•
•Today, I choose to take an American culture approach to our discussion, focusing on the traditional mainstream values(美国社 会主流价值观) that have attracted immigrants to the United States for over 200 years. After explaining how these traditional values developed, we will trace how they affect various aspects of American life. This information will help us get a composite picture of American beliefs and practices as they relate to education, business, government, sports, recreation, and so on.
12-1-English-美国社会 主流价值观
2020年5月25日星期一
•I grow up in such a social environment: U.S. imperialism is our number one enemy. From my childhood, America is mysterious to me. In the process of my growing up, I was curious about American people and their stories and had a feeling that my
•dream came true when my foreign
•affairs work led me to America
•and gave me chance to
•understand American culture. •
• Human’s nature makes people curious about each other. When they meet people from different countries, besides some simple questions like “What is life like in their country?” “What kind of food do they eat?” “What are
•
•These values originated from “The Declaration of Independence”(独立宣言 ), people will never forget its saying: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable（不能剥夺的） rights, that among these are
•their customs?”,
•they have more
•questions about
•the culture: •
•What do the people believe in? •What do they value most in life? •What motivates them? Why do they behave •the way •they do?
•Life, Liberty and the
• pursuit of Happiness. •
•Let’s have a further look into these six values. Historically, the United States has been viewed as “the land of opportunity”, attracting immigrants from all over the world. The immigrants believed that they would find opportunities
•
•I hope the introduction can help us become more sensitive to cultural differences. However, my introduction is not to persuade Chinese people to accept American way，but rather to help understand it more fully and compare with ours. And see what we
•can learn from
•each other.
•
•There are six mainstream values of
American society: •1.Individual Freedom（个人自由）; •2.Self-Reliance（自力更生）;
•3.Equality of Opportunity • （机会平等）; •petition（竞争）; •5.Material Wealth（物质财富）; •6.Hard Work（辛勤工作）
•in Ameri values.
•
•Three of them -- Individual Freedom, Equality of Opportunity, and Material Wealth – represent traditional reasons why immigrants have been drawn to America. In order to achieve these benefits, however, there were prices to be paid: Self-Reliance, Competition, and Hard Work. By and by, these six basic values become traditional value system.