pineapples, turkeys, tobacco, and hammocks
The American West was indeed a land of great opportunity from 1865 to 1900 in the sense that there was an abundance of land and resources available to all those willing to go west.
Answer:
Some of the issues that polarized American Society ever since are:
- Gun politics - the right to keep guns is protected by the Second Amendment. However, the amount of guns in the United States is large, and some political commentators argue that this is one of the causes of the increasing amount of mass shootings in the country. This is why people on different political aisles have called for more gun regulation, while others oppose these measures.
- Abortion - this is a hot button issue up to this day. People disagree on everything here: whether a fetus is a human being or not, whether women should keep unwated pregnacies or not, whether the argument should be framed in a religious fashion or in a secular fashion, etc.
- Recreational drug use and legalization - Drug use is still frowned upon by most of society, but this has not stopped marihuana from being legalized in several states. Many economists support legalization because they believe that prohibition only leads to inflated prices in black markets that are prone to violence. Legalization of hard drugs such as cocaine and heroine, however, is much more controversial.
- Separation of church and state - Some people believe that United States is a Christian nation, and that the church should have a lot of influence in the government, while others argue that America is a secular country, and that state and religous matters are separate.
An increase in new churches
One of the major controversies in developmental psychology centers if development is continuous or discontinuous. Those psychologists who support the continuous view of development suggest that development involves gradual and ongoing changes throughout the life span, with behavior in the earlier stages of development providing the basis of skills and abilities required for the next stages. Not all psychologists, however, agree that development is a continuous process. Some view development as a discontinuous process. They believe development involves distinct and separate stages with different kinds of behavior occurring in each stage. This suggests that the development of certain abilities in each stage, such as specific emotions or ways of thinking, have a definite starting and ending point. However, there is no exact time at which ability can appear or disappears. Although some types of thinking, feeling or behaving may seem to appear suddenly, it is more than likely that this has been developing gradually for some time. Stage theories of development rest on the assumption that development is a discontinuous process involving distinct stages which are characterized by qualitative differences in behavior. They also assume that the structure of the stages is not variable according to each individual, however the time of each stage may vary individually. Stage theories can be contrasted with continuous theories, which posit that development is an incremental process.
