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In this thesis, part one is the introduction, which states the reason why I chose to write about it. Part two is the American spirit in the minds of American and its importance from definition, value and driving force. Part three and part four are about two black leaders’ stories and how they reflected the American spirit. In the end, the conclusion is drawn.
2 American Spirit
The United States, like any other country, has a national culture. All people born and raised in this country have been strongly conditioned by it. The characteristics of American society have been traced to many sources. The value derived from the virgin wealth, and the seemingly limitless resources of a new world, all appear to have affected American ideas of freedom. (Wangenmin, 2004: 279)
As a fusion of nationalities, racial regions, cultures, American spirit is formed on little by little its conditions of societies and civilizations. During more than 200 years history, the United States created a legend, changing from a weak newly frontier country to the most powerful country in the world. Nowadays, Americans are not only proud of their power and richness, but also the American spirit.
2.1 The Definition of American Spirit
What is the American Spirit?
To be more concrete, American spirit is the combination of the American values which is made up of creativeness, pioneering spirit, enterprising spirit, courage, pragmatism, inpidualism, democracy, confidence, internationalism, freedom, equality, etc. As is often the case, the American spirit is equal to the American national spirit.
“It is evident that inpidualism, enterprising spirit and desire for material wealth through hard work are all spirit that makes the United States a special country and their roots can all be traced back to the early Puritanism.”(Yuhai, 2012:266) The first immigrant is the English called Puritan, who brought a new language— —English to America and provided the opportunity to implant their ideals— —diligent application to work and inpidual accomplishment.
“Religious differences within American cultures are overly a massive structure of common values and beliefs. Protestants, Catholics, and Jews can communicate within a shared cultural universe.” (Wangenmin, 2004:364) Among different religions, they share the common values: equality, freedom, mutual assistant, sympathy and self-respect which are exactly part of the American spirits.
American spirit rooted from the history of America. It made a great contribution to the development of the United States, and had a significant influence on each period of American history. The thesis would be written from Martin Luther King and Barack Obama who are two typical heroes of blacks representing the American Spirit.
Martin Luther King addressed a famous speech--I Have a Dream, which called for American people to revive the consciousness of American blacks to fight for themselves for freedom, voting rights and equality. The spirit of braveness and the spirit of pragmatism were advocated in his lecture.
Wangxiang(2008) said that Barack Obama is a black-white mustee, which combined Africa “unique” gene with white “good” gene in his blood. Yes, Barack Obama is the first black President of the United States. He will definitely be marked as a milestone in American History. He himself is the American Spirit.
The United States, in the spirit of its freedom and democracy, has developed from a nation which has suffered a lot pains from western countries into a nation with super powers. The government consists of three branches: the legislative, the executive and judicial. In addition to the powers of the three branches themselves, they also have the rights to check the powers of the other branches.
2.2 The Value of American Spirit
The value of the American spirit refers to its positive active impact on the development of the United States. Generally speaking, the value of the American spirit normally consisted of economy, culture and politics.