American Political Culture and Values
In Hellfire Nation (2003) James Morone described U.S. history as cyclical, with alternating generational cycles of reform and conservatism that can be traced back to the colonial period. In the 20th Century, the reform periods were the Progressive Era, the New Deal and the Great Society of the 1960s, while the 1920s, 1950s and 1980s were eras of conservatism. Religion, culture and sexual morality also follow this cyclical pattern, with the Victorian Era of the late-19th Century and repressive laws of Anthony Comstock, the McCarthyism of the 1950s, and the Moral Majority of the 1980s all following a similar pattern. Since the days of the Puritans in the 17th Century, the great political and moral contests have always centered on the choice between "redeeming 'us' and reforming 'them'," and America has always had a dualistic, Jekyll and Hyde
In conservative cycles, politics and culture are focused on suppressing 'un-American' threats or order and morality, such as blacks, Indians, Catholics, gays, radicals or hippies, while in reform eras the goal is always to follow the Social Gospel of assisting the outcasts and the marginalized, such as slaves, the poor, the working class, women or other oppressed groups.
In the 1960s and early-1970s, Victorian morality and old-time religion were particularly threatened by Supreme Court decisions legalizing birth control and abortion, the civil rights, gay rights, feminist and countercultural movements, the Social Gospel of Martin Luther King, and the anti-Vietnam War protests. All over the world, "young people imagined a new, more democratic, more socially responsible order," although predictably all of these generated a huge Right-wing backlash that lasted for decades (Morone 435). A cyclical theory like Morone's is indeed one of the best theoretical frameworks at explaining the pendulum-like swings between reform and conservative periods in U.S. history, and why change in this country so often appears to be a matter of two steps forward and one step back. It would seem counter-intuitive to progressives and liberals, at least until they reflect on history and realize that they often end up…
First, American ideas about freedom have evolved over time, and this might be the natural model for freedom. To believe that an emerging democracy would immediately look like modern day America ignores the fact that freedom continues to evolve in America. Moreover, freedom is guaranteed by certain institutions, such as an independent judiciary, that generally develop over time. In Presidential address: American freedom in a global age, Eric Foner gives
However, affirmative action does reveal a rift in American political culture. Equality has always been an endemic American value, touted in the Constitution and branded as a key feature of American life. Yet diversity has recently become a keyword in American political culture. Preserving both equality and diversity has become the most current political challenge in the United States and this challenge is encapsulated in the debate over affirmative
To wit, "half of Americans deem religion very important in their lives; fewer than a quarter in Spain (22%) feel this way, and in Germany (21%), Britain (17%) and France (13%), even fewer say religion is "very important" to their lives (PEW). Fifty-three percent of Americans are more apt to agree that it is vital to believe in God prior to having good morals and values while just 33% of
American Political Behavior Mid-Term and Discussion Chapter and Blog Module 4/Discussion 1 -- Participation of Young Voters Young voter participation has been lagging behind other age groups, which has been a major concern. It is a concern because majority of the population that is eligible to vote comprises of the youth. In a nation where 23% of the people are edible to vote, 17% comprises of the youth (Winograd & Hais, 2009).
When we speak of Puritanical values, however, some events in America's history seriously clash with its "pure values" or its belief that it's a world liberator. The first one was slavery. No where in the world have we witnessed just harsh case of slavery as in the United States. To this day, African-Americans have been unable to liberate themselves completely from the ugly history of slavery that had seriously marred
The cultural practices are evolved and based on the financial, social and moral understanding and capabilities of the local population, and it has been observed that Americans, Asians and Africans share extremely different perspectives and understanding on these issues, therefore the cultural adoption has been intense in countries where the technological revolution has been of the same intensity as in North America (Zelli, 1993). In some of the cases,
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