3. Is there a downside to these values?
Scan the text to find out whether your opinion coincides with that of the author.
THE VICES OF OUR VIRTUES The American Creed>24> is what makes us great as a nation — and also what fosters some big problems
By Robert J. Samuelson
March 11, 1996 — Newsweek http://www.newsweek.com/vices-our-virtues-175908
I am proud to be an American; most of us are. Our patriotism is fierce, if often quiet. A recent Gallup poll asked respondents in 16 countries whether they would like to live elsewhere. Americans finished almost last. Only about 11 percent of us would move. By contrast, 38 percent of Britons, 30 percent of Germans, 20 percent of Japanese and 19 percent of Canadians would. Why, then, are
Unit II. US: from Democracy to Empire?
Unit II. US: from Democracy to Empire?
we so mad at our leaders and society? One neglected answer is this: America's glories and evils are tightly fused together.
The things that we venerate about America — its respect for the individual, its opportunity, its economic vitality, its passion for progress — also breed conditions that we despise: crime, family breakdown, inequality, cynicism, vulgarity and stress, to name a few. Naturally optimistic, Americans reject any connection between our virtues and vices. We refuse to see, as sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset argues in an important new book, that “seemingly contradictory aspects of . . . society are intimately related.”>1
But they are, and in an election year, the relationship is highly relevant. Only by grasping it can we keep our perspective on the campaign's inevitable excesses. Already, we are deluged with anguished analyses of our faults and vast schemes for self-improvement. Both exaggerate our problems and our capacity to cure them; some national conditions aren't easily changed.
The American Creed — our distinct set of values — blends freedom, individualism and egalitarianism. This mix has fired economic advance. Why do we lead the world in computers? The answer is mostly culture. We love to create, experiment and tinker. We are the land of Apple Computer and Netscape. Every year, more than 600,000 new businesses incorporate. We have the largest global pool of venture capital. But the same emphasis on individual striving, success and liberty can also inhibit social control and loosen people's sense of communal obligation.
Crime becomes just another path to “making it.” Divorce rises if marriage seems to imperil selffulfillment. Because we worship individual effort, we are more tolerant of failure and inequality than other nations. In 1987, a poll asked whether “government should provide everyone with a guaranteed basic income.” Only 21 percent of Americans agreed — about a third of the number of Germans (56 percent) or Britons (61 percent). Naturally, our welfare state palls
