Couple's Valley: Thei Modern Conception Of National Identity

America is commonly characterized as the greatest country in the world, the glorious “land of the free and the home of the brave”, “indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”. This idealization of the American identity conveniently focuses on what people want to hear and blurs out most everything else. In reality, Americans do not live up to the dreamscape created by our views, and we never really have. America is no longer characterized by its freedom and democracy, nearly every first world country can afford that luxury. Nor are we set apart by the great opportunities given to our people, for those are far from universal. We aren’t equal, we aren’t unified, we aren’t kinder or smarter or richer than any other country across the board. It’s easy to find the shortcomings of American culture, all the things we aren’t, but the things we are have proven to be more elusive. First, let’s examine the nots.

When nature is personified in East Asian poems, it is common for the personification to have a negative context toward the reader. Nature is commonly conveyed as something or someone who has suffered, who has lost hope, or who has been

Cultural Identity is “The definition of groups or individuals (by themselves or others) in terms of cultural or subcultural categories (including ethnicity, nationality, language, religion, and gender)” (Oxford Reference). Everyone has cultural identity even though some are unaware of theirs because their habits and traditions might be seen as normal to the person and they might not make the connection that it is a cultural tradition or connected to their cultural identity. Some people are very aware of their cultural identity and have conflict within their identity because the cultures may not coincide. Frida Kahlo’s Self Portrait: On the Borderline Between Mexico and the United States and Pat Mora’s “Legal Alien” both show cultural conflict through symbolism, conflict, and purpose.

Prior to the French and Indian War, colonists were somewhat satisfied with Great Britain. The laws imposed on the colonies were usually unenforced giving the colonies free reign over most aspects of their life. Despite the distance between North America and the mother country, colonists considered themselves equal with British citizens living on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. At this point, the colonists had no intentions of breaking off from the mother country. As John Murrin says in his essay “The Dilemma of American National Identity”:

Throughout today’s society there are several different cultural perspectives which form theoretical and practical understandings of natural environments, creating various human-nature relationship types. In this essay, I will describe and evaluate different ways of knowing nature and the impact of these views on human-nature relationships. From this, I will then explore my own human-nature relationship and reflect on how my personal experiences, beliefs and values has led me to this view, whilst highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each and reflecting upon Martin’s (1996) continuum.

Nature is not altered by humanity and instead is pure, creating inspiration for people to be original. Nature is “the greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, in the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable” (Nature 221). People who believe in transcendence see the importance

The role of gardens play a much more important role in Japan than here in the United States. This is due primarily to the fact the Japanese garden embodies native values, cultural beliefs and religious principles. Perhaps this is why there is no one prototype for the Japanese garden, just as there is no one native philosophy or aesthetic. In this way, similar to other forms of Japanese art, landscape design is constantly evolving due to exposure to outside influences, mainly Chinese, that effect not only changing aesthetic tastes but also the values of patrons. In observing a Japanese garden, it is important to remember that the line between the garden and the landscape that surrounds it is not separate. Instead,

In the excerpt from “The Crisis of American Nationality” Susan-Mary Grant describes the northern viewpoint and its strong disapproval of southern ideology and how it “took on the attributes of a sectional” identity.

The Western world is the dominant society with specific parameters for modernity, which understands nature-people relationships from a perspective that is grounded on human domination over the environment. Nature is regarded as a provider of resources (e.g. oil, timber, cupper, rubber, etc.) for the profit and greed of a market-based economy that seeks infinite development. Consequently, the human-nature relationships are subject-object, implying

How is a American Identity created? Over the last few months I have read several different articles and texts surrounding this topic. An American Identity isn’t something you just get when you come here. It’s something you earn. It’s what you make of yourself. America’s habits and customs help mold it into what you end up with. Someone’s national identity and someone’s personal identity are made by the country they live in. But they do come into conflict. Because some things that happen in your county, you just might not agree with. In ‘music for my mother.’ it talks about how they are new immigrants to the united states. How racism and adjusting to the American life affected them. “It would hurt my feelings to see the way some people looked

The people nowadays also abuse on what nature can provide to them. People are influenced by the western Culture, Man is more powerful and can have dominion over nature and that nature as they see become merely an instrument to satisfy human needs and wants. This kind of thinking or we can say attitude towards nature is called the “Anthropocentric Attitude”. Man reduce the value of nature as it is and it’s important because nature has made all things specifically for the sake of man and that the value of non-human things in nature is merely instrumental. An opposite thinking would be the Eastern Culture, for they value nature very well and they treat nature being one with them. This thinking or attitude is known as “Ecocentric

deities act “harmoniously” with one another. Nature, in turn, is a vital part of both the spiritual world and the human world; “Japanese love and reverence for nature lies at the root of Shinto”. For many other religions, this is not the case. For Western religions, the “Creator and the created, and the human and natural realms” do not relate with one another immediately. The Shinto religion can again be seen acting in a more spiritual way than any other religion. The spirituality of Shinto and its people can be expressed further:

Japan is an unique oriental country in many aspects, especially in politics and economy, both western practices and traditional nationalism are coexisted in this country. The period 1890-1940 was just followed the Meiji restoration, and was typical in the history of Japan, at that time, Japan was on the way from a feudal country to a capitalistic country, called modernization. Many western practices were being more and more adopted, however, at the same time, traditional rules still had strong influences in Japan. Under this background, this report will discuss the Japanese cultural factors during 1890-1940 that influenced the disclosure

They are the ritualization in Japanese culture, women’s implicit expression of love, women’s hierarchy in 18th Japan, and how the landscape of Japan influences the prosperity of Geisha culture.

Nature as w e know it means different things to different people. To an economist, natural is often seen as a resource to be transformed and put in readiness for human use. An alternative view is that humans are stewards who should care for natural things as well as making use of nature’s bounty. Another view is that nature of animism, which sees nature as a living thing, something to be respected and not controlled. Some native American’s view the earth as a sacred place could be called animist. Another alternative view is that the entire planet earth is a self correcting system based on a symbiotic relationship between the earth and the living beings(Peacock,