The American Dream
“The American Dream” is a kind of social Rorschach: It might mean a one-family home in the suburbs, a two-car garage, marital bliss plus three beautiful children, or a partridge in a pear tree. Maybe it’s job security or a career, good health or a pension for when you’re old, a college education for the kids, or season tickets to the Bulls or the Knicks. Yes, yes, yes—achieving the American Dream includes picking up some, or preferably all of the above. It surely implies mobility and climbing spryly up the social ladder.
Is the American Dream military dominance, the US astride the world like Colossus, nuclear superiority? Yes, this too. How about the freedom to speak your mind, or the freedom to acquire unlimited cash and shop till you drop? Yes, yes—both. Every cheery politician or run-of-the-mill billionaire will happily tell anyone who will listen: “I’m living the American Dream.” It’s a stuttering echo throughout the culture, the irresistible comfort food of all clichés—it may not be healthy, but it feels good going down.
The American Dream means anything—rampant consumerism, unchecked acquisition, being bigger and badder than anyone else—and therefore it means nothing at all. One part sunny fantasy like the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, one part hackneyed chestnut, the American Dream is an unfortunate illusion—more shadow than substance, more myth than reality, more shapeless phantom reminiscent of the corruption at the hollow heart of Gatsby’s delusion than concrete, shared aspiration.
And the American Dream has that lurking, entangling darker side: it evokes a narrow nationalism, a careless jingoism, and an acute The American Dream | Bill Ayers:
Is the American Dream military dominance, the US astride the world like Colossus, nuclear superiority? Yes, this too. How about the freedom to speak your mind, or the freedom to acquire unlimited cash and shop till you drop? Yes, yes—both. Every cheery politician or run-of-the-mill billionaire will happily tell anyone who will listen: “I’m living the American Dream.” It’s a stuttering echo throughout the culture, the irresistible comfort food of all clichés—it may not be healthy, but it feels good going down.
The American Dream means anything—rampant consumerism, unchecked acquisition, being bigger and badder than anyone else—and therefore it means nothing at all. One part sunny fantasy like the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, one part hackneyed chestnut, the American Dream is an unfortunate illusion—more shadow than substance, more myth than reality, more shapeless phantom reminiscent of the corruption at the hollow heart of Gatsby’s delusion than concrete, shared aspiration.
And the American Dream has that lurking, entangling darker side: it evokes a narrow nationalism, a careless jingoism, and an acute The American Dream | Bill Ayers: