In "American Values and Assumptions", Gary Althen clarifies the American cultural values that intersect and how they work together. These values are perceived by Americans and sometimes are different with other cultures in the world. Generally, he gives evidences taking from American social notions such as the freedom, self-reliance to explain how strongly people devote to individualism. The competition is shown naturally as the essential. Besides, the equality in people's relationship is presented like no matter who they are. Althen also mentions the conceiving in privacy and informality as the fundamental values which elicit to their directness as well as assertiveness. Time is recognized like a resource that could be respected and used well. Moreover, there is a stable relationship between the change and progress, similarly to achievement, action and materialism. People have to change for progressing and they deserve to receive achievements after working hard as well as innovation in this article. .
One important idea from the article that I would like to discuss is Althen's statement about individualism. He writes," They are trained from very early in their lives to consider themselves as separate individuals who are responsible for their own situations in life and their own destinies". In other words, the author's point is that in the USA, when people are children, they are taught to be accountable for their personal aims in life independently and not rely on others.
In the article, Althen gives an example of how American parents teach their children to be self-reliant. In this instance, he tells about a child who has been given his own money, and wants an Orange Julius, but doesn't have enough money to buy it, and his mom tells him he has to wait or get something else. This surprised me in some terms because there are not a lot of parents in my country teaching their kids by this way.
