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Well I think that it's important first of all to disentangle the "original" American dream from what it has become today.
The American dream, if that's what you want to call it, you'd probably have to say started with the Declaration of Independance/the first drafting of the American constitution. The people involved in drafting the constitution had seen the political turmoil unfolding in Europe brought about by the ruling few exploiting the masses for too long: where the kings felt they had a god-given right to rule their people, and the people had absolutely no say in how their country was run. Thomas Jefferson in particular - who was serving as the ambassador to France at this time (just a few years before the French Revolution) - had seen the sort of misery that people had to go through under such totalitarian regimes, and virtually everyone involved in the drafting of the constitution was well schooled in politics and history. Each of these individuals recognised, essentially, through their schooling in these two fields, that there were three things that the people needed to be afforded in order to have any chance to be content with their lot:
- Justice
- Liberty
- Democracy
Take any one of these concepts away from the people and they would grow to be discontented with the rulers, and the consequences - as seen shortly afterwards in France (with the revolution) and England (with Cromwell and the more peaceful uprising there) among other places - were quite ugly. The people who founded the United States were incredibly well educated men: enlightened, rational and pragmatic, yet they had a very lofty dream (especially for that unstable time in history). The dream was to take the three concepts I mentioned above, mash them into a constitution, and form a society of people that were equal, free to act and speak in almost any manner they wished and each have a say in how their country was run.
So contrast these altruistic goals of the founding fathers then, with how America operates in the present day. Are the goals and values still the same?
In a way, yes, but not in a particularly good way. Americans seem to have a vague notion of what these conecpts mean - and you'll hear the American president mention liberty, justice and/or democracy in every speach he makes - but I think the ideals of the founding fathers have been disolved in a tidal wave of pro-American dogma and misguided partiotism. The ideas have been dumbed-down - oversimplified - as they have been propogated through the generations, so the altruistic goals of the founding fathers have, in my opinion, been lost. The American ideals have been made fundamentalist in both senses of the word: i.e. the ideas have been simplified down to their basic premises - or to their fundamental meaning - and they are also adhered to with an almost fanatical passion. I don't think the majority of Americans quite understand what these three concepts actually mean, although that doesn't stop them from harping on about their importance, and just how vital it is that they are followed.
The justice that the founding fathers spoke of was a grandeour concept, ensuring equality for all, and granting everyone the opportunity to live in a peaceful nation. These days justice seems to have become the right you have to take people to court if you feel you've been screwed by them, and also means you have the right to bomb the shit out of anyone country you may disagree with.
Liberty was originally the concept that ensured we were all free to become what we wished, free to speak our minds, and free to live as we chose. These days it means that Amercians have the right to make as much money as they like without being in the least bit socially responsible (at the expense of poorer folk in both their own country and other countries) and a god-given right to own a handgun.
Democarcy used to be the notion that people had a say in how the country is run, these days it has become a system of politics that must be follwed by all other countries or else.
You see where I'm coming from? The American dream was once a strong, enlightened piece of logic, these days its become a meaningless piece of patriotic nonsense. George Bush couldn't even spell justice without the aid of his speach writers, yet he talks about it all the time in that black/white, "we're right therefore you must be wrong so submit to us or we'll inflict some serious 'justice' on you" kinda way. Does he have any notion of what justice actually is? That his country isn't always right, and that the pig-ignorance of its rulers are creating an increasingly poor reputation for the country world-wide?
America propogates the most self-righteous, most avid form of fundamentalism there is, without understanding why they might have any reason to. The ideals of the American forefathers are reason enough to go to war, but not when no-one in America seems to properly understand their original meaning and intentions. Americans are quick to call the Muslim factions in the Middle-East fundamentalist fanatics, but Americans are just as trigger-happy when it comes to propogating their beliefs.
I think that the original American ideals are still there, but they've become so disfigured amongst all the patriotic propoganda over time, through oversimplification and blind allegiance, that they no longer mean the same things they used to.
Anyway, I'm bored with that train of thought so I'll do a bit of this:
| quote: | | then comes deciding whether you want to chase your ideal of equality n freedom or the materialistic advancement in society...is it better to have spiritual freedom or to be wealthy..it sounds like an obvious answer but in truth, in reality its a hard decision...n in such an industrial era its hard to be true. |
Ideally, you should be free to make as much money as you want, but still have the conscience to give money back to your own community, to those who are more needy. Americans adhere to a particular form of capitalism: freedom without responsibility (as opposed to communism which preaches responsibility without freedom). Satre went on at great lengths about the correlation between freedom and responsibility, and while I can't be bothered to reconstruct his argument here, suffice to say that that correlation should ideally exist.
In a perfect world, the more free you are (which, in a Satrean sense, essentially means the more choices you are able to make at any given point in time) the more responsible you are to yourself (you have a responsibility to choose - every choice is a commitment) and to others. The president of the United States may have the freedom (or the power to use another word) to do almost anything, but because the choice is in his hands he is gravely responsible to choose correctly (for the sake of 6 billion people world-wide as that is how far his responsibility in choice tends to extend). He may be the most free, but he is also the most repsonsible. (Of course you could argue that he does not have that much power and thus not that much freedom, and if that is the case then, commensurably, he is not as responsible for the running of America as we make him out to be).
So essentially, an ideal political system would preach a healthy balance between responsibility and freedom, as opposed to methodology of the two most well-understood political theories of today: capitalism (which preaches freedom without responsibility) and communism (which preaches responsibility without freedom).
| quote: | | Spritual success seems to be more attainable for the masses, but even sopme philosophers (Aristotle comes to mind) believe, that the best sort of life requires material goods. |
Well that's because happiness does require some form of physical comfort: in fact its the most remedial form of happiness there is. But there is a difference say, between saying that you require food, health and shelter to be happy (which is true) as opposed to saying you need a big house and a BMW in the driveway to acheive this sort of happiness (which is bollocks).
| quote: | | if i was american, what would i want.. equality and freedom (how often have i heard bush use those words in the last few months :rolleyes ir the pursuit of materialistic advancement. the former being a fleeting dream, and the latter being the American Dream. *sigh* |
No, the former being the original American dream, the latter being what the American dream has become after generations of misuse and gross misunderstanding of what that dream originally was. 
Last edited by Renegade on Feb-08-2002 at 05:07
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Hmmmm....
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