Authority
It will not come as a surprise that a society that admires independence and progress does not have an automatic respect for authority. What deference people in authority do command is based on their actual powers rather than on their age, wisdom, or dignity. Old people are often seen as behind the times. It’s the young who are expected to have some special insight into the modern world.
After all it was by overthrowing the King of England that the United States was born, and suspicion of authority has remained a pillar of American life. This attitude has helped establish the USA as the birthplace of innovations that have changed the world. If a better way of doing something comes along, we unsentimentally jettison the old way. But we also jettison people. In a society that changes as fast as ours, experience simply does not have the value that it does in traditional societies.
Land of the too-free
“I think one person should end where the other begins,” said one immigrant to the United States. Many foreigners agree that American freedom is excessive. Americans tend to leap to the conclusion that any limitation on their rights is an attack on the American way of life. Out on the frontier you could do anything you wanted for the simple reason that nobody was around to notice. (The true frontiersman picked up stakes and moved as soon as he could smell his neighbor’s smoke.)
In urban life, there are plenty of ways to bother the neighbors, from shooting them to scrawling graffiti on their buildings. While nobody is allowed to do such things, the criminal gets the benefit of the doubt; under our legal system, he is innocent until proven guilty. We look for psychological reasons for anti-social behavior; there are even people who defend graffiti on the grounds that it is a form of self-expression.
Businesses, also, resist regulation. It has taken a long time to convince the public that free enterprise does not mean that a company should be free to pollute the air, foul the rivers, and destroy the forests. Such problems, of course, are not unique to this society.
The puritan tradition
Although we have gone from a rural society to an urban one, many American values remain the traditional ones established by the European settlers in the 17th century.
The
Puritans, a stern Christian sect, were among the first and most
lasting settlers. Their values were well-suited to survival ma
strange new world: self-reliance, hard work, frugal living, and the
guidance
of the individual conscience.
Furthermore, the Puritans considered earthly success a sign of God’s favor and saw no conflict between making money and entering the kingdom of heaven. Americans continue to have few ideas about the holiness of poverty. On the contrary, there is an undercurrent of feeling that people get what they deserve. (For that reason, this is a difficult country in which to be handicapped as well as in which to be poor.)
The Puritans would not have smiled on the conspicuous consumption of today, but they would have admired the unrelenting effort that goes into the acquisition of goods. Americans have much greater respect for businessmen than most other peoples do. An Englishman who has made enough money may well be happy to retire to his country home. The American only wants to go on making more money, driven as much by the Puritan work ethic (often called “the Protestant work ethic”) as by the desire for more money.
The “Puritan values” still referred to today usually refer to a prudishness towards sex and enjoyment. Although the Puritans were not actually against good times, they did feel that man was basically sinful and spontaneity revealed the inner wickedness. Today, to call someone “Puritanical” is generally not meant as a compliment, as it suggests that he or she is strait-laced and no fun.