CIV 1: Samenvatting

Three pairs of benefits and the price that has to be paid

Individual freedom – self-reliance
Equality of opportunity – competition
Material wealth – hard work

Freedom: the desire and the right of all individuals to control their own destiny without outside
interference from the government, a ruling noble class, church or other organized authority.
 Cost: self-reliance: individuals must learn to rely on themselves or risk losing freedom
o In reality this meant achieving financial and emotional independence

Examples:

Equality of opportunity: each individual should have an equal chance for success (everyone should
have an equal chance to enter a race and win)
 Cost: competition: a person must run the race in order to succeed, a lot of pressure from
childhood till retirement; encouraged by strong programs of competitive sports provided by
public schools and community groups
Material wealth: acquiring and maintaining a large number of material possessions is of great
importance, accepted measure of social status
 Cost: hard work: necessary and rewarding for most Americans, not only seen as evidence of
people’s work but also abilities

Religious heritage (Important role in history)

 Catholics 1500s
o Spanish, later Latin Americans and French Canadian
o Settled in California, Florida, Southwest, New Orleans
 Development of Protestantism 1600s
o European settles mainly England, also German and Dutch
o Settled at east coast
o Insist all individuals must stand alone before God, individuals were solely responsible
for his own relation to God
o Formed separate churches = denominations

Values associated with American Protestantism is the value of self-improvement and self-reliance
  Example need for self-improvement: books that offer advice to people to quit smoking, lose
weight or have better relationships
Achievements of material success = most widely respected form of self-improvement
 Never an encouragement for the idea of gaining wealth without hard work or self-discipline
Protestant work ethic or Puritan work ethic = belief in hard work and self-discipline in pursuit of
material gain and other goals
Volunteerism or humanitarianism = individuals make themselves better persons by contributing some
of their time or money to charitable, educational or religious causes that are designed to help others.
Religion shaped the American values:
 Strengthened:
o Individual (religious) freedom
o Self-reliance (self-improvement)
o Hard work / self-discipline
 BUT also other effects
o Volunteerism or humanitarianism
o Religious and cultural pluralism

National religion: mixture of religion and patriotism

 Main function: provide support for the dominant values of the nation and comfort in times of
grieve
Religious polarization vs pluralism
 Religious polarization: finding disagreements in religious beliefs and on that basis separate
themselves from those of differing beliefs (idea of moving to opposites ends of a spectrum)
 Center of religious experience is the fundamental belief in individual freedom and the right of
individuals to practice their own religion
 Pluralism: great diversity of ethnic backgrounds
A spiritual kaleidoscope: people with different cultures and faiths that live, work near each other
Frontier heritage

QUIZ ANSWER: By a certain group of Americans, Trump is seen as embodying the traditional
American values
-Individual freedom, i.e. not following (social) rules e.g. not politically correct in what he says, going
against traditional customs
-Self-reliance e.g. against mandatory healthcare (should be a choice), against corona rules
-Competition --> he turns everything into a competition: ‘He is the best this and that.’
-Material wealth bankrupt twice, but back to billionaire
-Equality of opportunity?? --> describes himself as a self-made man BUT inherited a lot of money
from his father
-Hard work?? --> only half-full diary when president, often playing golf or going to holiday home in
Florida

These people consider Biden ‘weak’ (NOT an American hero) because he is a great believer in
cooperation/discussion/compromise/government support for corona, healthcare, climate change.
Frontier experience started when the first colonists settled on the east coast and ended when the last
western lands were settled
Native Americans were given small portions of land, called reservations.
How does the frontier heritage shape the values?
 Provided a lot of examples of hard work
 Competitive race for success
 Individual freedom, self-reliance and equality of opportunity most closely associated
o Model of free individual -> has been idealized, basis for nostalgic
o Self-reliance and rugged individualist: free of rules, denied many society’s comfort
and conveniences -> evolved in classic American hero: rugged individualist (= man
who has been made physically tough and rugged by conditions of frontier life)
 Two types:
 Earlier frontier: main struggle was man against wilderness
 Last phase of frontier: man against man
o Cattlemen and cowboys against farmers, native Americans
and each other for control of the remaining western lands
 Traditions of law and order were not established yet, physical violence was
frequent -> frontier became known as the Wild West
 American hero is a fighter, principal source of his heroism is physical powers
o Pure expression of the ideal of equality of opportunity: highest importance was
placed on what people could do in their own lifetime
 Offered new beginnings
American macho heroes
 Traditionally they had the common ability to demonstrate their strength through physical
violence: examples; terminator, Rambo, superman
 Image has been criticized for overlooking many factors;;
o Image overstates the importance of complete self-reliance and understates the
importance of cooperation in building a new nation
o Traditionally masculine, it overlooked the importance of pioneer women and their
strength, hard work, resourcefulness and civilizing influence on the untamed frontier
o Emphasis on violence and use of guns to solve problems
 Many young people have become desensitized to the sight of violence and killings
 Legacy of frontier: american’s willingness to take the law into their own hands to protect
themselves and their families
Inventiveness and can-do spirit
 Frontier respected the inventive American individual
o Need for self-reliance encouraged a spirit of inventiveness
 Can-do spirit: willingness to experiment and invent
o Sense of optimism and source of pride and inspiration

Frontier provided space and conditions that helped strengthen the American ideals of individual
freedom, self-reliance and equality of opportunity

History of abundance
Abundance is a gift of nature; first settlers had an abundance of trees and animals and fertile farmland
Equal of opportunity: wealth and social status were not permanently determined at birth
In process of creating a land of abundance, Americans began judging themselves by materialistic
standards,, it was seen as a positive incentive to work hard and a reward for successful efforts
From producers to consumers
 Emphasis on producing wealth and maintaining a high standard of living developed over a
period of time
 Image change due to mass advertising
o One effect of advertising was that sponsor had control over the content of television
programs
o Another effect was that advertising techniques were so successful that over time they
began changing American’s attitudes, behaviours and beliefs
o Use of digital media has had a profound effect on advertising; changed emphasis
from mass advertising to target marketing
What American consumers like
 Comfort: goes back to frontier where life was tough and there were very few comforts
 cleanliness : puritan heritage; stressed the need to cleanse the body of dirt and all evil
tendencies
 novelty: Americans love having new and different things, might by reinforced by their pride
and their inventiveness
 convenience: all these save time to work
o curious paradox
 so busy working to acquire comforts and conveniences that they were unable
to relax and enjoy leisure time
an abundance of technology
 TV viewing audience has become more fragmented which means that advertisers must use
other ways to reach the buying public
o Product placement, extensive market research
 With a loss of advertising revenue, organizations had to downsize, with the result that
American media has difficulty to get in depth coverage and analysis of news
An abundance of knowledge: Big Data
 Big data: collected from many sources
 Double-edge sword
o Positive: enables us to solve important problems and can bring many benefits to
humanity
o Negative: can overwhelm us and may cause us to make poor decisions
 In order to be valued and useful, big data has to be managed
 Crowdscience or citizenscience: a new way of processing data
Redefining American abundance
 Always come from culture of abundance
 Redefined as a powerful supply of ideas that can help bring solutions to problems of the
world
Americans believed their country was an ever-expanding pie, pie would continue to expand to provide
large pieces for everyone, there would always be enough pie for all
 Caused americans to be optimistic with confidence that human problems could be solved
Characteristics of American business
How business competition reinforces other values
 Business institutions are the heart of the American way of life
o Americans view business as being more firmly based on the ideal of competition
 Competition protects freedom of the individual by ensuring that there is no monopoly of
power, free enterprise
 Competition also strengthens the ideal of equality of opportunity; success and status go to the
swiftest person, regardless of social class
 Value of hard work: one must work harder to be better and have success than others
 Americans distrust the motives of businesspeople and they believe businesses need some
government regulation

The dream of getting rich

 Traditionally business get respect;; you can built up as a low life to a life full of wealth and
success,, careers in business offer the best opportunity to become wealthy
Entrepreneur as business hero
 Provide examples of traditional American values
o First reason: succeed in building something great out of nothing
o Another reason: strong dislike of submitting to higher authority

The corporate CEO CFO

 Leaders are powerful and acquire great personal wealth
o Do not have the hero image of entrepreneurs because they are managing a business
someone else started
 Americans were hit by an economic recession
The middle class vs the one percent
 Gap has been growing
 Americans respect for their business institutions rises and falls in cycles
Redefining the American dream
 Americans are truly resilient
 Because of the strong belief in individual freedom and self-reliance
 Rise of DIY, that portrays a resilient and adaptive American
 Creativity is highly valued, as well as innovation
 Compassionate nature of americans and their search for meaning
The future of American business
 A number of americans still try to start a business
Government and politics
US Constitution:
Article 1: legislative branch
Article 2: executive branch
Article 3: judicial branch
Article 4: the states
Article5: amandment
Article6: debts, supremacy, oaths
Article7: ratification
8: signatories
9: amandments 27 total:
Amendment 1 – Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression
Amendment 2 – Right to Bear Arms
Amendment 3 – Quartering of Soldiers
Amendment 4 – Search and Seizure
Amendment 5 – Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings
Amendment 6 – Right to Speedy Trial, Confrontation of Witnesses
Amendment 7 – Trial by Jury in Civil Cases
Amendment 8 – Cruel and Unusual Punishment
Amendment 9 – Construction of Constitution
Amendment 10 – Powers of the States and People
Amendment 11 – Judicial Limits
 Issue Democrats Republicans
Foreign wars (e.g. Reluctant More troops
Afghanistan)
Favouring withdrawal Nothing short of victory
Abortion rights Against any restriction (Extreme) restrictions

Same sex benefits, Supporting benefits, Limited benefits,

inc. marriage
most supporting Marriage between man
marriage and woman
Foreign Trade Split Favour
Agreements
Defence spending Lower Increase

Immigration Reform & improve Quotas

Health care Universal Private

Amendment 12 – Choosing the President, Vice President
Amendment 13 – Slavery Abolished
Amendment 14 – Citizenship Rights
Amendment 15 – Race No Bar to Vote
Amendment 16 – Status of Income Tax Clarified
Amendment 17 – Senators Elected by Popular Vote
Amendment 18 – Liquor Abolished
Amendment 19 – Women’s Suffrage

Examples::
Gerrymandering