The American Dream

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”¹⁹⁰

One firm belief behind the concept of the American Dream is the view of America as a land of New Hope, of dreams and a promising future. Historically speaking, Puritans came to this continent to establish “New Jerusalem”, the “City Upon a Hill”

as a religious “Utopian Community”. In the early colonial era, most of the immigrants from England were suffering from severe religious or political persecution at home.

As Adams stated of the rigorous climate there,

“For various reasons, economic conditions in England were very bad, both gentlemen and poorer people of many sorts finding themselves hard pressed either to keep up their accustomed scale of living or to make any living at all.

The opportunities of the New World were painted in glowing colors, and those who were sinking in the social and economic scales in England began to look toward it as a land of refuge and of hope.”¹⁹¹

Due to the harsh religious persecution under the Stuarts’ rule in England in the seventeenth century, exiled people fled to America through Ireland. They all hoped to enjoy a better and freer life in the new land, “a life in which a man might think as he would and develop as he willed”,¹⁹² which set up a historical framework for the birth of American Dream.

With its intrinsic connection to European culture, American culture was for a long time simply regarded as its extension in many respects, until the end of British-American War of Independence. Post-Independence British-Americans naturally required more spiritual liberation so that they would no longer be restrained by the old systems. The words of “hope and freedom” are at the core of the American Dream.

This American Dream did not originate from the ruling classes, but from ordinary men, and it swept people’s minds and brought hope to the New World.

190 Jefferson, Thomas 2009 :19 191 Adams,James Truslow 1941:30 192 Adams,James Truslow 1941:31

“If a distinction had developed between rich and poor, nevertheless even the poor were better off, freer and more independent than they had been in Europe.

Above all, they had glimpsed the American dream. English, Irish, Scotch, Germans, all who had come to our shores, had come to find security and self-expression. They had come with a new dynamic hope of rising and growing, of hewing out for themselves a life in which they would not only succeed as men but be recognized as men, a life not only of economic prosperity but of social and self-esteem.”¹⁹³

This exploration of the cornerstone value of the American Dream leads us to the question of how exactly this dream plays a role in American’s everyday life. The analysis above shows us that the American Dream is a process, first to set objectives and expectations, and then to make every effort to fulfil these goals. First of all, the American Dream is about achieving wealth and social status. In the beginning, Americans were motivated to pursue happiness and hope in the new land, but over a period of time, it could be argued that “This pursuit has been transformed into the welfare of the individual. That welfare, in turn, has been defined mostly in terms of income and wealth.”¹⁹⁴

In American society, there is, broadly-speaking, an admiration for people who make money and strive towards higher social status. Getting rich is of utmost importance in American culture. Jim Cullen quotes a slogan for MasterCard as evidence to demonstrate the importance of money in the American value system. The slogan goes, “There are some things that money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s MasterCard”. He argues that “the meaning of liberty, by contrast, sometimes seems all too clear: a celebration of the right to buy – if you’ve got the cash or credit. And the pursuit of happiness – is it simply the acquisition of creature comforts? Even advertisers would say surely not. Yet we Americans often act as if we believe there really isn’t anything money can’t buy.”¹⁹⁵

Secondly, the American Dream is about pursuing success. Getting rich is certainly an important feature of the American Dream, yet it is not the whole story. Wealth

193 Adams,James Truslow 1941:68-69 194Samples, John 2010: 43

195 Cullen, Jim 2003: 39

should be accumulated from scratch through individual hard work, rather than through inheritance or any other, easier way. Patrick Primeaux has argued in his book that the accumulation of wealth will only be deemed praise-worthy in American society if one has acquired the wealth based on personal endeavour:

“What we absorbed from the many people and institutions influencing us are the basic values of the American Dream: wealth and distinction. We also learned that we have to do it for ourselves. We have to concentrate on ourselves, distinguish ourselves from others, and make it or break it on our own. We are to be autonomous individuals providing for ourselves, becoming self-supporting and self-sustaining. We are to break away from the pack, differentiate ourselves from others, and do so through achievement, wealth, and status. We are to be strong, powerful, and independent in our own right and through our own devices.”¹⁹⁶

It is widely acknowledged that personal success and wealth are hotly pursued in American society. Affected by the media and artistic productions, American people have learned that there will be opportunities to be rich if they work hard. As Cullen summarizes, “For hundreds of years, American readers and writers have had tireless appetites for tales of poor boys (and, later, girls) who, with nothing but pluck and ingenuity, created financial empires that towered over the national imagination (and in some cases towered over the national landscape as well).”¹⁹⁷ The Hollywood blockbuster film, The Pursuit of Happyness, starring Will Smith, released three years ago, provides a classic example of this trend – it tells the story of a poor man who eventually becomes a financial tycoon because of his arduous persistence at his work.

Apart from the pursuit of wealth, upward social mobility is another essential element of the American Dream, rooted in the stories of earlier role models such as Franklin and Lincoln. One of the Declaration drafters, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), had a great belief in upward mobility. He himself signed a nine-year contract for an apprenticeship with his older brother James to learn the printing industry, because his father could not afford to pay for his education. He ultimately broke off his

196 Primeaux, Patrick, 2000: 12 197 Cullen, Jim 2003: 60

apprenticeship and moved to New York and then Philadelphia to work as a journalist.

Owing to his own rise in the world, he became adamant that “acting on a belief in the efficacy of hard work yields affluence, then surely this is a sign of God’s favor.”¹⁹⁸ He was believer in the principle of ‘doing well by doing good’. He earned huge profits from his printing business, and later retired from business and began his scientific research on the use of electricity. His philanthropic work benefitted everything from public libraries to hospitals. His diplomatic work in France during the revolution gave him a reputation long before the drafting of the Declaration. In summary, to some extent, he was the first real American celebrity to start from nothing.

Franklin gives us an excellent example of the most-admired component of the American Dream: to obtain wealth by one’s own efforts, and then give back to the community. The new aristocracy of American society “attain their eminence through merit, which is definitely not including inherited privilege, rather than education, experience and (especially) virtue”.¹⁹⁹ Another great figure in American history whose story serves as an example for this argument was Abraham Lincoln, who was well-known for his role in the abolishment of slavery in America. He realized his American Dream of upward mobility, ending up as the President of the United States.

The stories and experiences of these models have attracted millions of followers of the American Dream in the following two hundred years. The desire to get rich and to move further upward has been deeply engraved into American minds. “The American dream is a constant reminder that America’s true nature and distinctive grandeur is in promising the common man, the man on the make, a better chance to succeed here than common men enjoy anywhere else on earth.”²⁰⁰

In America, success is everything, and the basic logic derived from the American dream is that “hard work will lead to success and success to happiness”.²⁰¹ However, the determination to fight for this success should come from one’s own will rather than from somebody else, not even one’s parents. As Jillson argues, individual

198 Jillson, Calvin C. 2004: 265 199 Cullen, Jim 2003: 66 200 Jillson, Calvin C. 2004: 269 201 Jillson, Calvin C. 2004: 44

independence is very much emphasized within the concept of American success:

“The American Dream, however, is not interested in happiness. It is interested only in success, and to that end promotes autonomous independence, and excludes anything and everything else. The American Dream focuses on the individual, and directs that individual to conceptualize and pursue a path towards success, regardless of other people, nature, and God.”²⁰²

Americans pursue success and wealth, but if we go back to the original version of the American Dream, the achievement of happiness was also important. They cared about the sense of community and devoted themselves to community service to demonstrate that they did not “simply focus on them[selves], on disconnecting from others through wealth and distinction, but also connecting with others through surrender and compassion”.²⁰³ However, the question is what the motives behind such surrender and compassion are, and the answer should be the pursuit of happiness.

The devotion to the community or any kind of charity activity can make people themselves happy by assisting others. In Primeaux’s words, “As success is pursued with respect to independence and self-interest, happiness is pursued with respect to dependence and other-interest”.²⁰⁴ It must be remembered that for business tycoons and corporate entities, this type of ‘giving’ or ‘helping’ others is not only an issue of gaining happiness or comfort, but more like a kind of business investment. After all, the extraordinary amounts raised for charity and society as a whole also gave dividends in terms of wealth and distinction in the end. As Primeaux argues,

“We give to others because it does something for us, because there is a return on the investment. Individuals and multi-national corporations contribute to social, educational, and artistic programs because giving boosts their images, and because it brings their names and their products into prominence. They are about wealth and distinction, and want to let others know they have achieved them to the extent that they have enough to give some away.”²⁰⁵

202 Jillson, Calvin C. 2004: 45-46 203 Primeaux Patrick, 2000: 23 204 Primeaux Patrick, 2000: 23 205 Primeaux, Patrick 2000: 21