Examining the American Identity Essay - 837 Words

Examining the American Identity â€Å"Americans aren’t idyll daydreamers; they take the initiative.† (Cato.org) In his statement, Edward Hudgins, the director of regulatory studies at the Cato Institute, captures the essence of â€Å"Americaness.† Since the publishing of Ben Franklin’s Autobiography in 1790, this definition of Americans as go-getters and self-made-men has become stock. While Franklin’s life story helped define the American identity, the discussion of what an American is began decades before, as can be seen through J. Hector St. John de Crevoeur’s Letters of an American Farmer. Franklin and Crevecoeur both touch on American archetypes including the Yeoman Farmer Ideal, the free, self-made man, and the noble savage. These†¦show more content†¦The Yeoman Farmer Ideal has laid the foundation for a national identity that embraces work ethic, self-motivation and reaping the fruits of one’s own labor. Through his journey towards moral perfection, Franklin exhibits one of the cornerstones of the self-made man: the idea that, through diligent labor, man can raise himself above oppression. According to Crevecoeur, this idea hinges on the fact that in America, one is free to raise himself above his circumstances, because there â€Å"†¦are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power giving to a few a very visible one†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (658) In America, economic success is dependent solely upon virtue and work ethic, not one’s birth name. Franklin furthers the idea that success is a result of hard work with his â€Å"can do† American attitude. He exemplifies this entrepreneurial spirit in his proposal to render the Benefit from Books more common by commencing a Public Subscription Library.† Both Crevecoeur and Franklin poignantly include being a free, self-made man as the basement of the ho use of the American identity, the cinderblocks of which areShow MoreRelatedThe Unconverted Self By Jonathan Boyarin Essay1673 Words   |  7 Pagesthe relationship between Christian Europe and the world around it, especially in the context of interreligious dialogue as a means of defining Christian identity. The common school of thought, as presented in this book, is that European identity reaches modernity after 1492 with the discovery of the radically different culture of Indigenous Americans (p. 9). 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