What is 'The American Dream'?
 

What is 'The American Dream'?

Does it exist today?
Did it ever exist at all?

The American Dream is to live off the fatta' the lan'. To have a vegetable patch, a rabbit hutch and chickens running around. :p:

Uh well its undefined nature allows us to continually craft it to our own will, and politicians to perenially cite it, regardless of the different directions.

The dreams ambiguous, but it falls under the massive umbrella of being able to truely get whatever you want. Its not always for yourself, a lot of the time the dream depends on offspring.

I'm a big fan of the old money/yankee culture but I'm eternally far away from it. Just the same I could live to see my children make it in the upper echelon and part of that ideal is the american dream.

Despite what the political nerds on this board will say its highly attainable and still very much exists.

I read an amazing Article in Vanity Fare not so long ago (Rethinking the American Dream | vanityfair.com)

and it went on to say, and I agreed with it, that the American Dream has little to do with being rich. If you read the article it talks about how modest the means were. The point about Norman Rockwell's paintings were amazing.

Its about being able to have what you want, and at one point in time not so long ago, that wasn't a material idea. Family events, hanging out in the neighborhood, Your parents (or dad) had a job. Life was good.

I love this place for that idea, and sadly America's been alligned with a material dream that we all sorta went along with. Its depressing really.

work for thirty five to forty years, get old and die.

our highest aspiration is to wait for death in our own failing bodies for ten to twenty years while we're supported by generations of younger, healthier people in the workforce.

i personally can't wait until i'm a burden on society.

blah blah blah I'm in my 20ties and angsty.

I'm sure you have enough money to moved to sweeden where they get hotter and younger as they age.

It's the one where you go to school naked.

then alice cooper plays and you peel out in your t-bird

Rich, famous and pretty.


... and your high school science teacher is there for some reason.

I pretty much agree with everything you said here. I will add a few points though.

Most of the happiest people in America...aren't essentially in the upper class. They tend to be in a lower class. They have most likely achieved their dream is being in a happy family and loving relationships all around them.

I think the whole material side of the American dream comes from the idea that you can come to America from a different country and make a life for yourself here through capitalism. In my neighborhood, Arabs run all of the corner stores and Hispanics are coming over and taking up all of the other business spots on my busy street called Broadway. It's not NYC's broadway but it's a broadway nonetheless.

Essentially, I think The American Dream should just be part of your life aspiration, the thing that will make you happy in life. My aspiration happens to be knowledge. I also like to acquire things in life that can't be bought such as experiences, finding love, watching sunsets/sunrises, etc.

And to think... all this time I thought I was living the American nightmare...