Last evening, my teenage daughter,who is taking a U.S. History course as a Junior in High School, talked about a question posed by her teacher:What is meant by the term America as a Promised Land?The entire class said that the term Promised Land can more properly be applied to countries in Asia, starting with China and India.One girl expressed it this way: What do we have left in this country? Our autos stink,our computers and software are all made in China or India, pretty soon many of our drug and pharmaceutical industries will also be gone.The only thing we will have left is making war as our major industry.
Coming as it does from the children of one of Central Indiana’s most affluent communities, and a rabid Republican area at that, I was taken aback by this gloomy assessment.I now have a newfound respect for our children.They seem to have the sense of foreboding my generation felt in the 60’s.
The War in Vietnam, entered into by a hubris drenched Lyndon Johnson, ushered in the era of deficit financing of wars by Presidents.The insatiable demand for war materiel laid the foundation for the rise of the Japanese Steel, auto and electronics industries.The consequences are now being felt by communities throughout the Midwest.The children sense a similar scenario unfolding for them with the War on Iraq giving an opportunity for the other Asian giants, China and India, to catch and indeed surpass us as we have become not merely dependent on the flow of goods and services from these countries but also need financing to maintain our lifestyle.
The massive transfer of wealth that is taking place under our noses to these Asian countries, the hemorrhaging of jobs is only one facet of this decline.The inevitable rise in petroleum prices and the growth in our own consumption is also contributing to this transfer of wealth.
To think that an ignorant man, devoid of any sense of history and drunk with hubris, can preside over the liquidation of the American Dream, is what gets to me.May be he needs to come to our high school and learn something from our children.They seem to know what is in store for them.
That is the only thing that gives me hope this morning.
Of course the American dream is dying; it was based on Manifest Destiny, which was in turn based on the Doctrine of Discovery. We’ve run out of continent to manifest our destiny over, and it would appear, we’re running out of new territories to manifest it over as well.
Did we think this was going to last forever? Of course empires all devolve into warmaking machines, unless they can come up with new planets to conquer, occupy and enlighten. None are forthcoming. Don’t get me wrong; I think American society and ideals are great and have to be preserved. But when the economic basis for the empire fails, you’d better hope the ideals are ingrained in the national character somehow.
I personally don’t think America is going to survive as a unified nation into the 22nd century; I think the map will have a few more colors and borders on it in 2105. I think we will have several post-Americas which will carry forth with their own distinct offshoots of the mother country. Don’t ask me where they will be or how they will come to be. Or if it will be even Soviet-style with republics going their own way. There are many ways you can have de facto governments within governments. It could be very complex and interesting.
I also believe that water rights will eventually become more of a pressing national and international issue than oil, if our population continues to expand into areas of the country without easy and sustainable access to water. It seems too simple a factor, but it really is staring us in the face and by 2105 I think it either will be, or will have long been, a source of great contention. You can’t (and shouldn’t!) import water cheaply from China (and in any case, China’s water will soon glow in the dark anyway).
The “American Dream” is not an evanescent idea visited upon us from the gods, it has to be fueled by something, and it was always fueled by something very specific – domination of a continent, extraction of its natural resources, and/or this process being repeated globally.
In my opinion, this country is getting too big to govern in an effective way. These quadrennial stag-rutting battles are great for show, these 8-year triumphalist dominations by this or that party are like rearranging the proverbial deck chairs. It doesn’t address the problem of dwindling resources, lifestyles we can’t sustain, and the fact that increasingly people just don’t feel they have anything to do with each other. If you want the country to stay together, you have to argue a persuasive case for it; Lincoln was good at doing that, but a new case has to be argued for the 21st century.
Thank you for a well reasoned and well thought out response.That our lifestyle is not sustainable in the long term was obvious to intelligent people even in the 70’s and 80’s.The current war in Iraq must be seen in the context of a dwindling resource, oil, that is essential to maintenance of that lifestyle.This is why it never made sense to me why we are strutting around the world stage shouting we are number one when all indicators point to our increasing dependence on foreign capital and resources.
When this most recent step in our march of folly expires and the bills come due, the schisms that are beginning to show will get widened, scapegoating and fingerpointing will be the orders of the day and those, like Cindy, who want reason and good sense to prevail,will be scapegoated.
That will last until the next episode in our periodic bouts of madness, if indeed there is another episode.
I agree with most of your excellent analysis. However, for the US of the future I forsee a much weakened country rather than one that is split. We have too many “sheep” here unwilling to endure the rigors of a such a scenario. Give them Walmart prices, Viagra and 150 channels and that will keep the proletariat in line.
I don’t think it will stay weakened forever. You would have to assume that the national bonds are strong enough for people to forever choose a “United States of America” over their own welfare. People won’t stay sheep forever. In future decades, points of contention will crystallize – things we haven’t even considered today very deeply – and be identified as political objectives. And when splitting becomes in their economic interest, they will choose that. We’re not anywhere near that point yet, of course.
People assume it’s a red-blue split but it’s really not. People fantasize about the Northeast and the West Coast joining forces but that is about as realistic as expecting a unified Pakistan and Bangladesh. People are not held together only by broad ideological interests, they are held together by trade and security relationships.
And really… is it so horrible that we might not be one country someday? Does it negate American values? Might it not preserve American values? (and preserve American diversity?)
I don’t disagree with any part of your premise. I think the American Dream, as most of us understand it, died sometime in the ’60’s. But I do have a quibble with this:
“The War in Vietnam, entered into by a hubris drenched Lyndon Johnson, ushered in the era of deficit financing of wars by Presidents.”
Johnson certainly bears his share of responsibility for what happened in Vietnam, but he didn’t start the war. He inherited a war already in full flame. JFK put American troops in Vietnam, first as advisers and soon after as combatants, early in his term. And it has been argued that the movement to war in SE Asia had already been set in motion even before JFK took office.
To me the real Vietnam War started when Lyndon Johnson manufactured the Gulf of Tonkin “incident” to justify the bombing of North Vietnam.Until then, it was possible for us to get out of Vietnam without loss of face as it could be termed a local skirmish raher than a war.The bombing of North Vietnam drew in the Soviet Union and China and from that moment on,there was no possibility of a retreat without loss of prestige. In fact, that was an argument frequently invoked by the hawks like Rusk and later Kissinger for the continuation of the war.
Regardless of what the origins of the war were, Johnson bears a major share of responsibility for expanding the war,just as Bush, now seems trapped by his lying and hubris in Iraq, invoking specious arguments to wage war on a society incapable of posing any threat at all to us.
did you really know that Ike put in the Republic of Vietnam back in the latter 50’s?
If we had leadership whose focus was quality of life for the population instead of quality of profits for the corporations I doubt that we’d be careening down the self destructive path we find ourselves on. If we were focused on developing cost effective alternative sources of energy instead of endless wars to secure large chunks of foreign oil we wouldn’t be destroying our planet at such a pace, or opening our treasury to profiteers and corporate leeches. Our government and our democracy is for sale to the highest bidder.
There is a disturbing undercurrent to all of this that is not often addressed: America is no longer great because Americans are no longer great. A considerable chunk of the population thinks it is OK to maim, torture, kill, rape, abuse children, flatten whole cities. The first time I had that realization, I was devastated. That was the thing that finally burst my “America is great” bubble. With the rise of neoconservatism in this country comes the fall of our moral fiber.
Yet, it seems as if these amoral, Bible-thumping cretens are not in the majority. They are in charge, and will be extremely difficult to extricate from the reigns of power. The big question is whether the great silent majority rises up and restores our morals by kicking the neocons and their apologists out on their asses. It would give me great pleasure to see the slimy bastards crawling back under the rocks they came from. Will we manage to take back our country and begin to heal before we are past the point of no return? I’d like to think so, but boy, it’s going to be close. Your daughter’s 11th grade class gives me hope like I haven’t had since the “Make love, not war” 60’s. Let’s hope and pray that America’s greatness can still be found in the population… we are undergoing an extreme test. If we fail, all is lost, but if we suceed, maybe we can take our country back.
Excellent post, Professor Klatoo… really made me think.
I agree with you about the great silent majority. Anyone I speak with has expressed the same concerns about what is happening in society – it doesn’t matter their political affiliation. People will reclaim true American values, it may take a while.
“America is no longer great because Americans are not great.” The ease with which Bush’s lies have been accepted by the majority of our population tells us that your statement is true.It galls me that a self professed ignoramus like Bush could be a better judge of the American character than erudite and learned people.He has correctly assessed that Winning is the only thing that matters to Americans and they celebrate any one that does whatever it takes to win.Including fixing elections, bribing supreme court judges,etc.
America is no longer great because a majority of baby boomers tired of the political struggles of the late 60s early 70s and the financial struggles of the mid to late 70s sold their souls and became yuppies in the 80s under the benevolent eye of grandpa Ronnie.
Its been downhill on the greatness scale ever since.
The people in charge of this country look alot more like your suburban neighbors than they do bible thumping backwoodsmen.
They look a lot like us.
A HUGE thank you to the diarist and commentors for putting everything I feel into words that make such perfect sense. Your daughter and her class shine a bright light into my darkness, too. Please tell her thank you for me, that she is our hope now, and thanks to you, too for raising a child with a mind of her own and eyes wide open.
To me, the reason the American Dream cannot last because it was a dream: a grand dream that needed to be built on gently amd wisely, with greaat care and a firm commitment to generations to come. Those we’ve chose to lead us were. sadly, not evolved enough to do it that way.
Generations to come will hopefully have a chance to try to do it better.
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.
In the city’s melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden while the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin’ rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an’ forsaked
Tolling for the outcast, burnin’ constantly at stake
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
.
[Bob Dylan, Chimes of Freedom, ’64].
My grandparents left a country to escape tyranny, my father fought a war against it, and I put on a uniform and became part of it. My generation at that time looked at the world in black and white, good and evil: we were wrong. The dream will never die because it is universal; based on ideas that cannot be destroyed.
I think this quote from Ghostdancer’s diary applies:
Wonderful diary!!!!! wonderful comments!!!!!!!!!
In reference to water, we have already started to ship water to other places around here, where I live..
My son’s x father-in-law did just that very thing! via his trucking co. Can you imagine this!!!!! Not til I saw it with my own eyes did I nor could I have believed this in a million years. I have been hearing and reading a lot about the water probles we already have.
Since we did not have a hard winter [in the north] and less rain this year [everywhere], I live where the Mississippi river is nearing Memphis and as I cross/live very near to the bridge into Missouri from Tennessee, the sand bars are really presenting a very big problems for us this year.
It is getting very serious for sure!
NYT two days ago, had an article on how even the gambling boats in Southern Illinois at the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi have run aground in the mud from the drought.I hope it rains soon because the farmers here in Indiana are talking about a serious problem with corn.
Of course, the future of American fresh water is going to be about who’s going to control it, not necessarily who’s going to keep it clean and conserve it.
For those of you who have not had enough of the gushing about Monsieur Guillet and his EuroTribune today, I’d like to let you all know this whole “American dream” thing has been the topic of some discussion over at ET.
In particular, Captain Future wrote this great diary.
…which led me to check out this article over at the BBC.
Interested parties might want to have a looky…
Thank you for the links.I enjoyed reading those two articles you referenced.It is my belief that our tendency to violence is the one trait that sets us apart from the Europeans or Asians.That violence comes with an associated price tag.This is why our schools lack money, our infrastructure is deteriorating, our health care is in bad shape and so on.
Until we mend our ways ( and that starts in the head),we are headed toward the status of the old Soviet Union, feared but also ridiculed behind our back.
Agreed.
And thanks to both of you for saying nice things about my diary, which got frontpaged over at the Euro Trib.
I’d add that in addition to how Europe approaches war and peace problems and common problem-solving in the EU, which allows them to be more realistic about real problems like the climate crisis, the European model proves that workers’ rights, universal health care, and more of a balance between work, family and private time, all can be part of a properous economy, and may very well be a key to it, contradicting the conventional wisdom here.
But the irony of the European Dream is that it is based on elements of what once was the American Dream: equal opportunity, social justice, the public good, one person one vote, and the federal idea. Many of these ideas has some roots in other parts of the world, including the Middle East. But they got defined in America when Europeans came into contact with Native Americans and their societies and ideas.
Finally, the American Dream is an abstraction that interest groups try to redefine. Lately the American Dream has been defined as owning your home. So the real estate bubble is the American Dream? Definition is part of the problem.
I’ll take yet another different view of it.
Through the 60’s we used government to limit the accumulation of individual wealth and business market share at the top end. We permitted winners yet we prevented capture of entire markets and the economy.
This kept the largest economic forces from growing so large that they could overpower our system. It also kept them from outbidding the common people for access to opportunity. And the harvesting of excess profits funded much of our safety net and infrastructure.
Once we decide to liberate the top end of our economy, there isn’t any way in this era for either government or the economy to be “of” the people. NYCO said the American Dream “was based on Manifest Destiny,” and it was because freedom for the top end of the economy can only work for the people when there are large surplusses of wealth and opportunity available to them–as they were during frontier days (because we were slaughtering and clearing away the pre-existing owners of that opportunity).
Information Technology is now rocketing the economy’s owners into their own class of nobility. It allows labor to be relocated outside of jurisdictions so that society cannot keep the most basic bargains from being dishonest and exploitative. It allows big business to attain levels of efficiency that individuals, families and small businesses can never reach. And it is beginning to replace human labor in entire classes of work, including both labor and white-collar tasks, that have made up so many of the rungs the people needed to climb the economic ladder.
It seems to me that the world itself has outgrown the American system. I can see easy ways to construct some kind of government and an economy of the people, and I can see easy ways to continue operating the historic American system, but I don’t see any obvious way to have the two at the same time.
When and if we “take back” the government we presently have, I don’t see a return of the American Dream any time soon, and that fact doesn’t seem to me to matter whether there are rising foreign powers, resource shortages, or trade and government debt.
Funny, I was just thinking about this as I listened to Neko Case this morning, when I listened to this song:
We are in a neo-gothic cyberpunk perpetual NOW, surrounded by ghosts from old crimes.
It seems important to me, for some reason, to remain aware that the “American Dream” never really WAS exclusively “American” — or we wouldn’t have immigrants from every part of the globe lined up outside the gates.
The dream — a place in the sun, if you will, the chance to live free, to think, speak, worship, believe (or not) as you please without fear of some badged functionary hauling you off to a cell or your death, to have some degree of material comfort and a level of safety and security for yourself and your family — this is a universal dream, I think. EVERYWHERE we see people wanting this even if it’s currently beyond their horizon… so it’s not an American Dream per se.
And that dream WILL continue, and people the world over will continue to work and struggle and strive and, yes, sometimes fight and die for it…. whether that involves coming TO the United States or leaving the United States or studying and learning from the history of the United States, or even if it has nothing to do with the United States at all. Empires come, empires go, living leads to dying (and maybe back around again, who can say for certain?) It’s the way of things.
And eventually, maybe, just perhaps, if we don’t kill ourselves off, somewhere sometime we’ll evolve far enough to make it possible for everyone. Someday.
There’s a quote from Charles deLint, a Canadian author, that I keep on my desktop from time to time….
Please note I’m not saying “it’s all cool, no reason to worry” — but we are engaged in a struggle that began long LONG before any of us were ever born, before even there WAS a United States, and it will go on long after we are dust beyond dust… And the United States, for much of its history, wrote some parts of the rough draft of what I think will be the blueprint for the end of that struggle… which struggle we will, eventually, win.
I agree that what we used to call the American Dream is now the European Dream, the Chinese Dream, the Indian Dream, the Brazilian Dream and so on.In that sense the idea of the American Dream will survive and outlast the United States which has succumbed to the Temptations of Empire and adopted violence as a way to enforce its will over the rest of the world. Its economic system, that placed the needs of the people above that of Empire has been overcome by the ravenous appetites of global corporations.This is why the needs of the people take second place in Bush’s America what with Social Security being put on death watch, medical care turned into an expensive luxury, schooling at anything above high school becoming out of reach for most Americans and so on.The ideological fixation of the rightwing denies these needs for ordinary people.People in Europe or Asia who are not so fixated are able to access the kind of care we can only dream about.
In the end, no matter how dogmatic we are,our system must be judged on the basis of how the system meets with its obligation to deliver services people need.
I don’t think the “American Dream” itself is dying. I just think that there aren’t enough of us now who are dreaming that dream and who are willing to do all we can to bring it about.
Too many of us are willing to get along for ourselves even if it’s at the expense of our neighbor. And just this alone is like a stake through the heart of the real American Dream, a dream where the benefit of all is paramount, where growth isn’t measured by a zero-sum calculus that enriches the few at the expense of the many.
What fun to read all these great but sad comments. Do you think this fall of the American dream is due to the system, or the people. Many companies are moving because they can not find people that want to work. People coming to this country work so hard and do not look for the instant gratification that we seem to need.Many Americans have a feeling of entitlement and we have over the years lost our patience. We want it all and we want it now. We do not save , instead we buy on credit. We are not happy with an old toyota we need a yukon even if we can just make the payments. Houses are being lived in , not bought with interest only loans. Enough I am depressing myself here.
We need health care for all and A living wage for everyone. The big corporate givaways have to stop.I hope that we can get back to careing about quality of life and not quantity of goods.
In Europe, Asia and Latin America doing without a lot of goods is ingrained in people.The very idea of going without is unacceptable to Americans. This is why we are unable to build a quality car except at exorbitant prices.
Ignoring the fact that the American dream has largely been a myth since the beginning, lets assume that it is still possible to get an education and become a productive middle class member of US society.
Its also possible that there exists now an Indian dream, a Chinese dream, a Korean dream, and yes even a Russian dream. does that negate the American FDream? Not really
Kids are always disdainfully negative about the future. It makes them seem cool to their friends. In a way, their expression of negativity is consistent with our own as teenagers and thus somewhat reassuring.
Soon they will be grown and battling real world concerns not global monetary theories.
And yes, some maybe many of them will go on and achieve a semblance of the American dream.
Its not dead. Its changed and changing. Today it requires education and capitalist daring.
No blue collars need apply.
Your definition of the American Dream seems to be: get an education and become a productive middle class member of US society. Yes?
The definition of “middle class” are often very fuzzy. Is a certain income level the definition? If so, there are those who do “blue collar” work who would be considered part of the middle class.
Is it education level that puts someone into the middle class? Or do we assess class by acquisitions too? Is the PhD who can carry all her worldly belongings in her backpack a member of the middle class?
Your inclusion of “productive” also raises questions. What do you mean by productive?
Many consider “productive” to mean having a job and earning a paycheck. The work one does to earn the paycheck almost doesn’t matter. But that has lead us to doing jobs that on the whole can be pretty meaningless and soul-killing. However, we can buy stuff.
The Indian, Chinese, Korean, and Russian Dream replicating this process: get an education and then a job and then buy stuff does create a problem for Americans. Why? Because they are doing the jobs we once had.
But an even bigger problem is the planet cannot support many living this way, i.e., middle class, productive lives with many acquisitions.
When we examine advertising, we often find we don’t want or really need the product or service being touted, we want the group of friends shown or the quiet moment or a sense of excitement. The product or service don’t really provide any of those things. We do. And we can do it without the merchandise.
So, too, with dreams. Dreams have an essence – the outward manifestations can be changed. KlatooBaradaNikto’s daughter might explore her dreams to find that essence and then put her energies into achieving it.
My definition of the American dream is that it is a mirage.
It means making it. Higher than where you started. To me, its about economics, class hopping. It could be anything. For me it means the attainment of freedom, which I have yet to attain myself.
Nothing much to do with education except the foreign born competition for your dollars is probably smarter than you and willing to do the same job as you only do it better work harder for less money and not complain a peep to the boss.
Therefore stay in school. get smart. Be your own boss if possible.
I am not in disagreement with anything you say and you said it well.
Thank you.
I neglected to put in my final sentence: But you are a poet, you know this.
thank you