The United States of America has always positioned itself as being one of the most democratic and prosperous nations in the world. It has been a leading example of a country with elevated values and a constitution that could serve as a benchmark for others. The USA is highly proud and open to people with new ideas of freedom and equality, which explains the effectiveness of this nation. Historically, the USA had always been a society of wealth and prosperity, and many other countries had looked up for the US as an example to strive and follow. However, the United States possesses numerous problems within its system due to the fact that it always moves forward as a pioneer in democratic and capitalistic developments (Abramitzky & Boustan, 2017). Therefore, it regularly keeps both allies and enemies in check with the latest changes. In addition, the US is a highly sound and powerful nation with a clear message to others. Thus, it acts as a world police force, which intervenes the global issues and problems. Being a politically unique country, it can be expected that others would have trouble comprehending and misunderstanding the motives and cultural aspects of the USA.
Other nations do not adequately understand many cultural aspects of the United States. Among them are ten outstanding features and properties of the American culture, such as gun control, immigration, healthcare, education, the electoral college, Democratic and Republican parties, Founding Fathers of the United States, Federal Reserve system, foreign policy, multiculturalism, individualism, and freedom of speech (Abramitzky & Boustan, 2017). Although there are some nations which can share one of the mentioned terms, no other country across the globe possesses all of the unique approaches combined (Abramitzky & Boustan, 2017). Every one of these aspects of the US features is essential to keep the democratic and capitalistic system functioning; however, misunderstanding and miscomprehension of these values are widespread among the other countries.
A large proportion of emerging and developing countries are struggling in mimicking and implementing the methods of the country’s development. These are racial discrimination, gun control, and healthcare. The given three features of the United States are an essential and critical part of the American way of living. The main problem with misunderstanding of these statements is the lack of historical knowledge of American history and its independence (Levine et al., 2016). For example, gun control or freedom of gun access is a central issue of the US, because outside of the United States nations limits completely prohibit gun purchase. It mainly possesses historical roots due to the fact that the United States of America was a colony of Great Britain, and its independence came to existence through gun armed revolution. The rest of the world might not fully understand the thesis behind the liberated gun market; however, the real answer is derived from the history of the American war for independence. In American citizen’s eyes gun allows them to be comfortable to resist current governmental agency, therefore undermining the governmental false and troublesome policies through the possible uprising public strike.
Nevertheless, there is a detrimental issue regarding the topic of gun control, such as gun deaths and mass shootings. The given incidents are widespread across the United States, where these accidents result in a massive signal warning of potential abuse of free gun accessibility (Filindra & Kaplan, 2015). Evidently, gun control has always been a hot topic for numerous debates across the United States. Both major parties, which are Republican and Democratic parties, have addressed the given issue with full seriousness and awareness. In order to fully comprehend the issue, the roots and cause of the policy need to be investigated in detail, which means that states should have complete freedom in implementing the gun control policies without central government supervision.
In addition, societal discrimination has always been a central issue of the United States of America due to the historical roots of the given problem. Slavery was a key element of the industrial revolution in the USA, where Asian immigrants have built a railway system, whereas the African-American immigrants served in the agricultural sector (Bonilla & Rosa, 2015). For decades, these racial minorities have been discriminated by local people. However, the liberation and freedom prevailed and came out victorious due to the fact that the American values supported the given uprisings (Saez & Zucman, 2016). These problems represent themselves as a cultural topic of nation-wide discussion. Nowadays, racism and other discriminatory form are not highly dominant across the USA; nevertheless, their presence can still be noted.
Current political and cultural movements in the United States aim to eliminate the notion of racism and discrimination through uniting young people with one goal of living in an open-minded environment (Bonilla & Rosa, 2015). American society hosts numerous ethnicities and races, such as Asians, Jews, African-Americans, Latinos, and European descendants. Each one of them brings their own cultural background to the main field of the nations’ playground, thus making it quite challenging to truly appreciate and accept these specific cultural features and properties.
Furthermore, the healthcare system of the USA is highly unique due to the commercialization of the sector and lack of governmental involvement. Many countries across the globe have decided to partially or fully monitor and regulate the healthcare sector because it’s market liberation is prone to cause unethical practices. For example, the US allows insurance companies to compensate for the healthcare of its citizens; therefore, the government does not guarantee its taxpayers to have access for free medical products and services (Abramitzky & Boustan, 2017). This concept of healthcare commercialization is deeply rooted in the American way of viewing freedom and capitalism, where the latter states that the invisible hand of market forces brings efficiency to the system.
Nowadays, business owners across the US struggle to overcome those misunderstandings with new generation immigrants. A firm can implement neutrality and communication policies, which would improve the minority perceptive image and decrease stereotyping. Firm managers can deliberately focus on solely creating multicultural and diverse project teams. These groups can prove to be highly effective and creative due to presence of people with different backgrounds and values. The organizational trainings, which aim to decrease racism and cultural appropriation, can involve effective communication classes and ethnic introduction (Bonilla & Rosa, 2015). The main focus of the trainings needs to be on diversification of employees and honest representation of minority groups.
In conclusion, gun control, discrimination and the healthcare sector are one of the many issues that the United States struggles to tackle. Therefore, it is highly suggested to implement pieces of organizational training that include cultural assimilation and historical relatedness for the newcomers. Bringing people together by introducing the American culture and backstory has resulted in better value share and political view integration. However, it still remains as the proud nation freedom and democracy, which makes the US a global leader in both commerce and politics. The current politics of the United States still protects disadvantaged nations and keep world peace among countries. The USA acts as a world police, which counteracts establishments of dictatorship and religious terrorism uprisings, thus propagating and promoting democratic freedom and open capitalistic market onto the world.
References
Abramitzky, R., & Boustan, L. (2017). Immigration in American economic history. Journal of Economic Literature, 55(4), 1311-1345.
Bonilla, Y., & Rosa, J. (2015). #Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media in the United States. Journal of American Ethnological Society, 42(1), 4-17.
Filindra, A., & Kaplan, N. J. (2015). Racial Resentment and Whites’ Gun Policy Preferences in Contemporary America. Political Behavior, 38(2), 255-275.
Levine, C. S., Miyamoto, Y., & Markus, H. R., Rigotti, A., Boylan, J.M., Park, J.,… Ryff, C.D. (2016). Culture and healthy eating: The role of independence and interdependence in the United States and Japan. Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 42(10), 1335-1348.
Saez, E., & Zucman, G. (2016). Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from capitalized income tax data. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 131(2), 519-578.