De Crevecoeur’s idea of the new and the exceptional as typically American
From 'letters from an American Farmer' Letter III, Crevecoeur
wrote about what it is to be an American, " Here are no aristocratically
families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no
invisible power giving to a few a very visible one; no great manufacturers
employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The rich and the poor are
not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe”
I decided to talk about this talk because its shows that there is
no ‘class’ divide in America compared to Europe when the author wrote the book.
I choose this quote because the composition make me think of the
actual religion called ‘Mormon’ when we
look at the definition of it, it defines ‘honesty, trustworthy, sober, hardworking,
family oriented people’. This definition is basically what the life style was
during De Crevecoeur’s period. But I
also think we can connect this quote with the ‘Amish’.
The Amish are known for simple living,
plain dress,and reluctance to adopt many conveniences of modern technology which is also
quite similar to the period of De Crevecoeur. The Amish was founded by Jakob
Ammann (12 February 1644 – between 1712 and 1730) between 1693 and 1680.
The Amish are also hard worker people which use modern way to achieve things (farming,
anting..), they believe that the community is at the heart of their life and
faith, and that the way to salvation is to live as a loving community apart
from the world. Individualism is avoided (which related to ‘the rich and the
poor are not so far removed from each other..’)
*Today the population of Amish is 281,675.
This example shows that this vision of America as fresh has
survives today. In most of the country in the world, people are free to choose
and practice the religion wanted.
In contrast of the quote, today we can clearly see that in America there
is class divide. We can make the difference between a rich area and a poor one.
Before it used to be rich or poor, today we have ‘upper class’, ‘middle class’,
‘working class’ and ‘lower class’.
“ We have developed a new upper class with advanced
educations, often obtained at elite schools, sharing tastes and preferences
that set them apart from mainstream America. At the same time, we have
developed a new lower class, characterized not by poverty but by withdrawal
from America’s core cultural institutions.” By Charles Murray- Coming apart.
The first picture represents farmer during the 18th century, the second and third picture shows Amish people working.
Class divided:
This picture represents a poor neighborhood of America, we can clearly see the difference between both picture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class_in_the_United_States
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/24/class_decides_everything/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/subdivisions/amish_1.shtml
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