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1、MAKING AMERICAThe Society and Culture of the UNITED STAESPART THREE Society and ValuesNo statement of national principle has been more succinct and purposeful than the “self-evident” truths set forth in the Declaration of Independence: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
2、Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Impossible to consummate, these transcendent goals have directed an unending quest for social justice and established criteria by which the unfinished journey can be measured. The five essays
3、 in this section provide vital historical data and conceptual structures by which to assess social values and realities in the United States. They also reveal the discordances that have attended the course of social amelioration: divisions of race, sex, and class that have survived the social libera
4、tion movements of the last quarter century, as well as of comparative poverty in the midst of great affluence. Nathan Glazer sets theoretical parameters for the essays that follow by discussing the inherent dilemma of “Individualism and Equality in the United States.” American individualism is not u
5、nitary, argues Glazer, but two-sided: “the more rugged economic and institutional individualism of the United States, hampered and hobbled by a new kind of individualism devoted to self-realization, to the protection of the environment, to suspi- cion of big business and big organization.” The emerg
6、ence of the new individualism can be linked to “a dramatic loss of confidence in the old America, from about 1963 on.” Concurrently the egalitarian drive, which focuses particularly today on “the great American problem, the race issue”, has changed the institutional environment of individualism by “
7、erecting official racial and ethnic categories on the basis of which rights, privileges, and duties are distributed by government.” Addressing what personal experience and the media would persuade many is the most troubled social institution, Tamara Hareven presents “Continuity and Change in the Ame
8、rican Family”. The notion of a golden age of the family when three generations once lived happily together in the same household is mythic; in reality, greater longevity in the twentieth century has given opportunity as never before for overlap and stability among the generations. But industrializat
9、ion and affluence have worked major changes in the household and family roles, separating the home from the workplace, husbands from wives, parents from children. “The major historical change in family values,” according to Hareven, “has been one from a collective view of the family to one of indivi
10、dualization and sentimentIt has contributed considerably to the liberation of indivi- duals, but it also eroded the resilience of the family and its ability to stand crisis.” Women and children were principally affected by the “separation of the home from the work place thatreached its peak in the d
11、esignation of the home as a therapeutic refuge from the outside world.” The engagement of women with the outside world in the twentieth century is the topic of William Chafes “Women and American Society.” Without belittling the professional and social opportunities opened by womens liberation or dis
12、counting the “success stories” of bright, talented, and economically secure women, Chafe is also concerned about the “millions of other women whose stories represented the direct opposite of the upward mobility and the economic advancement enjoyed by the fortunate majority.” The massive increase in
13、female-headed households since the 1960s, induced or complicated by problems of race and class, has introduced a “feminization of poverty” to Americaan unsolved problem of personal liberty as well as equal opportunity. The same dilemmas of absolute material progress and relative social inequality ar
14、e noted in Edward Pessens consideration of “Status and So- cial Class in America.” While “America wears its class system lightly and unobtrusively,” according to Pessen, power, influence, and access are stratified within the society. Nevertheless, most Americans “seem altoge- ther oblivious to the s
15、ignificance, even to the very existence, of the class distinctions that in fact play so central a part” in their lives. Shared beliefs and institutional commitments to equal opportunity, buttressed by abun- dant instances of individual mobility in the United States, apparently habituate the nations
16、people to consider class less a social force than a matter of personal responsibility. It is appropriate that John Orrs essay “The American System of Edu- cation” should close this section. Since the 1950s no other social or gov- ernmental institution has been given greater responsibilityand blame for dereliction and detoursin realizing the nations creed of equality and the pursuit of happiness. Education has been coeval with the founding of the country, be
