American beliefs and values

American Beliefs

In Chapter Three ("Primary Beliefs of American Culture") McElroy lists the following Primary Beliefs: "Everyone Must Work," "People Must Benefit from Their Work," "Manual Work Is Respectable." Briefly summarize what McElroy has to say about these primary beliefs. Do you agree that they are primary beliefs of the American people? If not, why not?

Although becoming an American is not a vocation, in his book American Beliefs, John McElroy proposes that America as a nation has a certain set of spoken and unspoken primary beliefs that are as deeply cherished as any religious creed. These beliefs have their roots in the historical clash of European civilization and cultural values with the American wilderness that occurred during the founding of the American nation. McElroy sees American beliefs as a unique and complex blend of native civilization and European settlers, and as a product of the peculiar features of American geography, rather than as a direct descendant of the European Enlightenment tradition. In fact, McElroy suggests that European values often clashed with the practical demands of the American wilderness, as was evident in the failed settlement of Jamestown, where European concepts about the benefits of aristocracy created a society where individuals were unable or unwilling to work hard enough together to create a new colony.

Core American values such as "Everyone Must Work" and "Manual Labor is Respectable," as taught by the harsh reality of Jamestown and the eventual success of American small landowners who worked and tilled their land for profit, enabled persons such as Benjamin Franklin to become a self-made men and for Thomas Jefferson to formulate the ideal of the landowning gentleman politician. The concept that "People Must Benefit from Their Work" rather than serve others was cemented by the hard, learned experience of persons striving together make a better life in a New World or on the frontier.

McElroy's perspective is interesting because rather than tracing American vales to Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin's English roots, he suggests that these Constitutional fathers were more influenced by the American culture that had been evolving since the 16th century on their home soil, not their exposure to European ideals. McElroy's thesis about American uniqueness also helps provide clues why American democracy took quicker root in American soil than in Europe, and why its egalitarian economic ideals were so well suited to the largeness of the America continent. McElroy suggests that memories of the past, such as Jamestown, provided a kind of common, physical and environmental memory that is even more important than the ideals of Deism and Constitutionalism that are said to inspire the Founding Fathers.

McElroy's thesis serves to isolate America from Europe, intellectually, in its development, and affirms America's sense of being a special nation in relation to the rest of the world. The vastness of the American wilderness, and its wide-open spaces that gave rise to the need for self-reliance also helps explain why modern European social welfare state institutions, like socialized medicine and generous pension plans, often meet with resistance in an America that is still in love with the ideal of individualism and hard work. Even in today's discussion regarding the status of illegal immigrants, on both sides of the debate, the willingness of desperate people to work for a mere pittance at jobs that Americans find too hard or poorly paying is often seen as admirable, rather than tragic, because hard work is so valued in American society.

McElroy's focus on the colonial period on of American history, however, neglects to take into consideration certain important shifts in American values that have taken place since the Jamestown failure and the success of Plymouth and the later American western expansion and settlement. The influx of immigrants into America and the growth of American wealth made the ideal of bettering the fortunes of one's family for the next generation just as important. These changes in American demographics have, to some extent, tarnished the ideal that manual labor is itself a value.