Mae Chow
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If you ask most people around the world what they mean by the “American dream,” nearly all will respond with some version of upward social mobility, the American success story, or the self-made man (rarely the self-made woman) 😁 Perhaps they will invoke the symbolic house with a white picket fence that suggests economic self-sufficiency and security; many will associate the phrase with the land of opportunity for immigrants 👍 No less an authority than the Oxford English Dictionary defines the American dream as “the ideal that every citizen of the United States should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative 🙈” [1]
American historian, John Adams, also said that despite America’s growth, there was an explosion in the number of successful and wealthy families. This created a social order where people who are wealthier tend to have more opportunities and succeed. The belief that anyone can achieve happiness and success, regardless of their circumstances. He noted that the American Dream is and has been “… much more than that. It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in the older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which had developed for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being of any and every class.” (last emended 72 days ago by Marija Salcedo from Malanje, Angola) [2]
These powerful phrases are still so under-examined, as new reports show. Because I am an academic literary critic I was able to see that close reading and textual analysis could be used, as well as tracing genealogical and historical sensibility. These techniques can help us understand the words and meanings that shape our current political discourse in ways we are not often aware of. In particular, when you’ve got phrases that can be used in different ways by different constituencies—phrases that can be manipulated and used in disingenuous ways, what’s usually referred to as dog whistles—well, it seems to me that those distinctions are exactly the kinds that a literary critic is sensitive to. [3]
However, the idea of the American dreamAdams described the concept of “city upon hill”, but it existed well before Adams. John Winthrop’s “city on a hill” sermon was delivered to Puritan colonists in 1630 as they have set sail to Massachusetts. Winthrop didn’t use the word “dream”, but he detailed with great detail his vision of a society that would allow everyone to succeed, provided they cooperated and followed Biblical teachings. The’s colonists seeing this as a God-given opportunity. In 1776 the Declaration of Independence was signed. Thomas Jefferson He believed that all Americans, especially those not slaved by the colonists, were entitled to “life and liberty” in America. Montey Staton revised this statement on July 10, 20,21. [4]
Refer to the Article
- https://www.bushcenter.org/catalyst/state-of-the-american-dream/churchwell-history-of-the-american-dream.html
- https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/other/american-dream/
- https://psmag.com/ideas/how-the-american-dream-went-from-meaning-equality-to-meaning-capitalism-sarah-churchwell
- https://people.howstuffworks.com/american-dream1.htm
