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1、Individual Freedom and Self-relianceIntroduction:Individual freedom and self-reliance, which are two of the most influential social values in America, are so vital in the development of US and they greatly contribute to the USs superpower status in the world. By way of comparision, China seems infer
2、ior and lack of such spirits.In this paper ,Ill explore the two valuss forming, the influence they brought to America,and the situation of China in this two aspects.After doing the research, we can realize the distance between the two counties and improve ourselves more exactly.Method:1Indibidual fr
3、eedom and self-reliance have an important influence on the development of America.1.1 Individual freedom and self-reliance were formed in the early period of America.The earliest settlers came to the North American continent to establish colonies which were free from the controls that existed in Eur
4、opean societies.They wanted to escape the controls placed on many aspects of their lives by kings and governments,priests and churches ,noblemen and aristocrats.To a great extent ,they succeeded.In 1776,the British colonial settlers declared their independence from England and established a new nati
5、on,the United States of America.In so doing ,they defied the king of England and declared that the ower to goven would die in the hands of the people.They were now free from the power of the kings.By limiting the power of the government and the churches and eliminating a doumal aristocracy,the early
6、 settlers came to be associated in their minds with the concept of individual freedom.This probably the most basic of all the American values.There is howere ,a price to be paid for this individual freedom:self-reliance.Individuals must learn to rely on themselves or risk losing freedom.Troditonally
7、,this means achiebing both financial and emotional indepedence from their parents as early as possible.During the American frontier movement,the values of individual freedom and self-reliance were reinforced.Closely associated with the frontier ideal of the free individual is the ideal of self-relia
8、nce.If the people living on the frontier were free of many of societys rules ,they were also denied many of societys comforts and conveniences.They had to be self-reliant.Men and women took off their coat of civilization and put on a sepecial shirt and deer boots for hunting .They constructed their
9、own houses ,which were wooden and small ,surrounded by fences.Also they had their own gardens and made leathery clothing and other articles for daily use by their own hands.They have to accept everything provided by the nature,or they would come to dead.Gradually they changed the wilderness and live
10、d there.As the layers of stone are constantly accumulated by the glacier flowing past,each time the boundary was followed by the trails in his left.And once the living places were formed,it still reserved the characteristics of the frontier.1.2 Idividual freedom and self-reliance are two of the fact
11、ors of the prosperity of American economy ,politics and education.The statement by President Coolidge in the 1920s,The business of American is business,still points to an important truth today-that the business institutions are at the heart of the American. As we all know that America is the economi
12、c giant all over the world ,no matter in the industry，information industry or the science and technology.Centainly ,the development of all these aspects of economy has something with the freedom competation.The freedom consists of two parts.One is individual freedom .In America,everyone have the rig
13、hts of freedom to be involved in the activities of economy .A graduate can run a big company and administrate a lot of employees ; a blind person can open a firm for massage .In Algers first published novel,Ragged Dicks ,a poor city boy who shines shoes for a living becomes Richard Hunter, a success
14、ful and wealthy businessman.The hero rises from rags to riches and fulfills the American Dream.Dicks succeeds only partly because he lives in a land of freedom.His success is also due to the fact that he practies the American virtues of self-reliance and hard work.As a proverb says ,anything can do
15、if you can call it to mind .All the Americans ,American organizations ,American companies live in the atmosphere of freedom. The other one is competitive freedom .Competition freedom in business is also believed to strengthen the ideal of equality of opportunity.Americans compare business competitio
16、n to a race open to all,where success and status go to the swiftest person ,regardless of social class.Thomas Jefferson once said ,a wise and frugal government shall restrain men from injuring one another,and shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvements.During the late of seventeenth century,most American hoped to created a new government by Constitution,to make them pursuit their own goals.They though
