Monday, October 31, 2011

Crevecoeur

Think about the ways in which Crevecouer's "American" does or does not resemble the "average" (whatever that is) American today. What are the key factors that have influenced major changes in this individual's identity, and thus mark the difference? In regard to similarity, what are the factors that have allowed for persistence across centuries of some of the foundational "American" features Crevecoeur highlights?

15 comments:

  1. Crevecoeur defines Americans as an intermixed, hard-working, culturally diverse, and innovative people. Americans today still define his definition in that sense. Today, Americans are still culturally diverse. There are a variety of different races and ethnicities and even inter-mixed. Americans are still hard-working. Americans still strive and work to make something of themselves. Americans today still bring innnovative thoughts. There are still people immigrating here for a chance at a better life. A difference in Crevecoer's "American" is that we do not all work hard. Since the government has become highly active/involved, many americans rely on social welfare and misuse it. Being an American still invokes the freedom and rights that Crevecoeur presented.

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  2. Creveceour paints a picture of an America that is energetic and excited to be part of a flourishing new country. This spirit and enthusiasm has been lost in the recent generations of Americans. Every day we hear people complaining about something that they are too lazy to do something about rather than waking up and thinking about what a wonderful world we live in. Today people think that everything should just be handed to them. This is the reason for Social Security and other government plans. When America was started, people went out every day and their daily life included hard work and labor. This was the reason for there being little to no economic caste system. The families today that hold the wealth do so because somewhere in their family history, one of their ancestors worked above and beyond other people of his time to get that wealth. There is nothing wrong with this, but today, Americans see this as a threat and that all rich people are bad because average people do not want to put in the work it takes to achieve wealth. When the colonies were first being started John Smith had trouble with people coming in and searching for gold all day as a "get rich quick" scheme. His philosophy to fix this problem was, as he put it, "If you do not work, then you will not get food."

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  3. Creveceour described America as consisting mainly of middle class people. He suggested that there was little or no separation between the wealthy and the impoverished. Today, there is a greater distance than ever before because the American economy is recovering from a recession. During the recession the lower income people suffered greatly through loss of jobs. Higher income people (who generally have more education) tended to fair better through the plunge in stock market. America is still, however, a culturally diverse place. American people are made of many different nationalities and is a place of refuge for many religions. America is still, like in Creveceour's depiction, a culturally diverse place.

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  4. Creveceour described Americans as a hard working and diverse group of people. They were all inspired to take advantage of their opportunies in order to achieve success. Creveceour also suggests that there is no much of a class system in America, with almost everyone being middle class. Today, some of these ideas are still true, while others have changed. America is still a very diverse place. There are still many opportunites to be taken advantage of in America. The people of America are not as inspired or as hard working as they once were and there is a distinct class system in America today.

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  5. In the text, Crevecoeur expresses his admiration and reverence for America and its people. He believes that Americans have the opportunity to live by their own principles, feel free to think or dream of their own ideas, and express their own opinions. Americans live in a very diverse population of people with many representing different cultures that come from different backgrounds. In a lot of ways, Americans today still carry out a free and opinionated way of life. Americans continue to work to achieve different goals that they may have set upon themselves and face challenges with endurance. As an example, many political changes have been won solely because of the hard work and dedication that Americans have put into accomplishing those goals.

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  6. A good summary of Crevecoeur's opinion on Americans would be "self made". Everything he saw was Americans putting their own effort into everything to accomplish their goals. Today that same attitude still applies to a lot of people, but they don't all deserve the title self made. Because of continuing government aid and involvement in everyday American life, people expect to be helped when in reality, they should be helping themselves.

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  7. Crevecoeur describes an American as a wide range of diversity in people that work for what they have. Americans have the freedom to do what they please whenever they want to and have their own opinions/beliefs toward anything and everything. Today in America, people still follow these ideas of freedom to speak the mind and be self made. However American's today are not as hardworking or are able to unite as wholly.

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  8. Crevecoeur depicted a romantic early America where people from various backgrounds worked together satisfied with their meager but meaningful lives. Such an America is separated from me by many generations. Crevecoeur stated that the gap between the rich and poor is almost unexistant, the current Ocupy Walstreet movement would beg to differ in today's American economy. He talked about how the highest pestigious position was a doctor or lawyer and there is no royalty. While we do not have a monarchy, we do have Justin Bieber so that does not apply to us either. He also said that Americans were hardworking people who cultivated the land with their own two hands to make a living. Most jobs today include no manuel labor other than lifting anf filing papers. There is still construction and agricultural work but it has been greatly augmented by machinery and those jobs are much less desireable to most Americans now. However, while not in the same way Crevecoeur might imagine, Americans continue to be hardwsorking people. We strive to get ahead occupaionaly and although that does not require us to exert our muscles it does strain our minds. The America Crevecoeur described is all but forgoten now, only little scraps of it remain within Americans.

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  9. Crevecouer's definition of an American is more of a hard-working person in the physical sense, being more close to a lumberjack than a banker (just for an example, and here using a male for the example). In the past the more physical jobs tended to be well respected and sought after, and the typical man was viewed as a toned and healthy one. Today, an average American is usually thought of as a man in business suit who works in an office. This is probably due to the increase in technology affecting the economy and creating more sitting jobs. However, some factors still hold true. In both scenarios, the typical American is a man who earns money to feed himself, probably is married and has a family to support, and is a generally decent person. The definition of "hard working" varies in both scenarios as well, with one definition being physical and the other being in a general sense (such as putting in eight hours a day of work rather than using brawn at a job). Crevecouer essentially defines the American as a hard worker, which does describe many Americans today.

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  10. Crevecouer describes Americans as hard-working, inventive, and original. People who want to get along for the common good of the country. Today, Americans would like to think that we are still like this, and in some ways we are, but in most, it doesn't apply to today's America. Congress is a mess, the tea party is complaining about the state of America along with the occupy movement. This anger within America towards America is not healthy and definitely not what the ideal America is.

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  11. Crevecouer describes the American dream. He credits America's diversity with giving Americans their own characteristic culture, which is actually a blend of many cultures. America continues to diversify as people immigrate and bring with them their traditional practices and values, all of which are integrated into society and allows America to continue to have this same spirit.

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  12. Crevecoeur definition of Americans is a hard-working, intermixed races,and culturally diverse. America is still hard working, however there are more jobs that do not require the physical labor as once before. Examples such as computer oriented jobs compared to a field job are seen more in today's society. As far as mixed race goes, America is ever evolving group that revieves immigrants everyday. The immigrants is what gives Americans their cultural diversity; bringing new culture along with them.

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  13. Crevecoeur sees America as an agricultural nation, which, no doubt, we once were. However, this has changed in America's recent history. We no longer have the expansive middle class, with a fringe high and low classes. Now, we are more divided, the nation is mostly white-collar, in terms of jobs and market skill base. There is a huge disparity (comparatively) between the lower, middle, and upper classes. His views on the culture of America still hold true- we are a melting pot, and new immigrants, old biases, and new ideals constantly shape our "American" culture. But, the environment in which this culture grows has changed significantly since Crevecoeur's time.

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  14. Crevecoeur portrays the American people of his time as mostly farmers, with few rich among them. He also portrays the people as free from government oppression, unlike the countries of Europe at the time. We, as a people, have seen many changes in this country that influenced major changes in the average American's identity. The majority of the American people are no longer farmers. As far as governments, ours has a much larger role in the life of the average American than it did in Crevecoeur's time. The gap between the rich and the poor is perhaps larger than ever as shown by the recent Occupy Wall Street movement. However, there are still some similarities. Farming is still a large part of the average American's identity. We are still a large mix of many cultures just as Americans were in the 18th century.

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  15. Basically what Crevecouer’s is saying that the United States is so great because of the diversity that exists throughout the entire population. I believe the United States is still composed of the same type of diversity
    amongst each other. You can see this if you go to these larger cities where you have china town, or the Italian village, or the various ghettos. It is easy to see that the population of the United States is filled with different cultures, but one thing that all these cultures have in common is they are hard workers and they are determined to succeed This is what
    holds this country together despite the differences in culture.

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