America is brave, but fearful of other nations or groups of nations. America boasts that it is the greatest nation in the world, but other nations still impress us. Americans cry out in pain during events that draw national attention, but only in spare time. Americans enjoy emotional times, but are too into possessions. America acts for its standards, when almost no other country does. Americans wonder why they are fat when they are constantly eating fast food because it is convenient. America goes from barbarism to self-indulgence without something happening in between. America spends all of its energy abroad when we should use it at home. Steinbeck is right when he says we are a contradictory people.

With an event like Virginia Tech, people that were not involved were only thinking of the bereaved in their spare time. After a thing like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina, America is still getting itself back together. Some Americans are still mad at the so-called “Muslims” that attacked us so suddenly and viciously. Some people were actually rejoicing at our pain.

Americans as a whole enjoy the times with friends and family but put a computer in front of one and that is a serious distraction from the good times. One thing I notice is that Americans take too many things for granted. Americans take for granted the fact that they live in a country where people in other countries only dream of being.

Most Americans are fat. We hear about it in the news almost constantly, right along with how we should stop it. No one is really taking action. When a single person does something for their health, they quit more often than not because they are too fat and have problems with stamina and will along the way. Once, I heard a story of a woman in New York who sued “Taco Bell” and “McDonalds” because their food made her obese: an example of how stupid Americans can be.

We go from barbarism to self-indulgence with no intervening culture, but I believe that the culture that causes the shift is always there. Steinbeck did not realize that there is always a counter-culture pushing cultural progress along. In most of our history, there was always something pushing development, only that push did not happen between barbarism and self-indulgence. Sometimes, wars were pushing our development. World War Two, for example, pulled our economy out of the Great Depression and sent the economy into a war-time economy. We needed to develop things, and the war pushed the barbarism that was the 1930’s to the greatest times we had since the 1920’s.

Steinbeck says that Americans are a people contradictory of themselves. I say he is more right than wrong.