American culture
The main content of American culture is the emphasize on individuals' value, the pursue of democracy and freedom, the promotion of deploitation(开拓, 经营) and competition and the need of realistic and practicality. Its core is individualism: self first, personal need first, pursue of individual benefit and enjoyment, emphasize on achieving individual value by self-strive and self-design. This type of intentionally build up of personality and pursue customized individualism has its pros and cons, it gives incentives to people and make them exert on their potential and wisdom and as a result accelerate the development of the entire race and nation; on the other hand it is difficult to keep good relationship among people if everyone is egocentric thus make the entire society lack of unity.

egocentric: .自我中心的, 利己主义的

American citizens emphasize on achievements and respect heroes. They have great sense in their hearts to praise success and heroes. Personal achievements are one of those with the highest value in Americans mind. Americans have very strong senses of success. Success is the pursuit of most Americans, it is their attractive future and the incentives for moving forward. They believe that one's personal value is equivalent to his achievements in his career. Some high achievers in their career such as entrepreneurs, scientists, artists and all kinds of super starts became modern heroes. The process and result of how they strived have become the frame of reference of social culture value and the real life text book for parents to educate their children.

incentive: Serving to induce or motivate:

American society has great movements within itself. These movements are shown in two aspects: movements amongst locations and movements inside the society. The United States are relatively more open and have more freedom. Developed transport and the tradition of adventure and sporty makes a lot of American migrate from countryside to cities, from downtown to uptown; and from north to the southern sunny land, from one city to another. Unlike European countries, the social classes in America is not so stable. Further more, with the advocation of public education, movements upwards along the social ladder have become possible. Many people living in the states, no matter whether they are Native American or immigrants from overseas, have the same dream of changing their social class and make their lifetime dream come true through their own efforts. This is what they often called "American dream".

advocation：(=advocacy)拥护；支持

美国 文化的 主要内容是强调 个人价值，追求民主自由，崇尚开拓和竞争，讲求理性和实用，其 核心是个人中心主义：个人至上、私欲至上、追求个人利益和个人享受，强调通过个人奋斗、个人自我设计，追求个人价值的最终实现。这种刻意塑造自我，追求个性化的 个人主义有其积极的一面，也有消极的一面。它调动了个人的积极性，使 许多人的 智慧和潜力得以充分发挥，从而促进整个 民族与国家的振兴和发展。然而，人人以我为 中心，人际关系就难以融洽，整个 社会也会缺乏 凝聚力。

美国公众注重 成就，仰慕英雄，有深厚的成就崇拜和英雄崇拜的心理积淀。个人成就是所有 美国人 价值观中评价最高的 价值之一。美国人有很强的成就(或成功)意识。成功是所有美国人的追求，是诱人的 前景，前进的动力。他们坚信， 一个人的价值就等于他在 事业上的成就。一些事业有成的 企业家、 科学家、 艺术家和各类明星，成了新 时代的英雄。他们个人奋斗的过程和结果，成了社会文化价值取向的参照系，父母教育子女的 活教材。

美国是流动性很大的社会。这种流动体现在两个方面：地域性流动和 社会性流动。美国相对的开放自由、发达的交通和冒险好动的 传统使许多美国人从 乡村流到城市，又从市中心流向郊区；从北方流到南方阳光地带，从一个城市流到 另一个城市。美国社会阶级不像欧洲国家那样固定，加上公共教育的普及，使沿着 社会阶梯向上流动成为可能。许多 生活在美国的人，无论是土生土长的美国人，还是漂洋过海 来到美国的 外国 移民，都 有一个梦，即通过自己的努力，改变自己的社会地位，实现 自己的人生梦想，这就是人们常津津乐道的“美国梦”。