I am on a quest to find the American Dream. I don't know what it is, exactly, so first I have to define it. I have a vague notion of what it is supposed to be, but I think that notion is wrong. The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French people way back when we liked each other, is a stand-in icon for The Dream, but I doubt she knows anymore what the Dream is, either. The United States isn't the same nation it was when she came to grace New York Harbor. Hell, it isn't even the same nation it was when I first started thinking about what The Dream meant, over forty-five years ago. Of course, I might have become a cynic in those last forty-five years, and maybe The Dream isn't what's changed, but my view of life in America.
Maybe there is no such thing as The Dream. Maybe the dream is a myth, a fantasy, a legend, or - maybe - a nightmare. Maybe The Dream is the true "opiate of the masses," the carrot on a stick that keeps us going, the illusory image of Utopia, of Paradise, dangled before the lower classes to distract them from the reality of their existence. A few are allowed to win The Dream's lottery, to keep hope alive for the rest, to keep us so busy struggling to win that we "ignore the Man behind the curtain," when perhaps we should be pulling the curtains down, exposing the frauds, the poseurs for what they really are.
Our politicians, seems to me, are puppets whose strings are pulled by Corporate America, their pockets filled with graft and other ill-gotten gains. They've traded in doing what's right for the citizenry for doing what's expedient for their political careers. Yes, Mr. President, I'm looking at you, too, when I say that. "Got hope?", you asked, four years ago. Not anymore, dude.
Maybe it isn't so much the American Dream I'm trying to find as much as it is a focus, a direction, for my life. Most likely, it is that I am tired of struggling and am looking for someone to blame for those things I cannot control.
I guess I'll add 'find the American Dream' to my bucket list. Despite my cynicism and frustrations with our national (and my personal) state of affairs, I still believe The Dream is out there.
Then again, I believed Tinker Bell would revive if I just believed in her and clapped my hands when Peter Pan (played by actress Mary Martin) asked me to, right there in our living room, when I was ten years old. (She did, though, you know.)
19 comments:
It seems not that long ago that many people came to America because of this dream, that the streets were paved with gold, that if you just worked hard you'd become rich. That world sure has changed a lot since.
Thoughtful post, dear Crow. I hope we'll still find a dream to follow.
If I ever thought about the American Dream I guess I assumed that it had to do with home ownership and station wagons and apple pies (home-made by Suzie housewife.) It never appealed much to me. But now the homes are foreclosed, the station wagons are out of style and the pies are all made by Sara Lee. If Suzie housewife is lucky she's a career woman, if not she's cleaning houses or on welfare.
There's more social mobility these days in Europe than here in the US.
Well-said, Martha. The dream of equality, even relative equality has vanished. I've trimmed back my expectations to a local level; the dream consists of having healthy kids and grandkids, of a spring ripe with Montana flowers, and that my family will be happy, if not as secure as I would like. Good luck.
Mike
First you're right: there isn't - never was - an American Dream. The largest geographical entity that can have a dream is a country and the USA (it's implicit in that abbreviation) is a continent, not a country. Ask yourself: what does a native of Wisconsin have in common with a native of Louisiana other than a deep suspicion, often rising to a hatred, of the federal government. Dreams cannot be based on suspicion and/or hatred. Think too about New Yorkers and Angelenos: straight off different time zones preclude a shared dream if only for the fact that for large portions of what is understood to be bedtime, one is awake and the other asleep.
Think too about a land mass large enough to permit the constant betrayal of its inhabitants - as with the way Brooklynites had their hearts broken all those years ago when their baseball team shifted to the other side of - no, not the country, the continent.
And if you wanted a parallel beyond your sea-girt shores, try and imagine a European Dream. Me and a Sicilian, for instance.
On the matter of leaders think of it in terms of political courage. There has never been a president who hasn't had the courage to send young people off to places where they can get their heads shot off - for what's the political price? more plots taken up in Arlington. Simultaneously there's never been a president who's had the guts to come down heavily on profiteers because here the price is much heavier - failure to get re-elected.
Dear Friends: Thank you all for your comments.
M-L - I think the American Dream is as individual an image or ideal as those who believe in it. I also think the key to my search is in your last sentence, and probably what prompted this post in the first place: whatever my American Dream was, I seem to have misplaced it and am now trying to determine just what it is I want to follow in the time I have left.
Anne - My mother used to talk about the slogan used during Hoover's run for office (A chicken in every pot...) as if that were the American Dream, which, considering the defining moments in her life were the years of the Great Depression and the following war years, I can understand. I'd like to think the Dream is more than that, but right now I settle for the chicken.
Mike - I think your scaled back version of the Dream is probably the way it should be, and what underpins all the others. Certainly, those are the things that matter most in life, the things that if we don't have them then nothing else matters.
LdP - For as intelligent a man as I know you to be, you seem to have forgotten your world geography lessons. The United States is, in fact, a country, despite the fact that our main land mass stretches across the North American continent. I know that you are fully aware that we share this continent with fellow nations Canada and Mexico. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say your remark stems from land envy.
Wisconsin and Louisiana share one of our greatest assets – the mighty Mississippi River. At one time, they were rival sugar producers, too, only Wisconsin grew sugar beets and Louisiana grew sugar cane.
We all share a national (not continental) Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. We share national sorrows, national celebrations and joys, national taxes, a national culture and a national history, which we are still writing, together, all 50 states and our territories.
The American Dream is a waking ideal or a hope each one of us Americans (and those who come here wanting to be) shapes for himself and herself. The Dream has always existed from the moment we told King George to bugger off until this very moment when I am tempted to tell you to do the same. But I won’t, because I know you only wrote your comments to get a rise out of me.
Looking in from outside I would suggest not one dream - it just wouldn't work - but many dreams. Despite the problems and the politicians, it seems to me that there remains the most important thing - the space in which to dream. What's your dream dear Crow? A plate of hot soup? That would be mine I think if only because on waking I could go and prepare it. Seems to me that dreams are worth having if they are remotely attainable. Otherwise they are no more than fantasies.
Plutarch:
I think, too, that it isn't just one dream, but I also think there is one universally accepted and relied upon, ideal which forms the foundation of the American Dream, in all its incarnations. It is the underlying principle, or set of principles, on which we then pin the fabrics of our individual dreams, giving them shape and form and substance.
I'm trying to find that foundation, and maybe I'm searching in the wrong direction. Maybe I need to look inward.
Maybe it is in a bowl of soup, after all.
Lorenzo, I apologize for the bugger off remark. It was rude and ill-mannered of me, and I am sorry I wrote it. Friends don't treat friends that way.
Martha
really enjoyed your reflection on the dream at the heart of most projects of integrity. and i also liked how you worked through the comments. you are a classy gal.
We could never expect to agree, given that you’re looking out and I’m looking in. I’m well aware that the USA only shares a continent but it’s often useful (especially when talking to other foreigners who have never experienced the USA) to think of that strip of earth, east to west, as a landmass rather than a country. Nor is it that whimsical. After all it was your lot who came up with the term “united states” rather than another noun that better describes a sub-division of a country. A state is, after all, “a politically organised community, usu. occupying a definite territory, esp one that is sovereign.”
Since it is impossible for me to imagine a British Dream - even an English Dream - the likelihood of an American Dream (with one exception which I’ll get to) seems even more remote. The phrase implies something shared nationally and the policies of the two political parties, which roughly split your population, are sufficiently divergent to suggest there’s not a lot of sharing there.
But physical geography and ethnic origins split up the USA even more. In comparing Wisconsin and Louisiana I had in mind, on the one hand, a large-field agrarian economy with Scandinavian and German roots and, on the other, a quite different form of agriculture with close cultural ties to France. One with a frequently Arctic climate the other almost tropical. Dreams are often the product of aspirations and wanting to get warmer or get cooler hint at different priorities.
However it isn’t merely the word “state” I would question but also “united”. The biggest, quickest and most surprising discovery I made in Pittsburgh was the general contempt directed towards the federal government, the symbol of national unity. Although there’s a good deal of sentimental guff talked about being an American, further questions tend to reveal a form of patriotism that is more closely linked to the state and even more so to the home town. This isn’t surprising. The USA is admirably decentralised (unlike Great Britain, alas) and since the majority of Americans don’t have passports the need to practise a national form of patriotism only shows up in wars.
What I’m saying is that the USA is diverse in so many important and inescapable ways that a homogenising dream is unlikely. The exception is an oft-repeated desire among American men to be self-employed. My impression is inevitably anecdotal but it is completely at odds with the views of, say, most British men. In any case it says nothing about what American women may be dreaming of.
Perhaps the American Dream is to ponder the impossibility of coming up with one.
In describing the differences between national and local alliances in the USA I forgot to include a telling detail. Some Americans (though not all; the country is remarkable for its collective tin ear) noticed I had a different accent. When I told them where I was from they replied “That’s interesting – I’m Italian (Or Norwegian. Or Austrian)” Suggesting that family roots contribute significantly to American identity.
The American dream? I'll go with the stories of Turtle Island. Some native people thought the world, or at least the North American continent, was the back of a turtle's shell. With this in mind, my dream is to bask atop a dry rock in the warm sun of summer while the waves lap softly below me.
Dear Crow, As a non-American, I took my own stab at trying to express what The American Dream meant to me.
Time goes on and so do our dreams. Much of what was the American one has taken severe knocks, gone out of fashion, been betrayed, or become global. Some still remains - as part of that elusive thing, the American identity
Shared dreams are powerful ... but can also be dangerous. Maybe what we need most is to renew our faith in our individual dreams and move beyond these to a shared dream of humanity. National particularism tends to turn sour and mouldy, particularly when national dreams (whether American, French, British or Chinese) are used to convey a sense of our superiority to them. Unfortunately, this is what they tend to do - only a few days ago, I heard Newt Gingritch trying to score cheap points by comparing American unreality to some kind of fantasy of "European bureaucratic socialism."
LDP can't imagine a British or English Dream. I can't think of an Italian or Greek one. Chinese? Soviets, of course not (though I could imagine a Russian one).
The point is that in so many ways the US was founded on ideals (liberal ideals, way back when liberal wasn't a dirty word). Ideals easily beget dreams.
LDP is completely wrong. There certainly was an American dream. We may have lost our way, now and again, but whenever we live up to our ideals we continue to be a city on the hill.
Sorry Duchess, but ... no.
A hundred years ago, there may have been something special for the huddled masses yearning to be free in the vision of the USA.
Today, there are many cities, on many hills, and some of them burn much more brightly than the US.
One of the major problems the USA has, in my opinion, is its continued, self-proclaimed myth of, and belief in its own moral superiority.
kim has left a new comment on your post "I Resolve: No Resolutions":
The American Dream is our religion.
1. Success is always financial.
2 Life is entertainment, i.e. the Superbowl, Disneyworld.
3. Everything is always getting better.
(posted to "I Resolve: No Resolutions". Transferred here by Martha)
The huddled masses continue to vote with their feet. And unlike many countries, and to its credit, the US actually lets many of them in. just look at the numbers.
I kept on clapping for Tinkerbell for many years and still do. As you know I returned to Canada recently after spending more than 3 decades in the US and this place isn't the same (or even close) to what it was like all those years ago. I think we're all looking for some sense and sensibility at a human level and what we've got is mega-corporatization. That's wrong. We know it's wrong that banks wound up looking for employees with psychopathic tendencies because they were single minded. We know it's wrong that the larger percentage of members of Congress are 1%'ers and that former presidents graduate to being on the boards of directors of multi-nationals. It's not wrong to expect something better - that's healthy.
Post a Comment