Ways of Looking at America and Controversial Issue Essay

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America and controversial issue

According to historian Frederick Turner, America is by nature a 'pioneering' nation. It is distinctly different in its worldview from Europe, given that it has been founded upon the ideals of newness, expansiveness, and the drive to move forward. Americans are practical, self-reliant, and tough. Turner also suggested that Americans innately 'crave' the frontier to realize the full scope of their ambitions. Americans are hardy, and feel they can overcome any challenges. They disdain hierarchies based upon aristocracy, and instead value a person's merit and ability to rise to a challenge. In contrast, Oscar Handlin stressed America's identity as a nation of immigrants. Founded by people seeking refuge from persecution, Handlin saw the forging of the American character as something difficult, as it required bringing together people of vastly different cultures, all of whom had overcome tremendous challenges to arrive in America.

Americans who take the view that government should 'get off our backs' are likely to embrace the Turner model of America. This idealizes Americans as people who 'don't take handouts' and don't need the government to 'tell' people what do to (such as if they can use guns).

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It seems to have an approving view of expansionist foreign policy and stresses American exceptionalism. It also stresses the homogeneity of American religious and civic values. In contrast, Handlin's model of America suggests that race and class conflict is embedded into the American soul. People who believe in greater government social intervention prefer Handlin's concept of America, because it suggests that it requires a great deal of active reworking of the current social environment to heal the damage that has been wrought by the conflicts between different populations over the course of American history. It deemphasizes American exceptionalism, suggesting that America is not free of the conflicts of race, class, and ethnicity that plagued Europe for so long.

Question B

Both the women's movement and the temperance movement were extremely controversial because they challenged conventional conceptions of how Americans should govern themselves at….....

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