The impact of the American values on the population's humanitarian involvement

Résumé du document

When I think of American culture and civilization, the first observation that strikes me is the power of the American values. I used to think that the Americans and the French shared exactly the same views on most of things but after having spent a semester studying with students and teachers from the U.S., I now believe that there are some major differences between the American and the French culture. The common understanding of the word "culture? refers to the values, beliefs and expectations that its members share.

Extraits

[...] The individual, more than the community or the State, is central. Ex : In France, I am French before being Algerian but in the States, you're of course American but your religion or origin have a greater importance. - The average American accepts changes and tends to take risks. So hard work and entrepreneurship is one of the most important values the culture has. Ex : All the Americans I've met were extremely shocked that we could conceive working only 35 hours a week while they value someone who works at least twice that amount of time. [...]

[...] The “American dream”, for example, is a direct product of the values I described. Americans believe that their life goals are truly achievable, and this is partly due to their national sense of optimism, the great importance of each individual, but also because taking risks is valued as well as hard work. Ex : popular culture perfectly illustrates this observation. A movie called pursuit of happyness” was released in 2006. It tells the true story of a very poor, uneducated American man who was homeless for a while but still took care of his son and because of his hard work during an internship, finally got the job of his dreams and all the success he longed for. [...]

[...] Ex : recycling is encouraged and promoted in school as well as through local government, online donations are becoming more and more popular and direct actions in the form of monetary and volunteering contributions are numerous : there are countless food collection programs for homeless and Habitat for Humanity builds simple and affordable houses for people in need. Remember that one of the most important values I mentioned was that the American culture is an achievement-oriented culture. Well, Americans are often evaluated on their accomplishments outside of academics. In France, the only thing that matters in school is to get As but in the US there is a general focus on developing a "well-rounded" individual. [...]

[...] Where we, Europeans, tend to be quite passive and prefer words and long speeches, Americans favor practical action and hypothesis testing instead of overreaching ideology. Ex : what astonished me when I met American students of my age is that they had at least twice as many extra-curricular activities as the average French student (they have a job, practice sports, are involved in clubs and organization etc.). Their mere example inspired me to action in my own way. - When you match this American predisposition to act with the conviction that everything is possible, you get some great role models of what an active American should be. [...]

[...] The impact of the American values on the population's humanitarian involvement When I think of American culture and civilization, the first observation that strikes me is the power of American values. I used to think that Americans and the French shared exactly the same views on most of things but after having spent a semester studying with students and teachers from the U.S., I now believe that there are some major differences between American and French culture. The common understanding of the word “culture” refers to the values, beliefs and expectations that its members share. [...]