What do Americans Value?

 

Americans have many unique values that they live by. According to Robert Kohls the thirteen most important values that Americans live by are personal control over the environment, change, time and its control, equality, individualism and privacy, self-help concept, competition, future orientation, action/work orientation, informality, directness and honesty, efficiency and materialism. Out of these thirteen values I disagreed with three of the suggested values. For the equality value Kohl states that all people have been "created equal" and that a foreigner should always be considered like anybody else I feel that although we do stress equality a lot and to treat everybody equally, we don’t necessarily exercise it. For example, even though "all men are created equal" is printed in the constitution, not everyone has equality. Others are treated more unfairly than others due to who they are or where they came from or what they believe in. Also, I feel that when a foreigner comes to visit America, they do receive the respect and welcoming here, however, if the person were to go to a school, she will possibly be questioned by her classmates why she does certain amount of things because she has brought her values from where she immigrated from. I'm not saying this is true everywhere, but I do think it's out there. Another value that I disagreed with was the self- concept value where a person will only takes credit for what they do themselves. I think that they do take credit for what they did themselves but only if it created a positive impact. If it created a negative impact then I think that the person would not take credit for it. The last value I disagreed with was the direct, open and honest value; although many people are honest and open, I believe that in the American culture people are more honest about the person behind their back then when they are with them. This is seen especially at school and possibly everywhere, where a friend would talk behind another friend's back because she did something wrong that the other didn't like so instead of saying it in front of her face, she told her other friend. However, we do say the truth only if we re comfortable with the person or sometimes we sugar coat it to not make it sound cruel. The value that I most related myself with was the how much we value time. It's everywhere and you are always conscious about it: "Oh sorry but I gotta run, I’m late", "I got to get up early to go for a jog," or "I’m late for my doctor's appointment." time is referenced every time and we don't even realize how much we rely on it.