Wednesday, April 28, 2010

What is the American Dream?

I've seen a number of statements defining the American Dream, some sincere, some cynical.  So, I was interested when I came across a summary of what appears to be the original statement of it, by historian James Truslow Adams.


According to him, it is the "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 not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each women shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and to be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position"


Basically, he envisioned it as a pure meritocracy, not just obtaining material abundance.  Hm-m-m-m-m.

4 comments:

EagleDriver said...

To value merit a society must be based on a moral code, a unifying set of principles. The American Dream of yesterday has greatly diminished (if not evaporated) due to the overbearing desire for culture's stuff rather than the now antiquated character of honor. Now it is simply what can I get regardless of who I crush to get it. Merit (American Dream) is lost in the obsession of consumerism.

Food for thought,
If you are hungry.

Mark said...

EagleDriver wrote:

"Now it is simply what can I get regardless of who I crush to get it. Merit (American Dream) is lost in the obsession of consumerism."

I agree and yet I completely disagree.

The consumerism described above is not the cause but merely the symptom of the basic problem which is the sin of greed.

The greed has been with us all along. The consumerism only started as we began to have a little extra spending money.

God tried to explain this to Moses on stone tablets about 4,000 years ago. Then God came to Earth himself in the form of a man to try and explain it yet again but, alas, it seems that we still haven't gotten the message.

For thousands of years Christians have struggled to take their minds off of the truth of their own sin of greed and coveting by desperately trying to focus attention on something (or someone) else.

Today that convenient distraction is the homosexual community. Today, instead of working on their own sins, Christians blame homosexuals for all of the worlds problems and God's resulting unhappiness.

This game that today’s Christians are playing out in front of our very eyes is both deeply sad and deeply humorous at the same time.

If you want to be a true Christian then work on your own sin and give up the idea that it's your God given task to "fix" the homosexuals (or anyone else's sin for that matter).

Christians, you need to repent and repent now for you are not fooling God and you certainly aren't going to heaven in your current state.

EagleDriver said...

Mark,

Good words. I thought of Timothy Keller's book "Counterfeit Gods". It would seem that many have turned to a horizontal worship (culture, success, greed, etc.) and forgotten the vertical worship. In the Gospel of John chapter 8 we read of knowing the truth and being set free. There is quite a difference between truth and facts; as well as the difference between freedom and choice.

Food for thought.

Mark said...

James Truslow Adams summarized:

"...it is the "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...a dream of social order in which each man and each women shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and to be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position"

I have heard pastors relate this idea to the garden of Eden. Those pastors pointed out that, even in a "perfect" world such as Eden before the fall, Adam had a job tending the garden.

Will men and women have fulfilling jobs in heaven? Or will we all just sit around and play harps? Interesting question.

Today the job of garden tending might not be considered a "dream job" but I'll bet it was 4,000 years ago when the story of Genesis was created and then passed down by word of mouth until it was written down and then eventually canonized.