SHOULD WE REJECT THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE?
AGREE:
Moving towards the American way of life necessarily means the slow decay of individual national cultural identities. As these valuable and historically significant cultures vanish, the world will lose cultural diversity - such as in art, music, and literature - that has so enriched humanity’s history. In a world where the borders between states are becoming increasingly symbolic, the loss of diversity between countries will also mean a loss of choice for human beings with the desire to settle in a country that suits their tastes. As America’s culture becomes universal, Americans and others lose their ability to choose, even in the context of that great patriotic American slogan: “America: love it or leave it!”
Differences in ways of life between countries can have positive economic consequences. The economic theory of comparative advantage states that efficiency is maximized when those countries that can produce goods or services at the lowest cost do so. The entire concept of comparative advantage depends on major differences between countries and their respective ways of life. Convergence to the American way of life will mean the loss of some of the distinctive differences that are fundamental to maintaining countries’ comparative advantage in the supply of particular goods and services. For example, French culture is closely tied up with the idea of “terroir” - the special qualities of the land in particular regions, and this contributes strongly to its production of speciality foods and drinks - many of which are major exports. The American way of life is itself unhealthy for people everywhere. Defined by a taste for salty and greasy fast foods, an overloaded work schedule, and an inactive lifestyle, the American way of life is one of the most important reasons that the American population is among the world’s most unhealthy, in terms of stress, fitness, and body weight. By soundly rejecting this unhealthy way of life in favour of more sensible and healthy routines, the world does a credit to its collective health and wellbeing.
The American way of life is naturally un-diplomatic. Lacking trust in other countries and certain of its own rightness, the United States swings between isolationism and outbursts of violence, rather than consistently engaging with the rest of the world on equal terms. This arrogant impatience has historically made it a difficult ally and an intractable foe. The American way of life is marked by a strong belief in the superiority of American institutions and values, and an intolerance of alternatives. This intolerance is what has lead the United States to boldly accept the title of “world policeman,” much to the discomfort of other nations, while at the same time refusing to be bound by international agreements (e.g. on nuclear testing, climate change or the International Criminal Court).
The American way of life should be rejected because the attitudes that define it make diplomacy difficult or impossible. America has developed its unique set of cultural institutions during its more than 200 years of nationhood. As the world’s oldest democratic republic, the United States has the advantage of having developed its culture along with its own history. Like all cultures, America’s culture is tailor-made. It addresses the particular needs - present and historic - of its home country. As such, the American way of life cannot be assumed to be transferable to other parts of the world, with different histories and realities. As experiences in Vietnam in the 1970s and Iraq in the 2000s demonstrate, attempts to spread the most basic constituent of the American way of life - democracy - often end in failure.If the desirable elements of the American way of life, such as democracy, are to be adopted by people in other parts of the world, the necessary foundation must be laid organically by the country’s own experience. That is, the country must become democratic not by adopting the American way of life, but rather by proceeding through national experiences of the sort that shifted America’s own political culture toward democracy in the late 1700s. America’s culture should be rejected because it is inferior to those of many other nations. In film, music, art, sport and many other aspects of life, the American way is childish and simplistic. Hollywood only makes movies which appeal to the lowest instincts of the mass audience, delivering violence, dazzling special effects and simplistic story lines. Popular music is loud, aggressive and unsophisticated. Sports are designed for showy spectacle and constant celebration of frequent scoring, rather than as a prolonged examination of skill and strategy. Even clothing is garish and utilitarian. Such a culture has nothing to offer the rest of the world.
DISAGREE:
No culture in the world can survive if unchanging. In order to survive, the cultures of the world have always - and must always - adapted to new conditions and realities. As America’s global authority increasingly becomes a reality, cultures will begin to slowly move towards the American way of life not as a product of force, but rather as a natural consequence of increased contact with America’s dominant culture. Some cultural institutions will be lost, others will survive, and still others will become altered in reaction to it. Resisting the evolutionary impact of the American way of life would only serve to counteract an extremely important process in the histories of the world’s cultures.Rejecting the American way of life denies the world’s people important economic advantages, especially in terms of mobility. The more similar countries’ cultures are, the more likely one is to be able to move between them, seeking economic opportunity and advantage. Many economists believe that mobility of labour (that is, the ability of workers to move across international frontiers) is an important ingredient of economic growth. As cultures move towards the American way of life, they will be better able to make easy the free movement of people to fill specific demand for their labour or skills, because many of the most difficult barriers to movement, in particular those that deal with adjustment to new cultural surroundings, would dissolve.
The American way of life may well be unhealthy, but it is also delicious. Americans are not the only people who flock to the purveyors of freeze-dried, deep-fried, sugary, salty, and greasy foods. W The reason that so many indulge this way is that fast food, for all its faults, is tasty. If we are to accept the virtues of an individual’s choice, the American way of life must not be rejected.Sparks only ever fly between countries when their foreign policies are at odds. These potentially dangerous foreign policy differences reflect deeper differences between the cultures of the countries concerned. As countries move toward the American way of life the differences that would otherwise increase the potential for foreign policy conflict will diminish. Values will become shared, institutions will become similar, and ideas will become consistent, leading to an increase in harmony between peoples and countries. It has been said that no two countries both possessing branches of MacDonalds have ever gone to war!
As far as ways of life are concerned, the American is a pretty strong choice. The American way of life boasts an emphasis on hard work, self-sacrifice, equality, and democracy. Cultures converge toward this particular set of traits because they are uniquely desirable as a way of life. Convergence between cultures is a necessary consequence of an increasingly interconnected and globalized world. And if cultures are to converge, then the American way of life, with its admirable values and great institutions, is a strong option. In other words, when it comes to cultural evolution and diffusion, one could do a lot worse than to converge towards the American way of life.
It is a mistake to see American culture as all of a piece - there are many different aspects to US popular entertainment, including jazz, blues, indie film-making, experimental art, cutting-edge architecture, demanding literature, etc. Most Americans enjoy the diversity of cultural options available to them, and it is this, as well as the individual art forms, which the rest of the world can learn from. But at its best, all American culture is possessed of a democratic spirit and accessibility, which marks it out from the elitism of art, music, etc. in much of the rest of the world.
To some extend it is true that, there is no culture that can survive without adapting to the changes that this world has made, but yet I believe that in order to secure our true identity, we need to live by our true roots of tradition that has been passed down from our ancestor, so I disagree with the statement above that we should reject the American way of life, rather than rejecting it, we should filter the influence that came from the American way of life. In this world, it is without a doubt that America as a nation has play an important role in the global changes, but we as an individual came from different countries, and each country should have their own way of life to survive, not all of us came from America. Therefore, we have our own tradition, norms, values and others to survive in this world.
ReplyDeleteWhy I disagree with the statement? I believe each country’s way of life has each side of positive and negative and that’s why we should pick which are very positive and necessary. Therefore, there is some aspect that I believe it is worth to take such as the spirit of nationalism within them, they always have this sense of eagerness where they want to take the best action for their country rather than an Individualist orientation where the society competes only within each of them and disregarding their position as the citizen of their country. On the other hand, there are also some that cannot be taken such as the way the American run their basic constituent, Democracy. Not all country has the same perspective as the American has. Like the article said that this has been proven by the several cases like in Vietnam 1970s and Iraq 2000s, this country’s citizen turns out just cannot accept the Democracy way.
DeleteThis can be a life lesson in which is stated as “conflicting”, whether or not we should follow the American way of life. In my opinion, it does not matter and it should be up to people to follow the way of life of a certain tradition. No tradition is wrong because there is a believe that all traditions is right, that is why it can be accepted in the frist place. But the American way of life sometimes becomes a debate but I think in my opinion, we should take all the good things from the American tradition and add it to our set of morals and then we can becomes much more successful than they are because if we think that our moral is better, which is stated when people say that the American way of life is bad, then we should be able to be better than them.
ReplyDeleteAs for global culture, there is no actual criterion in which culture should be based on. There are several things that we can agree on when it comes to American culture, certainly every culture has its own identities which makes them different from others. American culture is very distinct when it comes to entertainment, the rest of the world may have been inspired by the music or the movies produced in America and that is one positive thing about the American culture. The American way of life also boasts an emphasis of hard work, self-sacrifice, equality, and democracy which means individuality wise, they are more committed in life as in work and environment. However I disagree on the "equality" because, equality is far from existing in the US, black people are still getting unequal treatment, cops are the main problem. However, the US is still standing strong after the attacks and tragedies that happened we have to give them the respect.
ReplyDeleteAmerica as a ‘super power’ country has its power to influence a whole bigger area than just their united states. There’s no denial that the American lifestyle has impacted some aspects in our life some way. What we eat, what we wear, how we communicate, moreoverly the variety of entertainment we see every day. I generalize the American life like how the Hollywood shows. People be lying if they don’t have their own favorite American show to binge watch to once in a week. We are used to seeing the life they portray that we don’t realize how we are somehow leaning towards that kind of lifestyle. As making their culture as a template for a global scale, I still can’t fully agree on that. The American culture may not fit to everyone’s shoe. But we’d have to thank the American anyways, for their innovations and technology that went global like our Apple smartphones that we use every day. I guess there’s always a hint of ‘American’ everywhere we go today.
ReplyDeleteShould we reject American way of life ? To me, it is only a matter of perspective. Different areas and parts of the world come with different people. Different people live with different culture. Different culture makes every way of living looks different. The food, physical looks, characteristics, geography of the land, and so many others that can be mentioned in long long long paragraphs. If we think rationally, we can not force one society to live the way another does. Why ? Of course it is obvious because of the things i mentioned above. We were all born in this world in different circumstances in different places, that is for a starting reason. I think there are a lot of other reasons too. The thing is, we should not argue about forcing culture to people who don't need it or don't even want it. We should just live the way we would want to that makes us happy inside-out without breaking any laws applied. It is my life. And it is your life. It is my territory. And it is your territory. It is all just about perspective. The best thing we can do is not to focus on whether we reject American way of life or not, but to bring the best thing out of everything to live our best lives with legal approaches. Politics, culture, religion, business, socialization, and love, those compounds have so much roots that are impossible to define and to limit. So just take anything that is good and throw away the bad. It is easy. Live is easy. Humans are the ones that are tend to make live difficult.
ReplyDeleteAs an Indonesian, I totally agree on rejecting the American way of life. Personally, I don't really like how the Americans diminish their cultural values. In Indonesia, we should forever and always value our cultural values, since we are made up of 17,504 islands with 1,340 tribes and 300 ethnic groups. From their, 742 national languages are created, with agreed national language of Bahasa. Indonesia is a country where the cultural values should be much appreciated and acknowledge by Indonesians and other people. Why? It is because these cultures created who we are today whether we like it or not. Furthermore, American culture does not suit Indonesia. First, we are a country that the majority of the population are Muslims, where PDA is something uncommon. We can see that PDA is not a big deal in the United States, if we bring that culture to Indonesia, most probably it will create riots and protest regarding it. Another thing to mention is about food. Indonesia is a country where its national dishes vary from curry to rice, therefore we should preserve it and not follow the culture of U.S where they only eat fast foods.
ReplyDeleteEvery group of people has its own culture that unique to that specific group, this is including the way they live their life. This way of life usually effected by the environment, people, and law that exist around that group. These days globalization and advancement in technology change almost every single aspect in our life that force us to modify our way of living. This happen to almost every single country in around the world in order to survive. That being said, I don’t agree if we change our current way to life to full American way of life. It is true that America influence effect globally but I think rather than change completely we can modify our way of life by see other country way of life to fit our needs in this modern age. If we change our way of life completely, we may feel uncomfortable and can become problematic for us.
ReplyDeleteThis is a hard question since I personally would want to accept American way of live but people here would probably reject it. Personally, I think it depends. Each country have their own positive or negative sides of their way of living. We as a multicultural country should not totally reject American way of life. We should adapt and” keep the good and leave the bad”. However we should not forget to value our own culture since Indonesia is so rich with culture. Having spent a year in United States made me realize that American are more independent than us and mostly more hardworking. They would not spend money to pay a worker if they can do the task themselves. This kind of thing is what we need to accept in our way of life as an Indonesian, we Indonesian usually rely on someone to do some task for example cutting a tree or something like that. It is true that no culture in this world can survive if unchanging. What we need to do is how to handle the change and implement the good values to our own culture.
ReplyDeleteEverything in the world we see and experience has its positives and negatives. Taking this knowledge into account, I think it is wise to see American culture from a neutral standpoint and try to take in the positives and reject the negatives. A positive aspect of the American way of life that we should accept is the belief in meritocracy. Americans believe that someone can be anything they want if they have will to work hard. Why? Because they believe that their society judges someone not based on their race, religion, creed, or family, but by their merit; a meritocracy. This is a practice that needs to be adopted by the entire world, as it teaches us that we need to always work hard. Even if we get cheated on and people don’t see us based on my merit, we still need to believe that our hard work will never betray us.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there are also negative aspects of the American way of life that we need to reject. One of it is the blatant consumerism that seems apparent in the capitalist world order that propelled itself through the United States’ victory in the Cold War. Product advertisements litter the streets of metropolitan cities, targeting consumers willing to burn some money. People are no longer defined by what they do or what they like, but what they consume. Barbara Kruger’s 1990 piece “I shop, therefore I am” perfectly captures this paradigm. Instead of allocation our society’s resources into the pursuit of wealth and output, we should focus on how we can make life better for the people around us. We should try to cease our blatant focus on wealth and help those unfortunate by creating a society that is equitable for all. Hence, the world should adapt what is beneficial for all of us.
DeleteThe question apprehended by this article is basically should we reject the American way of life? To me there are a lot of factors which need to be considered before we reject or accept the outcomes of the American way of life. As a person who has lived to the north of the United States of America, I can considerably feel the effects of their culture. Many attributes such as attitudes within the workplace and society are of considerable effects for me as me, my peers and other people around me are heavily influenced by their culture. As a person I consider myself to have a very liberal outlook on life and to be honest, I am very much comfortable with their way of life. But I also remember that I am of Indonesian origin and so for that reason what we should do is filter what we need from the American way of life and implement it and throw out the negatives.
ReplyDeleteOh, America. There is not much we don’t know about the so called ‘greatest country in the world’. They have very open cultures and social constructs and have their own principles. They sometimes tend to be stubborn and arrogant, yet it almost always bears results. In my opinion, I think that accepting the American way of life can further improve the global scheme of things. It would force the world to be more open and accepting. In a country like Indonesia, the American way of life is desperately needed. Everyone in Indonesia is constantly judging each other in every single pretext one can imagine. In a country founded on religion, Indonesians use their religion to judge someone that is out of line or even simply different. This has to change for the better. Countries like Indonesia have to change in order to improve their welfare and social systems. Otherwise, countries like ours will be doomed by radicalism and constant judgement.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, the culture of the west has been dominant in Indonesia for some time now, due to the fact that it has been applied by millennials into their daily lifestyle. Facts contributed to this statement can be seen by fashion looks, language disposal, and even the way they interact with each other. In this comment, I am going to talk about Globalization in general. I have to say that we must know and perhaps understood the cultures if the west, to not fall behind in globalization, but there are a lot of local values that still must be applied and executed from time to time. The solutiom that I am trying to say here is simple, Try to understand and perhaps follow the west culture,but do not lose the local (Indonesian in this context) values that were meant to be preserved from time to time.
ReplyDeleteCulture is very closely related to society. Culture is something that will affect the level of knowledge and includes a system of ideas or ideas contained in the human mind, so that in everyday life, culture is abstract. Whereas the embodiment of culture is objects created by humans as cultured beings, in the form of behaviors and objects of a real nature, for example patterns of behavior, language, living tools, social organizations, religion, art, etc., which all of which are intended to help humans carry out community life. Western culture has dominated all aspects. Everything always refers to the West. Western civilization has mastered the world. Many changes in civilization have occurred throughout the world. Western culture is only a bad disaster for the East. East which is always noble civilization, little by little it begins to follow Western culture.
DeleteThe entry of Western culture into Indonesia was due to one of them because of the crisis of globalization which poisoned Indonesia. The influence goes very fast and involves various fields of life. Of course this influence will have a very broad impact on the cultural system of society. So fast the influence of foreign culture has caused a culture shock, which is a situation where the community cannot tolerate various cultural influences that come from outside so that there is an imbalance in the lives of the people concerned. The absorption of external cultural elements that are done quickly and not through a deep process of internalization can lead to inequality between the forms displayed and the values that are the foundation or commonly called cultural inequality.