Being 10+ Years Into The 21st Century - Has The American Dream Changed & If So How?.........

[global1]

Seriously folks - I think this is something that needs to be discussed and examined. I'm really not interested in funny takes on this - I'm interested in genuine discussion on this topic. I look at this country now and the state we are in and it suggests to me that things have changed to the point that perhaps most if not all Americans have a different perception of what the American Dream is today. Is there one over-riding American Dream or do we all have our own take on it? What might be the common elements? If it has changed - why has it changed? Are we on a path to realize the American Dream or the new American Dream? - OR - Are we getting further and further away from it?

I happened to be thinking about this on my way home from dropping off my 86 y/o mother and listening to her complain about "digital TV' and the poor reception she has. That is an odd thing to make me ponder the American Dream question - but I sensed after listening to her that what she aspired to in her lifetime is quite different than what I might be aspiring to. Then I sit back and try and verbalize my perception of the American Dream and realize that I don't think that I can quite get a handle on it or put it in words.

That is why I thought I'd throw this topic out to fellow DUer's.

[Oregone]

1. The American Dream is suppossed to refer to intergenerational mobility

This is a measurable statistic, and not relative. The US is also tied for last, with UK, in all industrialized countries for it. Mobility is suffering greatly.

[MichiganVote]

2. Going, going, gone.......

[yella_dawg]

3. DOA

On the other hand, I don't think anybody really knows what the American Dream was supposed to be. I suspect marketing hype driving a meme of "what you can have if you buy this" or consume that".

[Skink]

4. I think the American dream was an invention of the Baby boomers...

and for the most part they lived it. The expression might go back further but what I see is recent Generations are destined not to live as comfortable as the baby boomers. Of course the generation before the boomers made it all possible.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. The modern version, absolutely

that is two kids, a house, a car and a dog...

What we would define as American dream has changed over the centuries. It's gone from being free, after years of indentured servitude, (if you happen to be white) to owning land (A historic constant actually, see the go west young man). To our current ideas of the MC.

As usual this is now changing, AGAIN. But land, read home, is a constant.

I fear the current version will morph into some college and some education... and a better job... but the keeping up with Joneses might be coming to an end, for the moment, as we enter probably a lost decade. That will change the country in significant ways.

[Art_from_Ark]

16. The "American dream" was "keeping up with the Joneses"

which started getting into high gear just after World War II.

[Art_from_Ark]

17. (dupe)

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Yes, though the only constant historically has been

owning land. This is an echo from the Enclosure Movement in the home country that drove many peasants off the land. Ironically we have had something like that with the rise of industrial agriculture. Since most people can still aspire to have a home, or rather wish to... not much fuss or muss about the loss of family farms... our modern day enclosure movement.

[Lorien]

7. My lower middle class grandparents retired with plenty of money in the bank, pensions

affordable health care...they were secure. They went on long vacations twice a year, managed to pay for college for four kids, yet they were always secure and comfortable. I can't afford health insurance any more, and while I had 80k in retirement savings 13 years ago, health care costs and unemployment ate it all away (with health care costs being the bigger drain). The American dream is now a nightmare.

[RainDog]

8. The American Dream was a product of FDR's democratic socialism

and as that pact with American citizens was and continues to be dismantled, America has turned into a banana republic.

[griffi94]

9. Well goals and aspirations have changed I think.

I read a piece sometime in the last year, and I'm sorry I don't remember anymore about it, but the gist is that our expectations changed when we stopped seeing ourselves as citizens and start seeing ourselves as consumers.

As consumers what we wanted and expected were no longer things like economic opportunity, and social equality, but rather the opportunity to own and possses more consumer goods, flashier and cheaper stuff.

We were encouraged to spend beyond our means and were IMO spoonfed & brainwashed by a constant barage of advertising and a neverending supply of new stuff that we just had to have.

The movie Idiocracy comes to mind. Not the part where people are so conditioned to be stupid that they water the crops with a sports drink, but the way the are totally controlled by their media.

We've traded our longterm job security for cheaper Iphones and Nike sneakers.

I think the housing bubble was just a logical extension of this. The only thing holding the economy together the last several years before the crash was Housing and Consumer spending. Wages were down but that wasn't real a problem because credit was easy.

So it's my opinion that where the Anerican Dream used to be about having some control over your own social and economic destiny. Now it's to have a bigger TV, ot the newest fastest computer.

[jdlh8894]

10. Dream all you want

I have to deal with American Reality every day.Dreams are just that - DREAMS!When you wake up,they are gone-and they won't come back.

[Juche]

11. It has probably changed

For one thing income inequality combined with rapidly growing expenses mean the bottom 90% are being squeezed into bankruptcy and can't get a good foot hold on their economic situation.

I think that another factor is how mass philosophy seems to have changed. I'm not an expert, but it seems many old concepts like trusting the government or private industry (what is good for GM is good for america, etc) have died. More and more people are aware that both the public and private sector are plutocratic and aristocratic. Obama's health reform law was designed in part to protect the profitability of pharma and private insurance at the expense of the US consumer, who would've seen lower costs for medical procedures had meaningful regulations/negotiations/competition been put in the bill. What is good for Blue Cross is bad for America, and Blue Cross is going to get its way like it or not.

So even those of us who vote liberal realize we are going to get plutocratic rule. And those on the right 'want' (I don't know if they consciously want it, but they do vote in favor of it) plutocracy.

So that is a big thing too. I think the sense of community and shared sacrifice is dying, which sucks. People don't trust private or public industry to be anything other than self serving to the interests of the powerful. Income inequality means people can't live lifes of security or personal wealth anymore.



So how does it change the dream? I don't know. But w/o wealth, security, trust or community it is going to be a weird experience defining the american dream. But that is the situation we are in.


Plus the US is arguably in decline to rising giants like China, India, Brazil, etc.


My point is, I don't know. What kind of 'dream' can you have when large numbers of us realize we are plutocratic, on the decline, and going broke? I guess the dream of overcoming and fighting against those forces.

I don't want/have kids, but if I did I'd be far more proud if that kid fought against our (ecologically) unsustainable ways, our plutocratic rule and our national decline into personal and mass bankruptcy than if that kid became a doctor with a house, 2 kids and a new car.

Maybe and hopefully that is the new American dream. Fighting back against plutocracy, unsustainable economic and manufacturing technologies (that will deplete and kill the planet's ecosystem), fighting to keep the US something to be proud of.

[Bloofer_Lady]

12. The American dream has always been a corporate sham.

The 'American Dream' throughout the years has mostly consisted of things such as owning your own house and having material goods like your neighbors do. Kind of a 'life will be swell if I keep up with the Joneses philosophy. I feel that the whole thing has been based upon the lie that having money and as many goods as you want will make you happy. I would like to think that after the economic meltdown that is happening that people think differently. Maybe in the future the 'American Dream' will be having enough money to put food on the table.

[Juche]

14. I think a big part is deeper than just consumerism

I think a big part of the American dream is security and progress. Knowing that you can find a decent job if you have a good work ethic, knowing you can get good health care, knowing you can retire in peace, knowing one illness or job loss will not destroy everything you worked for all your life, knowing your kids lives will be better than your own. That is a big part of the American dream. And someone who has those things in a smaller house with a used car is arguably living the dream more than someone deep in debt with a new luxury sedan and a 4000 sq ft home.

So there is some materialism in the American dream, but I think security/progress is a big part. And we lost the security now, as well as the belief that the next generation will have it better than the current.

[stray cat]

13. The GOP wins in 2012 and thereafter because progressives continue to wait for a pure candidate

and fail to even nominate any candidates as a result.

[RainDog]

15. wtf does this have to do with the decline of America's economic prosperity?

what does progressive disgust with Reaganomics have to do with waiting for a "pure candiate?"

The truth of the matter is that the middle class is in decline in the U.S. If the democrats want to win, they should pass laws that pander to the middle class, rather than corporate ceos and stockholders.

Are you really this blind that you don't see that it isn't some phantom "progressive" on DU that you love to bitch about that is the problem? Rather, the problem is that only 5% of the population is getting the benefit of the last 30 years of tax cuts and cuts in social spending?

How the fuck is that the fault of a progressive wanting a "pure candidate?"

How about putting the fucking blame where it belongs and asking why the fuck the democrats suck up to the liberal base and then have people like, oh, say, my blue dog rep. vote against unemployment extension? And THEN the asshole wants me to pledge to vote in 2010? How about voting for legislation that his constituents both want and that some of them need?

honestly, you are so busy blaming voters for the shit that politicians do - it's like blaming a rape victim when she's assaulted.