Me personally, my American Dream was to have a house, a dog, a couple rifles, a bass boat. I believe in living life easy and simple. I don’t have grand designs. I don’t want much. I just wanna be able to take care of my family and do things with them outdoors and that’s about it, really. I don’t have a “grand scheme” thing. My American Dream is just more personal to me as far as working, making a good living and being able to provide for my family, college for my son. Things like that – simple things in life, that’s really what it comes down to for me. That’s my dream.(1)
The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.(2)
The reform of consciousness consists only in making the world aware of its own consciousness, in awakening it out of its dream about itself, in explaining to it the meaning of its own actions.... Hence, our motto must be: reform of consciousness not through dogmas, but by analysing the mystical consciousness that is unintelligible to itself, whether it manifests itself in a religious or a political form. It will then become evident that the world has long dreamed of possessing something of which it has only to be conscious in order to possess it in reality.(3)
1. Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, Interview, Family Security Matters, October 15, 2008.
2. James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America, 1931.
3. Karl Marx, Letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843.
On the available evidence, for many the American Dream is actually a nightmare, or at any rate, something long gone.
ReplyDeletePart of the dream is to leave the house and land and bank account balance for the kids. Then to ensure that the value of these things is maintained and hopefully added to in order to pass onto the next generation.
ReplyDeleteOn a finite planet something has to give.
I am European, so I feel motivated to respond because you mentioned the "European upper class". You see them as the antithesis to the American dream. FYI: a large part - if not most - of the European upper class have second homes in the United States, if they have not completely moved there. They send their kids to prestigious universities (they can afford it) and in general they have a fairly negative attitude about "old" Europe. They let it be known that in the US you don't have to feel embarrassed if you are rich. As a result, the European middle class (the majority of the population) have come to see the US as a country where economic success - no holds barred - is admired, class differences are fully accepted. This is a far cry from the Jeffersonian idyll that you describe. The view of the US 'from outside in' is thus very different from your view 'from inside out'.
ReplyDelete«The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.»
ReplyDeleteIs it? I agree more with the anonymous european above.
The American Dream can be summarized pithily as "F*CK YOU! I AM FULLY VESTED!".
It is being part of as small minority of WINNERS, of elects that live it large in their mansions on the hill, while the vast majority of sore LOSERS struggle hard in the gutter.
In other words the American Dream is the Dixie dream of being a plantation owner and lord of his subjects.
Perhaps the dream you describe was the Yankee Dream, but Americans have adopted the Dixie Dream as the American Dream for decades now.
«the US as a country where economic success - no holds barred - is admired, class differences are fully accepted.»
Not accepted -- glorified. Because fully 60% of USA voters believe that they will end up in the top 1% of WINNERS, they despise the bottom 80% is exploitative, parasitic LOSERS they will leave behind.
Too much generalization.
ReplyDeleteEverybody has their own dream. For some it's a house and a boat, for others it's to succeed in business or arts or procreation or something, or to lose their traditional environment and mix with a crowd, or to find a place where they won't be bothered by other people.
Yeah, sure, people are all the same, and yet they all are a little different.
“From birth I have been immersed, enculterated, inculcated, and surrounded by the myriad toxic components of the ‘American Dream’ or ‘Americanism.’ There are some admirable aspects to ‘America’ but by and large we live in a spiritual/psychological sewer.” [There are] two dozen aspects of Americanism, which I repeat here: narcissism, greed, hyper-individualism, consumerism, capitalism, corporatism, faux democracy, media whoredom, asphyxiation of the Left, Christian fundamentalism, Mammon worship, moral retardation, militarism, imperialism, celebrity worship, wars on drugs and terrorism, prison industrial complex, mean-spiritedness, self-absorption, American exceptionalism, bullying, anti-intellectualism and the abandonment of many uninsured and homeless in the wealthiest nation on earth. - Anon
ReplyDelete"[There are] two dozen aspects of Americanism, which I repeat here: narcissism, greed, hyper-individualism, consumerism, capitalism, corporatism, faux democracy, media whoredom, asphyxiation of the Left, Christian fundamentalism, Mammon worship, moral retardation, militarism, imperialism, celebrity worship, wars on drugs and terrorism, prison industrial complex, mean-spiritedness, self-absorption, American exceptionalism, bullying, anti-intellectualism and the abandonment of many uninsured and homeless in the wealthiest nation on earth. . ."
ReplyDeleteIn Australia we have: narcissism, greed, consumerism, capitalism, corporatism, faux democracy, media whoredom, asphyxiation of the Left, moral retardation, militarism, imperialism, celebrity worship, terrorism, prison industrial complex, mean-spiritedness, self-absorption, bullying, anti-intellectualism and the abandonment of the homeless.
what appears to be particularly American are:
hyper-individualism, Christian fundamentalism, Mammon worship, wars on drugs, American exceptionalism and the abandonment of the uninsured.
Sorry, ...we don't yet have a prison industrial process. But it is a solid part of our history.
ReplyDelete