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The Ten Commandments of American Culture  
JUST THE FACTS 

Tags: Social, Cultural, Economy

1. You can’t argue with success. (Be a success.) 2. Live and let live. 3. Time flies when you’re having fun. (Have lots of fun.) 4. Shop till you drop. 5. Just do it. 6. No pain, no gain. (Get tough.) 7. Enough is enough. (Stand up for your rights.) 8. Time is money. (Don’t waste time.) 9. Rules are made to be broken. (Think for yourself.) 10. God helps those who help themselves. (Work hard.)

	1. You can’t argue with success. (Be a success.)
	Success is probably the most praised thing in American life. It relates to so many other characteristics of American life—individualism, freedom, goal-setting, progress, experimenting, social mobility, making money, pragmatism (doing what works), and optimism (expecting good things to happen).
	2. Live and leAmericans love freedom and privacy. In a way that means we love to be left alone. We don’t want anyone interfering in our affairs, giving us advice, or trying to run our lives. We want people to “stay off our backs,” “stay out of our way,” and “mind their own business.”
	3. Time flies when you’re having fun. (Have lots of fun.)
	Americans try to have as much fun as possible. Much of our fun comes through various kinds of entertainment, especially TV. But we also try to turn other activities into fun. Shopping is fun. Eating is fun, and in case it is not enough fun, we will put a playground inside the fast-food restaurant so the kids can have fun playing while the grown-ups have fun sitting and eating.
	4. Shop till you drop.
	Many Americans shop as a form of recreation. Even if we are not shopping for anything in particular, we simply enjoy looking at all the options. We love the whole process of choosing what to buy and where to buy it. It is a major topic of social conversation. If you want to impress an American friend, convince him or her that you are a “smart shopper.”
	5. Just do it.
	We are people of action. We do not like too much planning. That seems indecisive and perhaps a waste of time. We do not like rules and regulations that prevent action. We strongly dislike authority structures where people are expected to inform several other people before they do anything. We get an idea and we want to just do it.
	6. No pain, no gain. (Get tough.)Americans are always seeking to gain something or improve something. We expect to have to work to achieve our goals. Success usually involves pain and sacrifice. It will not happen by itself.
	7. Enough is enough. (Stand up for your rights.)Human rights and dignity are so basic to American thinking that we assume everyone else must think the same way. This proverb implies the command, “Stand up for your rights.” In the American Revolution, America as a nation said to Britain, Enough is enough, that is, “You have ruled us for long enough. You will not rule us any more.”
	ough is enough. (Stand up for your rights.)
	8. Time is money. (Don’t waste time.)
	We Americans are very time-conscious and very money-conscious. Many of us get paid by the hour for the work we do. We give the employer our time in order to get money.
	9. Rules are made to be broken. (Think for yourself.)
	We obey rules most of the time, but we see rules as someone else’s idea of how we should do things. We think the rule might have been appropriate in some other situation but it might not be appropriate for our situation now. Therefore we break it and do what we think is a better idea. This proverb implies the commandment, “Think for yourself in every situation. Do not just obey rules.”
	10. God helps those who help themselves. (Work hard.)
	In a list of “Ten Commandments,” one might expect that God would be mentioned in the first commandment rather than the last one. But in American culture, God actually does come at the end of the list. For most Americans, God is much less a concern than success, money and time. (There are many Americans who put God at the top of their personal list of priorities, but they are a minority within American culture.)

Lister: arifansari

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