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Dominant American Ideology

Decent Essays

An ideology is a group of ideas (social, economic, culture, etc) about life and accepted as reality by the majority of people in a society. These set of ideas are used by different organizations in the society such as: school, and government, among other, to reinforce such ideology. In a society an ideology serves as means to perpetuate and justify the power of the dominant group. The United States is frame in the liberalism capitalism ideology and this ideology is embedded in the different areas of life. People learn from very early age about the American ideology at home, school; and it is reinforced at work and through media and politics. It is important to keep in mind that and ideology does not have to be supported by all the population in order to be the dominant ideology in a country. (Marger p 226) M. Merger explains that the key notions of the dominant American ideology are: individualism, equality of opportunity, meritocracy, work ethic and liberal …show more content…

American ideology state that there is same opportunity and this is call equality of opportunity; and yet not all of them have the talents or make the necessary effort to accomplish the goal. (Merge p 230). The third key notion is meritocracy and it is closely related to the idea of equality of opportunity. The people has got the opportunity to move up into the society ladder because their talents and skills; now they need to be rewarded. Meritocracy means “strength power”, so the power and the decision making is granted to them, all the benefits that the society offers is for the ones that work hard. The belief of working hard is the basis for the work ethic belief. There is no other way to reach their goal; people need to take the opportunity, get more education and skills, and have a good work ethic and they will earn the rewards and merits in their

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