American Dream


I always thought of the American Dream as the freedom to have a decent life. To work and be rewarded, to be free from persecution. I suppose that in my mind it was the small town America of Ray Bradbury and Norman Rockwell. Admittedly that's a bit vague.

James Truslow Adams is often quoted in this context from The Epic of America (1931):

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 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.

This seems reasonable and not too far from what I believe (and better said). Yet in the 21st Century we seem to be following a different dream. Now we seem to dream of money, motor cars, yachts and a lifestyle that would shame royalty.


Now it isn't enough to find a safe place in the world to live, love, and raise a family (should that be one's desire). Now the American Dream seems to be a life of excess without any sense of nobless oblige. Success is no longer about a decent job, a secure future, a pleasant retirement, and some money for the children. Now it's not enough unless you're the best, the richest, the master of all you survey.

Is this the image we want to show the country's youth? Is this the life we want to show the world? Perhaps it's my advancing age, perhaps I'm just jealous, but something seems amiss when the American Dream is only possible for a few on profits earned by the backs of hard-working Americans who live paycheck to paycheck. When the richest people in the world have hundreds of billions of dollars but we can't afford to raise the country's minimum wage to $15 an hour, a paltry $30,000 a year. When it is possible to amass a billion dollars just by monetizing celebrity.

The worst part is that Mr. Adams' phrase "regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position" is not in the least bit true. It is clear that one's chance for a good life depends in large part on the zip code of birth, skin color, religion, and family wealth. We have elevated the rich and despised the poor. We claim to be a meritocracy yet function as an oligarchy.

I wish I had some humorous ending for this rant, but frankly it all seems like a bad dream, a low budget dystopian fiction. I wonder how long it can all last.
Location: Lacey, WA 98506, USA

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