To whom this may (or may not) concern:
If you feel so inclined…
What is an American?
What are some defining characteristics of a “good” American?
What are some defining characteristics of a “bad” American?
Whatever they choose to be.
A good American follows the written laws, and the unwritten rules on how to treat others.
A bad American doesn’t follow one or both of those.
Would you say a “good” American questions authority?
If they choose to do so, and it’s in pursuit of a worthy goal. If it’s agitprop, brought about by some iconoclastic motive or a need for attention - "Look how interesting I am! - no.
Questioning authority - properly constituted, principled and especially controlled - authority is worse than useless. It is in itself immoral.
No, that’s too strong. Merely questioning authority is NOT immoral. OPPOSITION to authority for other than moral purposes is immoral.
quite. then what characteristics would you attribute to a “good” or “bad” american, besides those already mentioned?
Truthfully, as an American living abroad, a characteristic that I often see in Americans that seperates us from citizens of other countries is adaptability. We adapt to any situation far easier than others, IMHO. “Cryptonomicon” by Neal Stephenson has a great line spoken by a family member chock full of Marines: “Way to display adaptability!”
Americans will move from New York to San Francisco in a heartbeat. Try to move a Czech 100 miles to a larger town? Fergeddaboutit.
Americans will stray from the safe path in search of greater adventure (and money). Think an Indian would drop out of college to start a software company and then become the richest man on earth? Nope. They follow the rigid school paths and don’t stray. (Of course this is a gross generalization, but cite me a counter example and I’ll gladly thank you- I’ve yet to hear one).
We adapt; there are no rigid paths for us to follow. A highschool dropout can still go to college (I know many). A college grad can work in a different field than they studied (how many Engilish Lit grads actually have real jobs? Tons.). (was that last period correct?) These things are unheard of in many other countries. Many countries still train people for jobs, not for life. A highschool student in Germany training for carpentry will ALWAYS be a carpenter. If the market falls out of carpentry, they will go collect welfare until they can get another carpentry job.
On a similar note, another thing I’ve noticed about Americans is their avoidance of welfare. We bitch and moan about people on welfare, we cry out about welfare moms and scammers, basically, we value people who work. Elsewhere? Everyone has been “on the dole” (on some type of assistence) at some point or another. I know exactly one person who has received government help in the US. But all of my friends have been out of work at some point or another- they simply never claimed unemployment because of the stigma. But while here in Prague I have run into very successful business folk from the UK who talk about being on the dole at some point or another when they were younger- and they laugh! Man, if I were ever on welfare unnecessarily I think my friends would smack me. Welfare is the last choice for most of us, we would rather deliver pizza, wait tables, throw newspapers, tend bar or ??? just to make a buck. We’d adapt to the situation as required and not suffer for it.
Currently I am unemployed. My last position was as an Operations Manager for an offshore Hedge Fund. My current plan is to go get my MBA, but I am also tossing around the idea of doing balloon animals on Charles Bridge, magic tricks for drunken tourists and starting a sandwich delivery service for lunchtime busy people. I’m going to do what is necessary to feed my wife and kid no matter what - I will adapt as required.
-Tcat, currently bleeding red-white-and-blue in the above post 
Not Many Americans can do that, either.
Oh, and no-one likes being on the Dole. Wanting to be employed no matter what is not exclusively an American thing.
In fact, now that I think about it - Here in Britain - being on the DOle has a pretty heavy stigma attached to it too. Being unemployed means feeling like a failure, lazy, useless, unskilled. If I ever meet/met a person who felt good about scrounging from the state I’d question his/her decency.
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