Do young Americans have some understanding of the values of their country?

16 comments

1. The only American value that I can say defines this country (I have lived in America my whole life), is greed.

2. America is vast. It’s a lot of people, cultures, etc. each location has slightly different values they instill in the youth. So it changes.

   But most are taught to respect freedom, love each other, build a better future for our children, and defend our nation against enemies.

   What that means for everyone is where different things take place

3. Is one of the core values “being absolutely fixated on the US”?

4. [deleted]

5. Yes. It might not be the same interpretation that previous generations had though.

6. We have values?

7. Some young Americans do understand our core values, if anyone bothered to teach them.

   Unfortunately, others have been taught a skewed view of American history that obsesses over past mistakes, diminishes real progress that has been made, and completely ignores our blessings.

8. Individual freedom, individualism and limited government. Although the third one is highly debatable.

9. Unfortunately both parents and the public education system have been failing catastrophically in this regard. A lot of young Americans are completely ignorant of the Founding and what made it special. They’d struggle to name founding fathers besides George Washington. They don’t know where the battles were fought, who our allies and enemies were, nor the heroes and the villains.

   They might know about the three branches of government, but they couldn’t tell you why it was set up that way. They might know of Constitutional rights but couldn’t even tell you what a right actually is.

   On the contrary, the focus of educators over the past 10 years has been trying to write America off as some failed state with an incurable original sin. There’s been so pushback, but unfortunately its spearheaded by genuinely unhinged people who think any book with a female or gay character is going to corrupt their kids.

10. These things are more caught than taught. And they’re not caught as well as they used to be. One of those core values traditionally was self-reliance. With each generation, though, there are more and more who are asking “what can my country do for me?”

11. I would say yes, mostly specifically because a lot of our patriotic buzz words are in the pledge of allegiance and most school children say that every morning.

    I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

12. No.

13. Well we’d have to have national values to be taught first.

14. Are we talking like elementary school kids or 22 year olds?

15. In general, yes. But things like freedom mean different things to different people. For those on the Right, it’s more important to have freedom from government restrictions (except when it comes to religious issues). For the left, I’d say it’s more about freedom from want, and freedom from right-wing religious laws.

16. What is “fair-go”? Is “mateship” similar to friendship or neighborliness?