The Expansion and Self-Devotion of American Thought (Part 1): The "guilt" in the Puritans' bones has become the spirit of American capitalism It should be noted first: I have not officially mentioned "liberalism" so far. In the West, presumably college-educated people know that the rise of "liberalism" is closely related to the Enlightenment, the former being the general name of the ideas advertised by the latter. From individualism, natural human rights, to democracy and freedom are the representative ideas of liberalism.
The dissemination of these ideas became remove background from image mainstream after the two revolutions in the United States and France. Therefore, liberalism also represents an attitude of bravely accepting new ideas. From the second half of the 18th century, liberalism gradually became the foundation of modern thought, and it has persisted for more than two hundred years. Therefore, the ideological attitude of bravely accepting new ideas has also become the basis of modern thinking methods, and is combined with progressivism. The nineteenth century was an era of a series of "revolutions," which advertised the naive belief that constant change equals continuous progress, and enabled Westerners to embrace the idea of ​​evolution in science, and not back down despite the church's opposition. Furthermore, Marxism spread and even expanded in Western Europe in the form of "socialism".
In the United States, of course, progressivism and liberalism developed rapidly in the early twentieth century. However, it can be noted that American liberalism is mainly focused on individualism or the development of personal values, while the impact of technology or natural science is relatively unsystematic. For example, the opening of black slaves is a major social event, but it takes individual freedom and equality of human nature (empathy) as the core of thinking, and opening up women's voting is also based on the idea of ​​human equality. Finally in 1920 officially incorporated into the constitution. These developments did not at first spark a systematic discussion of social revolution. In other words, an attitude of constant and courageous self-criticism and an effort to accept new ideas