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How Americans See Themselves Americans do not usually see themselves, whenthey are in the United States, as representatives of their country. They seethemselves as individuals who are different from all other individuals, whetherthose others are Americans or foreigners. Americans may say they have noculture, since they often think of culture as an overlay of customs to be foundonly in other countries. Individual Americans may think they chose their ownvalues, rather than having had their value forced on them by the society inwhich they were born. If you ask them to tell you something about Americanculture, they may be unable to answer and they may even deny that there is anAmerican culture. Because they think they are responsible asindividuals for having chosen their basic values and their way of life, manyAmericans dont like generalizations others make about them. Generalizationsdisturb Americans. They may be unhappy with the thought that they hold certainideas and act in certain way simply because they were born and raised in theUnited States, and not because they had consciously thought about those ideasand ways of doing things and chosen the ones they preferred. At the sametime, Americans will readily generalize about various subgroups within their owncountry. Northerners have fixed views about Southerners, and vice versa.There are fixed views of people from the country and people from the city;peoplefrom the coasts and people from inland;people from the Midwest;minority ethnicgroups;Texas;New Yorkers;Californians;and so on. | 
