It should be pointed out that not every immigrant who came to America was inspired to do so because of religious convictions—most did not. While some found religion once they were here, many others never did but were still able to live out the American Dream. Even today, a very sizable minority of Americans are not very religious at all, but they still identify with the American Dream. That’s because the notion of a chosen people has become so pervasive in American culture over the course of the past two centuries that it has shed some of its earlier religious roots and become ingrained in the American psyche.
Religious or not, most Americans believe that we enjoy a special status among nations and peoples. Why is this belief so important? Europeans don’t feel they are a chosen people, and yet they seem able to make their way in the world. But here’s the difference. Europeans often ask me how it is that Americans are always so upbeat about their future. In large part, it’s the idea of being a chosen people that makes us Americans such eternal optimists. We have no doubt that we are destined for greatness, both individually and as a people. It makes us willing to take more risks than other people because we believe that we are being watched over and taken care of and fated to succeed.
The Withering of the American Work Ethic
Although the idea of being a chosen people has afforded Americans a sense of confidence in our ability to make something of our lives, there is another key element to the American Dream, without which it would never have become so powerful a vision. If John Winthrop represented the spiritual side of the American Dream, it was Benjamin Franklin who provided the practical guidance. Franklin’s vision of America drew its inspiration from the European Enlightenment with its emphasis on materialism, utilitarianism, and individual self-interest in the marketplace. Franklin looked out over the pristine American wilderness and saw vast untapped resources that could be harnessed and made productive. He envisioned America as a kind of grand laboratory for the exploration of science and technology. His idea of the American Dream was a nation of inventive genius, continually engaged in creating wealth and expanding the reach of the marketplace. Franklin favored the utilitarian to the sacred and aspired to create a material cornucopia rather than be delivered up to eternal salvation. His America would be made up of an industrious people grounded in the practical arts.
If Winthrop offered salvation, Franklin offered self-improvement. For every act of revelation, the pioneers were administered a dose of utilitarian rationality, making Americans, at one and the same time, the most fervently religious and aggressively pragmatic of any people on Earth—a status we retain to this very day. Franklin took seriously Thomas Jefferson’s radical claim in the American Declaration of Independence that every human being has an inalienable right not only to life and liberty but also to the pursuit of happiness. No government before that had ever suggested that people might have a right to pursue their own happiness. How does one strive to be happy? Franklin believed that happiness was obtained by ceaseless personal improvement—that is, making something out of oneself.
The American Dream, then, brought together two great European traditions into a sort of grand alliance that, while contradictory on the surface, ignited a vision of human agency more powerful than anything that had previously existed in the annals of human history. While part of the American Dream was to remain focused on Heaven and eternal redemption, the other part of the dream was to remain focused on the forces of nature and the pull of the marketplace. This unique melding of religious fervor and down-home utilitarianism proved a powerful force on the American frontier and later in the building of a highly advanced industrial, urban, and suburban society.
The reason the American Dream has remained so durable is that it speaks to the two most basic human desires—for happiness in this world and for salvation in the next world. The former required perseverance, self-improvement, and self-reliance, and the latter unswerving faith in God. No previous dream offered the prospect of the best of both worlds—the here and now, and the world to come.
While America’s religious commitment remains strong, there is growing evidence that the second component of the American Dream is beginning to weaken. In recent years, a younger generation of Americans seems to have all but eliminated the part of the Declaration of Independence where Jefferson says that everyone has the right “to pursue” happiness, and has, instead, shortened the clause to read that everyone has the right to happiness. Franklin, recall, was forever admonishing the readers of his Poor Richard’s Almanack to keep their noses to the grindstone. Franklinesque aphorisms, all of which exhort the virtues of discipline and hard work, have all but been forgotten: “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop,” “Never put off till tomorrow what can be done today,” “A stitch in time saves nine.” The American Dream was built on the idea that success comes from applying oneself, being resourceful, and becoming self-reliant. Franklin’s proverbs were the last thin threads of what was once a single weave uniting a secular utilitarianism of the Enlightenment with the older Calvinist religious tradition, what Max Weber later referred to as “the Protestant work ethic.” (We will discuss the Reformation theology in more detail in chapters 4 and 5.) Today, a growing number of younger Americans have broken with the work ethic. For them, the American Dream has less to do with faith and perseverance and more to do with luck and chutzpah.
One of the most intriguing public opinion polls I’ve come across, in all of the years of looking at such surveys, asked young people under the age of thirty whether they believe they will become rich. Fifty-five percent of all young people answered affirmatively, believing that they would become rich.43 One might suspect that of young Americans. Don’t forget, the Horatio Alger stories—that it’s possible for every American to go from “rags to riches”—is what the American Dream is all about. But what was really fascinating about the survey was the follow-up question. When asked how they would acquire such riches, 71 percent of those who were employed believed that there was no chance that they would get rich by their current employment.44 Well, what about future employment prospects? It turns out that an overwhelming 76 percent of young people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine believe that, regardless of the job one has, Americans are not “as willing to work hard at their jobs to get ahead as they were in the past.”45 I assume they are including themselves among the lot.
When Newsweek conducted this survey, it asked whether it was likely the respondents would become rich, if not by their work, then by investments, inheritance, or good luck. As to investments, the poll was done in 1999, when the bull market was supercharged and investors were recording record gains on their stocks. No longer. Inheritance is a possibility, but most of the baby-boom generation is awash in debt and not likely to be able to pass on a fortune—at least not enough to cover the 55 percent of young people who believe they are going to be rich.46 That leaves us with luck. All of these categories—investment, inheritance, and luck—require little in the way of hard work and perseverance, the kind of qualities Franklin had in mind as the quintessential virtues for getting ahead in America. My own suspicion is that a lot of kids think they are just going to be lucky. It will somehow come to them without having to work hard for it.
I’m reminded of a book written by the late social critic Christopher Lasch—which he entitled The Culture of Narcissism. It was Lasch’s contention that the consumer ethos had gained such a deep hold on the American psyche that most Americans, and especially the young, are drowning in momentary pleasures and trivial pursuits. He writes: “The pursuit of self-interest, formerly identified with the rational pursuit of gain and the accumulation of wealth, has become a search for pleasure and psychic survival. . . . To live for the moment is the prevailing passion—to live for yourself, not for your predecessor or posterity.”47
Shortly after Lasch’s analysis, the late New York University educator Neil Postman published his own account of America’s wayward narcissism in a book entitled Amusing Ourselves to Death. B
oth of these keen observers of American culture worried that younger Americans were increasingly caught up in a media culture that sold the idea of instant gratification of one’s desires. The result was that each successive generation of Americans was less willing or even less able to work hard and postpone gratification for future rewards. The narcissist’s temporal frame is immediate and self-centered. Past commitments and future obligations are considered unnecessary restraints and impediments to instant gratification. In this new culture of narcissism, everyone feels entitled, and far less willing to put off happiness until tomorrow. America’s $330 billion advertising industry is relentless in its pursuit of the idea that you and I can have everything that we desire now. Why wait? To ensure that end, America has sported a consumer credit-card culture that allows us to enjoy now and pay later. Many Americans are living well beyond their means and awash in consumer debt—all of which perpetuates the narcissistic behavior that Lasch and Postman noticed was sweeping fast into American life.
Has the American Dream descended from its once lofty peak where it combined Christian eschatology with Enlightenment utility and rational behavior, and just become a dream of having good luck? Apparently, for a growing number of Americans, the answer is yes.
Getting Something for Nothing
Americans have always been risk-takers. That’s part of what the American Dream is all about. We used to associate American risk-taking with the willingness to start over in a new land, tame a wilderness, invest in an idea, or start a new business. Today, for a growing number of Americans, risk-taking has been reduced to little more than gambling.
In 2002, seven out of ten Americans engaged in some form of legal gambling. Fifty-seven percent of Americans purchased a lottery ticket in the past year, and 31 percent of Americans gambled in casinos.48 The annual growth rate of American gambling has been a steamy 9 percent in the past decade, which means that gambling has been growing significantly faster than the U.S. economy as a whole.49 Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined.50 In 2002, Americans spent $68 billion on legal gambling at racetracks, at casinos, and on lotteries, compared to $27 billion in 1991.51 When I was a child, in the 1950s, only the state of Nevada allowed gambling. Today, forty-seven states have legalized gambling. The states raise more than $20 billion from lotteries and casinos, or more than 4 percent of their total revenue.52
Gambling has fast become the national pastime and, for many Americans, a near obsession. Powerball jackpots can exceed $300 million. It’s not unusual for people to wait in lines that are sometimes five hundred people deep, spending most of their day queued up to purchase a single ticket.53
More than $400 million a year is given over to advertising state lottos and other games.54 Much of the advertising is spent on exploiting the American Dream theme of rags to riches. The New York Lottery lures customers with the slogan “A Buck and a Dream.” The Chicago Lottery exclaims, “This could be your ticket out.”55
Gambling, like drugs, has become a dangerous addiction for millions of Americans. Both cater to the need for instant gratification—happiness now. The National Research Council (NRC) estimates that upwards of 3 million Americans are “lifetime” pathological gamblers, an additional 1.8 million Americans are “past year” pathological gamblers, 7.8 million people are “lifetime” problem gamblers, and 4 million are “past year” problem gamblers.56 More troubling is the rising number of adolescent gamblers who fall in the “past year” pathological or problem category—approximately 20 percent of American youth.57
The desire for instant success has become pervasive across American culture. Legal gambling is only one of the many venues Americans increasingly pursue in hopes of realizing the American Dream. For a while, in the late 1990s, the stock market was all the rage. Millions of Americans gambled away their life savings in hopes of becoming instant millionaires. High-tech stocks became the new ticket to success. The smart investor became the new Horatio Alger protagonist—except, unlike the original American hero who had to work hard and overcome adversity to succeed, his modern sequels merely had to listen to tips on the street, pick would-be winners, and place a call to their brokers. In the end, the market came tumbling down, leaving millions of baby boomers and Gen Xers without adequate savings for their retirement years and having to face the prospect of working well into their seventies to make ends meet.
For many younger Americans, the new genre of TV reality shows has become the latest vehicle to hitch their star to. Thousands of young people line up to audition for shows like All American Girl, American Idol, American Juniors, America’s Next Top Model, Average Joe, The Apprentice, The Bachelor and Bachelorette, Big Brother, Meet My Folks, Mr. Personality, Next Action Star, Fame, The Family, Joe Millionaire, Star Chamber, Survivor, 30 Seconds to Fame, and Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? In 2004, there were more than 170 reality shows on American television.58
All of the participants in these shows hope to be discovered, to become famous, to be a celebrity. While some of the shows require a certain amount of talent and expertise, most just require the participants to show up and be themselves. Andy Warhol’s prescient prediction, more than thirty years ago, that in America everyone would have their fifteen minutes of fame, is now being played out nightly on American TV, as ordinary people put themselves in front of the cameras so that millions of other Americans can watch them live out their lives.
For the lucky few who make it on to these reality shows, fame is indeed short-lived. Most quickly shrink back into the anonymity of day-to-day life after their appearance on the shows. But, for millions of American viewers, seeing someone just like themselves on TV becoming famous, even for an instant, keeps alive the idea that it could happen to them as well . . . all it takes is a little luck. In the meantime, millions of viewers can live out the American Dream vicariously by watching the fortunate few who beat the odds, convinced that the dream is still alive and that their turn is coming.
Many social critics would argue that what millions of Americans are really embracing is not the American Dream so much as the American daydream. The authentic American Dream combines faith in God with the belief in hard work and sacrifice for the future. The new substitutes—legal gambling, celebrity television shows, and the like—are grounded in fantasy and delusion. We have become, say the critics, a people who have grown fat, lazy, and sedentary, who spend much of our time wishing for success but are unwilling to “pay our dues” with the kind of personal commitment required to make something out of our lives.
This is a harsh judgment, but probably increasingly true for a number of young middle-class Americans who grew up coddled and spoiled by doting parents who showered them with every conceivable pleasure and experience money could buy, often before they were even old enough to appreciate it. Overindulged, these sons and daughters of baby-boomer parents are unlikely candidates for the kind of personal commitment required to keep the authentic American Dream alive. Faith, discipline, hard work, self-reliance, and self-sacrifice are hardly the terms one would normally use to describe today’s American middle-class youngsters. Ennui is a more accurate description of the emotional and mental state of growing numbers of American young people. “Been there, done that” is a phrase one often hears from kids. By the time these youngsters have reached early adulthood, they have been everywhere, done everything, seen everything, and had everything. They have little or nothing to look forward to or to aspire to. Their dreams have been answered even before they had a chance to dream them. For these young Americans, the most difficult life task is motivation itself. It’s no wonder that alcohol, drugs, and gambling are all on the rise. When the future is no longer something to work toward and fill in but is something already experienced and left behind, then only momentary pleasures are left to ward off the boredom and make it through another day.
Some observers of the American scene have argued that one of the reasons that the American Dream is losing curren
cy is that we have over-empowered our kids, giving them an inflated sense of ego and, with it, a belief that they are entitled to success because of their many special attributes. One educator once put it this way: “Today kids get an A just for showing up.” I was recently teaching a class of young business leaders, half of whom were from Europe, the other half from America. The Europeans said they were perplexed that whenever they attended a business meeting where a presentation was given by an American businessperson, the Americans in attendance would shower the speaker with congratulations for doing a brilliant job even if he or she was merely delivering a rather standard talk about not very interesting things. The Europeans complained that because Americans are constantly over-empowering one another, the bar for performance continues to be lowered and standards of excellence compromised. After all, if you are always being told that everything you do is insightful, well conceived and thought out, and effectively executed, then why try harder?
A sense of entitlement goes hand in hand with over-empowerment. If one is continually told how great he or she is, he or she eventually begins to believe it and comes to expect that all good things should come to him or her. For these young people, the American Dream is no longer thought of as a quest but is regarded more as a right.
The desire for instant gratification, when combined with a sense of over-empowerment and entitlement, can create a volatile emotional mix. The narcissistic personality type is generally less able to handle life’s many frustrations, and more prone to antisocial behavior, even including using violence to get what they feel they deserve and are entitled to.
Is the once noble quest of the American Dream turning dark and foreboding at the hands of a new generation? A tracking poll of the views and values of Canadian and U.S. citizens over an eight-year period from 1992 to 2000 offers some insight into the matter. Canadians and Americans were asked to “agree or disagree” that when one is extremely tense or frustrated, a little violence can offer relief, and that “it’s no big deal.” In 1992, 14 percent of Americans and Canadians agreed that a little violence is okay.59 By 1996, the proportion of Canadians believing that a little violence was justified had fallen to 10 percent, while the proportion of Americans had leaped to 27 percent.60 In 2000, the proportion of Canadians went back up slightly to 14 percent, but the Americans who thought a little violence was okay shot up to 31 percent, nearly one-third of the American public.61
The European Dream Page 4
