In the N.Y.Times article, Applebome interviews some villagers fighting against the natural gas drilling companies that cause pollution and serious illness to the neighborhood. The villagers like Ms. Jastremski and Ms. Huntington use their personal force and commitment to do the research, visit the industrial companies and publishing their voices in local newspaper. They deserve sympathy and understanding, but they didn't manage all the victims in the neighborhood to form a larger voice. Instead, they would like to do all the work alone, although it's the most difficult, time consuming way to earn attention. This fact shows one important American value, Individuality, which means people would rather achieve their goals by their own ability and hardworking, even though sometimes the goals are similar.
In Will's essay, he also points out the core value of American culture is individualism, and this spirit refers other values like optimism, since being confident and positive lets people have the courage to solve the problems themselves. All these values will go to one destination, freedom. To Will, freedom is more like the civic value for America, since it is the motivation of hardworking and the ultimate goal of everyone.
Schneekloth and Turner talk more about how the American cultural values were formed and introduced by the frontier. The brave, confident frontier came to this new land and formed a new country. Many great virtues of them leave deep effectiveness in American history, and those virtues become the model and values that effect how Americans think and take action even after over three hundred years.
By Yawen Luo
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