Conservatives are fond of talking about values: American values, traditional values, family values and value meals. I’ve often wondered what they were talking about. There are values delineated in the Constitution, values portayed by our cultural icons, and expressed by our actions, and they aren’t always reconciled coherently. Most cultural values are not clear cut principles, but tensions between opposing ideals.

Tolerance and Discrimination

America has a long and complicated history with the idea of tolerance. Informed by the religious wars that consumed Europe after the Protestant Reformation began with Martin Luther in 1517, the Founding Fathers incorporated religious tolerance as a fundamental principle of the new republic. Thomas Jefferson even made this reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom in his Autobiography: “ . . .in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”

Considering the incredible power of the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages, and the inseperable mixture of church and state in Renaissance Europe, this was a truly radical proposition. Even now, 234 years later, there are still countries around the world ruled by theocracies.

For centuries, Europe was defined by class. The poor peasants worked the land, and passed their meager tribute upwards to the nobles, and then to the king. If you were born a peasant, you stayed a peasant. If you were born a noble, you stayed a noble.

The young America turned all of that on its head with the declaration that ‘all men are created equal.’ In his book Made in America, Bill Bryson observes that:

In Britain, the Declaration was received by many as arrogant hogwash. The Gentleman’s Magazine mocked the assertion that all men are created equal. ‘In what are they created equal? Is it in size, strength, understanding, figure, moral or civil accomplishments, or situation of life? Every plough-man knows that they are not created equal in any of these.

Nonetheless, the ideas that everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law, and that men should be judged by their character and not their inheritance, became fundamental to the prospects of millions of immigrants to rise from poverty through work and innovation and find prosperity in the new world.

Unless you were black. Or a woman. Or an Native American.

Despite the clarity of our founding document, it has taken more than 200 years to fulfill the promise of freedom and equality for all people, and the process is still not complete.

The historical tension between the ideals expressed in the Declaration and the continual oppression of minority groups has been resolved, at least philosophically, in favor of equal rights for everyone. Although actions often lag behind, no serious public figure still argues against the rights of blacks and women (of course, homosexuals are still fair game, and the plight of the Native Americans is nearly invisible).

Individual and Community

. . . the concepts of individualism and collectivism are used to describe entire cultures and they refer to the level of independence-interdependence among people in that culture. Individualist cultures tend to emphasize self-reliance, independence and (sometimes) competition. Individual needs take precedence over the needs of the group and the self is seen as a unique and separate entity. Collectivist cultures, on the other hand, tend to emphasize cooperation, and (sometimes) equality. Group needs take precedence over individual needs and the self is seen as a member of a group.

America is perhaps the world’s most individualistic culture. There is a price to pay for our focus on the individual, and it is seen in the rampant narcissism, and celebration of that narcissism, that pervades our culture. (I know far too much about Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan, and I really wish I could re-assign those neurons to remember something interesting.)

The lack of focus on the community also appears in the fragmentation of American families. While it is common in many countries to have multiple generations living together, often with aunts, uncles and cousins nearby, the concept of family in America is the nuclear family: mom, dad, two kids and a dog. Even that bucolic 1950s idea is continually changing, with the frequency of divorce and separation.

Individualism has its benefits as well. Those nations that emphasize community tend to emphasize conformity as well. Individualism creates the space for individuals to question current practices and morals, and challenge them.

Revolutions are led by individuals. The ideas that spread cracks through the wall of authoritarian dogma are started by individuals. The American Revolution very well might not have taken place were it not for the pen of Thomas Paine, and it almost certainly would have failed without the leadership of George Washington. Radical ideas like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the irrelavance of class are not formed by communites, but rather by the individuals who seek to rethink them.

Dissent is, by definition, not a community-endorsed activity. As Thomas Jefferson said, “The natural course of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.”

The desire to explore is a uniquely individual pursuit. There are no tales of entire communities venturing into the uncharted wilderness. It was explorers like Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike and Jedediah Smith, working alone or with a team, who first travelled into the unknown (to white people).

There is certainly tension in our culture between authority and dissent, conformity and exploration. Many of these themes played out over the course of history time and again. In 1798, less than 10 years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the Alien and Sedition Act was passed, which sharply limited free speech during the Adams Administration.

As Rabbi Sherwin Wine states,

There are two visions of America. One precedes our founding fathers and finds its roots in the harshness of our puritan past. It is very suspicious of freedom, uncomfortable with diversity, hostile to science, unfriendly to reason, contemptuous of personal autonomy. It sees America as a religious nation. It views patriotism as allegiance to God. It secretly adores coercion and conformity. Despite our constitution, despite the legacy of the Enlightenment, it appeals to millions of Americans and threatens our freedom.

The other vision finds its roots in the spirit of our founding revolution and in the leaders of this nation who embraced the age of reason. It loves freedom, encourages diversity, embraces science and affirms the dignity and rights of every individual. It sees America as a moral nation, neither completely religious nor completely secular. It defines patriotism as love of country and of the people who make it strong. It defends all citizens against unjust coercion and irrational conformity.

This second vision is our vision. It is the vision of a free society. We must be bold enough to proclaim it and strong enough to defend it against all its enemies.

Capitalism and Socialism

There has been much discussion of the United States becoming a socialist nation under Obama, or becoming a European-style democracy with limited growth, or worse, a centrally-planned economy with disastrous results.

The truth is that the United States has incorporated socialist elements in various ways since the Great Depression.

The great advantage of our system lies not in how it is managed, but the extent to which it encourages innovation. As Thomas Friedman notes,

Therefore, the country that uses this crisis to make its population smarter and more innovative — and endows its people with more tools and basic research to invent new goods and services — is the one that will not just survive but thrive down the road.

Individualism leads to innovation. Microsoft and Apple were both founded in garages. A culture that encourages inventors and entrepreneurs to strike out on their own is one that stands to reap the benefits of their risk. Which is why I agree with Friedman when he says:

I still believe that America, with its unrivaled freedoms, venture capital industry, research universities and openness to new immigrants has the best assets to be taking advantage of this moment — to out-innovate our competition.

Conclusion

Many people talk about American values, but in what way are American values different? Most Western democracies practice tolerance, promote equality and protect the rights of the individual to some extent. The differences between the economic systems of Europe and American are not as great as we are led to believe. Both practice capitalism, tempered by protections for citizens in the form of social security, welfare, unemployment and medical benefits. The extent differs, but not the basic construction.

It is a measure of our success that those radical values promulgated by the Founding Fathers have now come to be considered fundamental to Western democracy.

American Exceptionalism is the idea that America is somehow different, the ‘last best hope’ of the free world.

However, I’ve noticed that some of the people who claim America is radically different from the rest of the world have apparently not been anywhere else- the largest difference I notice is an appalling lack of peanut butter and macaroni and cheese around the world.

Yet we share the majority of our values with Europe: tolerance, equality, capitalism with controls, basic freedom of speech and religion, and a high standard of living. America has guns, and Europe has health care.

There is a difference, but it is a narrow one, and I believe it is sadly fading. America was founded by immigrants and rebels, people who were willing to risk everything they had in pursuit of a better life, and put their lives on the line to challenge any degradation of their rights as men.

America values the individual. The most important line in the Declaration is not the oft-quoted ‘life, liberty and pursuit of happiness’ but the next line, which reads, “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . .”

In other words, government exists to protect the rights of the individual. Our focus on the individual as the central unit of society differs somewhat from the European approach, and markedly from the Asian.

America grew as a country of innovators and explorers. An explosion of new products and new ideas began even before the country was born, and has continued ever since.

Innovation comes from questioning current ideas and beliefs. Exploration comes from pushing the boundaries of the known. Revolution comes from questioning authority in everything it does.

These three values: Innovation, Exploration and Disrespect for Authority are not unique to America, but they are fundamental to what makes us unique.

So don’t submit to a cubicle- find a better way to do things and start your own company (you might wait until after the recession). Don’t be content to live in the same surroundings- explore the world around you. There are parts of it that are beautiful beyond description.

And don’t ever let anyone tell you what to do, or how to live your life.

As Frederick Douglass said, “Who would be free themselves must strike the blow. Better even to die free than to live slaves.”

That is the true American way.