet, the occasional upsurge of anti-semitism; anti-catholicism, with-hunts ans McCarthyism comes to mitigate America’s dedication for freedom.
The Constitution:
The founding fathers
Americans built their country on founding texts among which: The Mayflower Compact, the Declararation of Independance and the Bill of Rights. The American constitution relies on a system named “checks and balances”, where powers are both separated and able to exert some measure of control on each other.
Ingennity:
The Yankee inventor
The belief in Progress through technology and resourcefulness is best epitomized by Benjamin Franklin. Self-reliance also has political implications such as the distrust of federal taxes.
Ther Frontier
Taming the ocntinen
The pioneering spirit, the readiness to “rough it” in order to conquer the territory and. They want to impose Law and order on the Wilderness which has eventually achieved with completion of the Transcontinental Railroad and the Telegraph Line. This westward movement was carried out at the expense of Indians allowing farmers to settle and get ownership of land almst freely. The figure of the Cowboy and the Forty Niner were the new American heroes.
Free entreprise:
Americain capitalism and its mythology
According to the Protestant ethic, the successful businessman is blessed by God. Until the late 19th century, more precisely the Gilded Age of the Rockfellers and Carnegies, it was widely held that entepreneurs and a laissez faire attitude were the guarantee of a sturdy social mobility. But the excesses of big business and the 1929 Wall street crach have made it clear that some degree of regulation was necessary to prevent the formation of trusts and monopolies.
