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Are Americans Still Puritan?

“I THINK I can see the whole destiny of America contained in the first Puritan who landed on those shores,” the French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville wrote after visiting the United States in the 1830s. Was he right? Do present-day Americans still exhibit, in their attitudes and behavior, traces of those austere English Protestants who started arriving in the country in the early 17th century? It seems we do. Consider a series of experiments conducted by researchers led by the psychologist Eric Luis Uhlmann and published last year in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. In the study, American and Canadian college students were asked to solve word puzzles involving anagrams. Professor Uhlmann and his colleagues also conducted an experiment to see if Americans shared the prudishness of the Puritans. In none of these studies did the results hinge on the participants’ religious affiliation or level of religious feeling. Why the persistence of Puritanism in American life? Related:  USSociety.Justice.History.Equality.Civics

Our Puritan Heritage : Democracy Journal When the Iron Curtain collapsed 25 years ago, leaving what seemed a world without walls, many Very Serious People heralded neoliberal capitalist democracy’s triumph on earth. “One thing the Cold War did accomplish,” wrote the Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis, “was to vindicate democracy and capitalism.” Thomas Friedman gazed at multinational corporate logos on buildings and baseball caps in Bangalore and announced that The World Is Flat, reflecting a belief that cosmopolitanism and liberal democracy would inevitably follow open markets. But even as many societies embraced variants of a neoliberal economy, their ruling elites had to reconcile its benefits with its social disruptions, which often aroused not liberal-democratic enthusiasms but religious and tribal resentments—Jihad vs. Can those of us who have felt helpless before such reactions do better? Four Gifts of the Puritans The Puritans were America’s first Very Serious People. Why We Don’t Like Them What We Owe Them R.H.

Resources For Educators To Use In The Wake Of Charlottesville : NPR Ed Four-year-old Leo Griffin leaves a Chicago protest against the alt-right movement held to mourn the victims of Charlottesville, Va. Scott Olson/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Scott Olson/Getty Images Four-year-old Leo Griffin leaves a Chicago protest against the alt-right movement held to mourn the victims of Charlottesville, Va. How should educators confront bigotry, racism and white supremacy? One teacher wondering aloud about his role is Derek Weimer. Weimer says he taught Fields in three classes at Cooper High School in Union, Ky. Weimer says Fields was intelligent and didn't cause trouble. For 40 years, the nonprofit Facing History and Ourselves has been training teachers to confront racism and bigotry. Studies show that the curriculum produces academic, social and emotional gains in students. "There's a whole lot teachers can slow down and unpack with their students rather than get completely caught up in the emotion of the moment." Just starting out Historical background

Puritanism — History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts The roots of Puritanism are to be found in the beginnings of the English Reformation. The name “Puritans” (they were sometimes called “precisionists”) was a term of contempt assigned to the movement by its enemies. Although the epithet first emerged in the 1560s, the process through which Puritanism developed had been initiated in the 1530s, when King Henry VIII repudiated papal authority and transformed the Church of Rome into a state Church of England. But the Church of England retained much of the liturgy and ritual of Roman Catholicism and seemed, to many dissenters, to be insufficiently reformed. Well into the sixteenth century many priests were barely literate and often very poor. Through the reigns of the Protestant King Edward VI (1547-1553), who introduced the first vernacular prayer book, and the Catholic Queen Mary (1553-1558), who sent some dissenting clergymen to their deaths and others into exile, the Puritan movement–whether tolerated or suppressed–continued to grow.

Did Confederate symbols gain prominence in the civil rights era? A major catalyst in the run up to the deadly clashes in Charlottesville, Va., was the city’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. As the nation reeled from the violence, some political analysts sought to place Confederate symbolism in a broader historical context to help explain the turmoil around the Aug. 11-12 weekend. "The idea of putting up (Confederate) monuments actually didn’t happen right after the Civil War. Reid went on to say that Confederate symbols were political statements aimed at African-Americans. American history features two periods when Confederate symbolism spiked: around the turn of the 20th century and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. Early 20th century: Confederate monuments multiply A sharp uptick in the construction of Confederate monuments took place from the late 1890s up to about 1920. Several cross-currents explain the explosion of Confederate symbolism in this period. Civil rights era: Confederate flag gains prominence

Why do we think poor people are poor because of their own bad choices? | US news Cecilia Mo thought she knew all about growing up poor when she began teaching at Thomas Jefferson senior high school in south Los Angeles. As a child, she remembered standing in line, holding a free lunch ticket. But it turned out that Mo could still be shocked by poverty and violence – especially after a 13-year-old student called her in obvious panic. He had just seen his cousin get shot in his front yard. For Mo, hard work and a good education took her to Harvard and Stanford. Now, as an assistant professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University, Mo studies how to get upper-class Americans to recognize the advantages they have. It all starts with the psychology concept known as the “fundamental attribution error”. For example, if an unexpected medical emergency bankrupts you, you view yourself as a victim of bad fortune – while seeing other bankruptcy court clients as spendthrifts who carelessly had too many lattes.

Today's Most Popular Study Guides These Wall Street millionaires literally plotted to overthrow the president President Franklin Roosevelt made an enemy of the richest Americans with remarkable haste. By his first term, his heavily progressive New Deal taxes and the suspension of the gold standard inspired vocal opponents within the highest echelons of industry. Among them was an irate William Randolph Hearst, who filmed a message decrying the “impudent” and “despotic” new tax code. Yet of all of Roosevelt’s powerful enemies, perhaps none were more formidable, or incensed, than those who considered throwing him out of office by way of a fascist military coup. It is impossible to say exactly how close the Business Plot — also called the White House Coup and Wall Street Putsch — came to overthrowing the president. At the time, Butler was enjoying the boost of a positive public profile, as a result of his enthusiastic advocacy for veterans. In a second meeting, MacGuire, a $150-a-week bond salesman for the financier Grayson M. Those implicated agreed.

You won't believe what I'm about to tell you 2 clicks Comics Blog Books Shop Comics: Random Most Popular All Cats Grammar Food Animals Tech This is a comic about the backfire effect. Inspiration This comic was inspired by this three-part series on the backfire effect from the You Are Not So Smart Podcast. USC Creativity and Brain Institute Neural correlates of maintaining one’s political beliefs in the face of counterevidence By Sarah Gimbel and Sam Harris. Other fun reading Reddit - Change My View Wikipedia's list of common misconceptions Sources You Are Not So Smart Website Podcast USC Creativity and Brain institute Wooden teeth Slave teeth Latest Things Random Comics Home Quizzes About Contact

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