Today’s employment/unemployment
numbers have set off a round of critical commentary and more cries that the
American Dream is dead. The numbers were
bad, see here. Macro level analysis about the ongoing class
warfare in America, the wealthy versus the not wealthy, is painted as The
Betrayal of the American Dream, a discussion about a new book by that name.
These
reports got me to thinking about the phrase “American Dream” or, more precisely,
the complex metaphor that it is.
First, here
is what Wikipedia has to say (here):
“The American Dream is a
national ethos of the United States; a set of ideals in which freedom includes
the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility
achieved through hard work.”
The idea is
more than a focus on materialism, however.
It also means a person can pursue their inner betterment without artificial
constraints, such as religious, artistic and moral freedom.
I generally
believe that knowing the origin and popular duration of phrases helps to
understand their meaning. In this case,
James Truslow Adams coined the phrase in 1931:
“…the American dream, that dream of a land in which life should be
better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according
to his 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”
(here).
Obviously,
it is a Modernist phrase, conceived in modernist terms, such as “achievement”
and “social order.” However, it does
contain many older American ideas, so the phrase may be older. If it is older, then it was never widely used
as chart 1 shows.
While Adams
used the phrase in 1931, it was 30 years later that it became popular and part
of the American collective vocabulary, as shown in chart 2.
My point
here is that while many of the ideas bundled together in the phrase are old in
American culture, the metaphor “American Dream” is a product of the mid 20th
century. It is a metaphor that came into
being as the American High was transforming into the Fourth Awakening, the
climax of Modernism. It represents the
greatness of America at the height of its own achievements.
The
popularity of the metaphor has been in decline since 1975. For young Americans, under age 45, it is an
idea from their parent’s, grandparent’s, and great grandparent’s generations. For them the American Dream is like eating stale bread.
Thus, it is
a legacy metaphor. And, in our new
Romanticism, it may not be a useful metaphor or one that has deep meaning, one that
provides sustenance to our culture going forward.
The above
charts clearly demonstrate that “American Dream” began in popularity about
1960. It was in that year that Life Magazine began a series of essays
on “Our National Purpose” (here).
It’s very hard to imagine today our
nation having such a conversation in print or multimedia. But we need one.
To me, the
American Dream is not just about personal success, freedom, or the chance to
better myself. It is about our nation’s
role in the world, our purpose as a collective entity about which we can all
share a sense of pride and loyalty. We
need a new metaphor that combines the best of the American Dream, Manifest
Destiny, and American Exceptionalism.
I don’t know what the new phrase, metaphor,
would be. I do know that worrying about “losing
the American Dream” is a wasted effort, a fake controversy, because our spirit is still intact. The oligarchy does not own that.
