In present day American culture, people are supposed to abide by certain unspoken cultural rules-social norms. In “How We Believe”, from Operating Out Culture, several writers take their audiences through different sections of social norms to explain where these cultural rules and norms originated in and how they will play into everyday culture. In Bright-Sided, Barbara Ehrenreich explains America’s optimism through hardship coming from not only an observer’s standpoint, by a number of psychologists’ standpoints as well. This theme then plays in James Twitchell’s Two Regards for Materialism. Twitchell points out materialism coming from an optimistic but academic viewpoint while fighting that materialism is in fact good for modern culture. Materialism and optimism will be two huge parts of regular American culture. And in “How We Believe”, they are used to support and further explain social norms inside the American contemporary society.
American society prides itself on being solid and being noticed among the others. Part of what makes the American society the way it is can be its great attitude. When an American can be knocked down, he gets back up, dusts off his boots, and returns the favor. In the introduction to Bright Sided, Ehrenreich accurately explains American lifestyle as being naively optimistic. For example , in the summer of 2001, America was given ample warning and blatant clues that there was an resulting terrorist harm on the Wtc and Pentagon. However , the FBI, the INS, Leader Bush, and National Protection Advisor Condoleezza Rice, every brushed off these alerts. They discovered such an excellent and prominent country with a strong economy would not be the target of such a horrific terrorist attack. These people were all charged later of “failure of imagination”, while Karen Cerulo writes in her publication, Never Observed It Approaching: Cultural Challenges to Conceptualizing the Most detrimental. However , following your terrorist attack on Sept. 2010 11th, America came together as being a nation and supported on its own. The American people were unified and together were a family group. After this episode, American society took anything with a feed of salt but still held a smile.
It is and always has been in American culture to keep a positive attitude through hardship and really only on an day-to-day basis. Barbara Ehrenreich produces in Bright-Sided that “Americans are a “positive” people”. It really is in the character of Americans to dust off all their boots after they have been knocked down and carry on. In accordance to psychologists, having a positive mindset about ourselves plus the world around us can increase the extended life and quality of our lives. People are greatly influenced by their environment, and this conclusion makes complete impression. But concurrently a large number of Us citizens feel the precise opposite.
Scientists have done a study for the happiness of different nations and located that many Us citizens are in fact clinically depressed. In accordance to these experts, “Americans be the cause of two-thirds in the global market for antidepressants”. These stats then plead with the question: in the event that so many Us citizens are clinically depressed, why does America have reputation of staying so resilient? According to Ehrenreich, this reputation is definitely supported by the “ideology”. Americans have an optimistic mindset regarding pushing where is why America is one of the many prosperous and resilient nations around the world in the world. This ideology gives people collectively as a nation, as Us citizens. It varieties a strong sense of patriotism among individuals. One good reason that America is now so profitable is because people in the marketplace have learned to use Americans’ positive considering to their benefits. Ehrenreich publishes articles “While great thinking offers reinforced and found reinforcement in American national pride, it includes also entered into a kind of symbiotic relationship with American capitalism”. Materialism is usually part of what keeps this kind of nation moving.
Materialism often times provides a negative meaning. It is centralized around cash and money is the reason behind all wicked, as they say. Yet , in Two Cheers for Materialism, Adam Twitchell delves into materialism not via a critical viewpoint, but rather a good one. Twitchell refers to materialism as the “central attribute of modern life”. It is being human to be attracted to material possessions. The American marketplace features learned to work with that to produce a profit. Hanging around of capitalism, evolving styles feed into consumerism’s strength. When the most recent fashion is strong makeup, Cover Girl clears a new line of products to create the right smokey-eye appearance. When the most recent fashion is flower print, Forever 21 fills their cabinets from top to bottom with nothing but floral. And in line with the marketplace, an individual is not happy those new products. Once consumers possess purchased these materials, they will be completely happy again. That is until the next trend comes around. This brilliant promoting scheme is what makes the American marketplace therefore active and prominent. In accordance to Twitchell, other countries such as The ussr and Chinese suppliers are “playing a frenzied game of catch-up”. So although materialism can travel society crazy, it is society that is feeding it and society are unable to live with out it.
Materialism and optimism get hand in hand to compliment American sociable norms. America is a capitalist and consumerist nation and prides itself on a strong marketplace. Through hard work and a competitive streak, America’s market is continuing to grow to become one of the active and recognized market segments in the world. Concurrently, America features undergone a lot of extreme hardship and offers learned to end up on top in addition to control again. Even fragile, America held a strong deal with. That is in American traditions to keep struggling with and keep seeking. It’s the American way. As being a nation, we have come together, in spite of our dissimilarities and risen up to the top collectively. It is in our nature to win. We have run into hardship before and we will run into even more down the road. But with the right attitude and the proper support, America will not be broken. We will certainly stand support and deal with. It is the social norm to get back up and win.