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i would like to hear what people think about the american dream, i had to write an essay on it and i think my essay was really bad. i said that the american dream is only a dream and not a reality. people coming to america usually don't get what they were dreaming of and end up having just a bad of lives. after thinking about my essay i think i may have changed my mind. a lot of dreams do come true in america. i would like to hear other people's opinion.
(p.s. i made the 2000th thread)

I guess it would depend on what country and the state of said country the person came from. There is no shortage of jobs in America....just a shortage of good paying jobs. If you came from a country where jobs were slim to non.... a low paying job would be a blessing. And then it would depend on said persons idea of what the American Dream is.

The "American Dream" imo is not needed to be carried out in America.
To me it is simply a metaphor(sp?) for takeing control about ones life and changing it to something one consider better than it used to be. Of course the term comes for America - but the dream exsists in most all of us (regard less of moving to american or living in america), to change our lives.

i think that the difference between america and a lot of other countries is not that america is a better place and you're happier here. but it's that you can be happy if you want, it just might take work, or luck. i'd say that america is a land of opportunities.

my parents are living proof of the american dream.
my dad was born in post war germany, living in poverty on a small farm. he developed countless diseases from malnutrition.
my mom lived in a very rural area of texas, my grandfather died fairly young, it was my mom her 2 brothers and my granmother living in a one room shack. when it rained, they had to move the bed to the middle of the room so it wouldn't get wet through the holes in the walls. once a week they would draw up water from the well for the bath day. you have no idea how much it pisses me off when i hear some worthless punk complaining about the "ghetto" oh no...poor babies have houses, running water, a bathroom indoors, paved streets.
but i digress...my parents now own a large tract of land on a lake with a beautiful house, a handful of cars, a boat, paid for a big chunk of mine and my sister's expensive education.

so, the american dream is alive and well. god bless america.

does anyone know who invented the phrase 'the American Dream'? I think knowing that would help us a great deal to find out what it really means...however I am a cynical subscriber to the Tow Wolfe attitude towards the 'American Dream'...so I won't bore you with misery and bad attitudes on such a cheery subject..
I'm off to see what Bill Bryson has to say...

~The American Dream Is For The USA To Be As Advanced In Technology As Is The Nation Of Harapibium On The Planet Mars~

Originally posted by frogus
does anyone know who invented the phrase 'the American Dream'? I think knowing that would help us a great deal to find out what it really means...

I found a couple of resources here and here. The man who coined the pharse was James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America (1931).

THE AMERICAN DREAM

The dream is about obtaining a life of comcfortable complacency without challenge. The dream is about "buying" a house that you never actually get to own because you continually re-finance the mortage because you can't manage money. This house is pre-fab, the sinks aren't the right height for the size of your family members, the walls are white and impersonal, hung with a couple of cheap reproduction paintings which you don't have a chance of ever understanding, or even appreciating. It sits twenty feet from another house just like it on the right hand side and fifteen feet on the left in an anthill of a surburban town of hopeless suv driving losers. It is about going against millenia of evolution and selecting one mate, and basing this choice on all of the wrong criteria, and moving into this house, to complicate your life with mutual accounts, living habits that don't mesh---to remove all of the privacy which would have stood a chance of generating some original thought-- The dream is about spawning with this mate in order to pass your misery along to another generation of humans who will learn your ways and carry on your "legacy" of mediocrity.
It is to wake up on moday morning next to your unattractive mate, get dressed, eat an unhealthy meal, greet your surly children, and drive off to the job you hate--- because part of the dream is to be a wage slave- the goal is to be in a job where you don't have to think much- where you can rise to the level of your mediocrity and not have to exert effort. After a fast food lunch you resume your work, which by the way has no effect on your world at all, and makes no difference, wait for the clock to strike 5:01 and fly out the door, go home, vent at your spouse, pretend you are interested in their day, make a unhealthy, freezer to microwave meal, eat, and go sit on the couch. Watch tv until you go to bed, drinking beer out of a can still wet from where your mangy dog pissed on it where it was stored in the garage. Go to sleep- if it is the 18th of the month, grope disgustingly with your mate for 15 minutes of completely unsatsifiying sex while you think of your co-workers, your boss, until you reach a climax that is half as good as masturbation. The dream is to wake up Tues-Fri and do this again and again, this grind. Then watch sports all weekend. The american dream is to atrophy comfortably.

@Witch King...I believe that's called the American Nightmare.

No, judging by the way in which people choose to live their lives, that scenario, though not ideal, is the goal. Not everyone falls into that category of course, but most do.

Take Grunt for example

@WK & Weasel: Sounds like the collective Western industrialised society nightmare.

Reading the links provided by HLD, it seems like the American dream has to do with the image that socioeconomical movement is faster/easier in the US than in other societies, ie the individual is supposed to be more free to make such movements out of his/her own efforts?

A question: what are the contents of the dream? To make money? To be able to do certain things? To feel a certain way? To have other people look at you in a certain way?
What is the goal? (according to the stereotype) Is is, like WK writes, confortable atrophy?

I think the American dream is about having the freedom to live your life. What you do with it, Witch King, is up to you. Make it as pleasant or as mundane as you wish - but at least we have the opportunity, here in the US, to make it in our own image.

Originally posted by Lazarus
I think the American dream is about having the freedom to live your life. What you do with it, Witch King, is up to you. Make it as pleasant or as mundane as you wish - but at least we have the opportunity, here in the US, to make it in our own image.

People have the opportunity to do it everywhere in the world. I get tired of all of this "American" dream nonsense-- it IS easier to acheive "sucess" because of the governmental/cultural set-up in the US as opposed to many other countries- but this entirely misses the point. If someone is driven, they will get where they want to get, regardless of whether the streets the get there are paved with gold.

@Witch King: I agree to an extent. But could a woman under the Taliban achieve her dreams if they included an education? Could a Jew in Hitler's Germany achieve their dream? I think governments have a very direct impact on the people they govern, and I think the US remains one of the most free.

I think a lot of people associate the American Dream with the ability to become anything they want, without the restrictions of class, race or other factors. It's not that people will necessarily become wealthier or happier if they live in America, but that they can.

The American Dream is about bettering one's circumstances. That is, living in America affords people the opportunity to do better in life than their parents. For some, it is greater material gain. For others, it is a better education. Some people want to worship the god of their choice.

The mythic existence our friend Witch King alludes to is the classic white-picket-fence imagery of an age that never was. However, that image speaks to us because it promises what we all want (safety, security, prosperity, etc.), and what we would have in an ideal world.

I think that the American Dream is still alive, especially for immigrants and first generation Americans. The church I grew up in sponsored several immigrants from Vietnam to come to the United States from refugee camps in southeast Asia and the Philippines. To a person, they arrived on our doorstep with nothing but the shirts on their backs, a handful of cash and a Vietnamese-English dictionary.

I have kept in touch with them over the years and they are all successful in their choices of vocation; one became a pharmacist, one an electrical engineer, one an FBI agent, and so on.

I also believe that many people who have lived here have become complacent in pursuing the American Dream. It is in part that we are already a prosperous country and that we are generally not "hungry" to do better than we are doing today. I think that some people have also resigned themselves to working in cubicles, driving minivans and balding before 40.

For people coming from overseas, especially countries in the Third World, the United States is still the land of opportunities. Everyone is entitled to compulsory education, everyone has a car and people don't sleep 8 people to a room. Little things that Americans take for granted are appreciated by people who come here with nothing (or next to it), and so they are more active in pursuing a dream that some of us have forgotten about.

Originally posted by Lazarus
@Witch King: I agree to an extent. But could a woman under the Taliban achieve her dreams if they included an education? Could a Jew in Hitler's Germany achieve their dream? I think governments have a very direct impact on the people they govern, and I think the US remains one of the most free.

As to the Taliban/woman Germany/Jew question, yes they COULD achieve their dream, and many did. A great many, for instance, Jews escaped to another country and did tremendous things: scientific discovery, art, music. The point is, a great mind will overcome obstacles to its growth, and the weak will suffer- and deservedly so. What sickens me, is that when there are fewer obstacles, such as in the US, people are able to indulge their inate laziness and apathy AND THEY DO. In hostile environments greatness often arises more frequently, as people are pushed- energized and driven - and given stong incentive to overcome their inbred inadequecies.

@HighLordDave: I agree.

Take these words with a hefty pinch of salt, but to a cynic(no names), the American Dream looks mighty like the freedom to whatever you damn well want and who cares what effect it has on other people.

For the presidents who have been elected to be elected, some people must agree with their policies - in the case of Dubyah - me want big guns. They just aren't necessary, and in the economic climate we have today, surely investment in infrastructure, both physical and economical is ever so slightly wiser.

@Witch King: Yes, you picked up exactly on the idea implicit in your previous statement that I said I agree with. A truly dedicated and driven person WILL find a way to achieve their goals. My point is simply that the term "American Dream" is apt because America still offers one of the most open and free places on earth to make that happen. Of course people can and do succeed in other places - many against great odds; but American remains (IMO) the land of opportunity above and beyond the others. (Though, I must say, this is changing. )