The American Dream, Money, Success and its Discontents - Essay Example

The American Dream, Money, Success and its Discontents The invocation of the American Dream sparks ideas and visions of money, success, fulfillmentand comfort in the imaginations of people. Individuals have such dreams everywhere, whether they live in Canada, Italy, or Bhutan. One unique feature about the American version of that dream is that in the US, the accomplishment of one's dreams is a realistic possibility regardless of one's original station in society. The American Dream is about possibility; the chance for upward mobilization is more distinct here because of the relative youth and vigor of the country. The reasoning goes that in other countries, especially those of Western Europe, since have evolved out of a rich though at times stifling tradition of a classes divided by birth rank dreams are class stratified. As the United States has never had an aristocracy and thus is better able to recognize that the contingent conditions of birth are not all that are determinant in how one will fair in life. The concept of the American Dream has had many detractors, most dreams do. The condemnations that beset the American Dream typically utilize one of two strategies: 1) the lavish materialism sought is spiritually destructive and the obsessive worship of the dollar borders on the cult-like, 2) the American Dream betrays certain disenfranchised groups by feeding them false hope about the existence of a meritocracy. Dana Gioia, current chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, writes a poem entitled "Money" that examines the many metaphors that we use to describe what it is and how we use it. In understanding our obsession with the dollar his poem offers some insight into its power and hold on us. In another work, Harlon L. Dalton, author of Racial Healing: Confronting the Fear between Blacks & Whites, discusses the destructive capacities of the American myth in an essay titled, "Horatio Alger." In examining these two works this paper will reveal that how we use the myth of the American Dream is just as important as the dream itself. In the epigraph to the poem, Gioia quotes Wallace Stevens's line, "Money is a kind of poetry" (Gioia) If we think of poetry as a kind of writing which attempts to impress images on us through, symbols and metaphors rather than through explicit means, then money might be a sort of symbol or metaphor which conveys its own images and metaphors of the American Dream. In the first stanza Gioia lists a number of euphemisms and sobriquets that refer to the materiality: its color, shape, and texture. The next stanza describes some of the things we are required to do with it. One aspect of success is having money, just having it. Gioia highlights the metaphors we deploy to express the annoyance of having it to spend on necessities like rent, insurance, and the dreaded car payment (or even worse car repair). We "Chock it up, fork it over, shell it out" (Gioia, line 4-5). In this regard we are put in a double bind by the nature of success in America. Not only are individuals pressured by external forces to seek monetary compensation to afford a nice house, a fast car, or designer clothing; but, within us is constructed a sense of remorse at spending money on those things, which society suggests we should need anyway. The subsequent stanza illustrates what money can do for us. It can get us through problems, sometimes through illicit means, and it can make us comfortable. Making ends meet is often considered the baseline of success in the American Dream. If that is all one can do, then he or she is not making enough-but it is a start. Part and parcel of that dream is being able to get through the day, the month, and one's life by whatever means necessary. This imperative to persevere despite odds is an integral portion of the American popular psyche, and is more developed in the work of Horatio Alger as discussed by Dalton. Dalton is critical of the myth insofar that it presumes certain features about American society that are not actually realized in his estimation, namely the existence of a meritocracy. The potentially socially destructive elements of this myth will be tackled in the section. In the second to last stanza Gioia utilizes polysemy to imply the ubiquitous and self-generating nature of money. "Money breeds money" (Gioia, 13). The myth of the American Dream presupposes that the way one starts out need not determine how they turn up, but as Gioia sagaciously mentions-it certainly does not hurt to be bred from wealth and success. This is another point of contention for Dalton, specifically that the general structure of American society much more similarly resembles the Gioia's sentiment than the one commonly expressed by the myth. Finally, the last lines impress upon us that despite the uncertain etiology of money our willingness to have it speak for us, stand up for who we are as we are apt to challenge each other to put it where our mouth is. Gioia's ambivalent even cautionary tone here is interesting, money as much as it can do for us, as much as it means for us, is perhaps not all there is to be said about who we are as individuals or what United States is as a country. The fact that it does talk, does not always mean it should talk, especially for us. The warning here is well taken regarding the question of the utilization of the American Dream. One cannot be categorically faulted for desiring the benefits that wealth and success bring. However, there are arguably negative consequences for making success and wealth benefits in and of themselves. Wealth per se is not, as I would hold, an end-only a means to an end. If allow money to talk for us, we may not like what it has to say given the fact that we "don't know where it's been" (Gioia, 16). Dalton's analysis of the "Horatio Alger" myth, which is the myth that one through their own concerted efforts can go from rags-to-riches is that it is socially destructive especially to African-Americans. Dalton criticism of the myth is threefold: 1) people in general, African-American in specific, are not judged solely on their merits, 2) Not everyone, namely blacks, are given the opportunity to develop their own merits, and 3) merit as such is not always appropriately rewarded. Dalton suggests that certain elements in society leverage this myth in order to continue to oppress and contain certain other elements of that society. This notion of the American Dream is as much an American nightmare in the hands of the right people. It is hard generally to disabuse individuals in United States from subscribing to this myth, because there are always examples that can be pointed to, for Dalton the classic example is Colin Powell, though in this current election year it might as easily be Barack Obama. The problem with examples is that they are just that, in Dalton's framework-they neither prove nor disprove the general validity of the myth. Yet, their leveraging in society regulates African-Americans to essentially chase each other, rather than demand general systemic changes in society that stacks the cards against them. This not only has ramifications in judging individuals, but giving African-Americans the opportunities to be judged accordingly. The American Dream suggests that the sorts of jurisprudence involved in determining the upward mobility of others come from merit-based decision procedures that standardize the accomplishments of society. Though neither Horatio Alger nor the popular conceptions of the American Dream assume people start from the same place; it does imply that the path they take to get to whatever status they achieve is judged on the same merits. Dalton counters that this belief is both false and dangerous. False, because even if there were "objective" standards, those standards are applied by people who for the most part incapable of objectivity or neutrality. Dangerous, because it gives certain members of society, which Dalton refers to as the "underclass," false hope that they will be successful if they take the long hard road. It is also dangerous because it gives those oppressive elements in society the ability to demand that members of the underclass take the long hard road, and furthers allows to demand that they not complain should they not take that road. In other words, forces of oppression use the American Dream turns the hopes of the underprivileged into a tool of oppression against them. There are some complaints that one can levy against Dalton's well-intentioned argument. He claims that the Horatio Alger myth surreptitiously maintains the racial stratification by "mentally bypassing the role of race in society" (Dalton 134). Dalton overestimates the persuasive power of the myth by assuming that the general structure of belief as regards this myth is literal rather than allegorical. If indeed Dalton is correct and African-Americans are constantly faced with challenges due their background or the color of their skin, how could it be that race is "mentally bypassed" It cannot. The role of race, take this upcoming election, is a significant and pressing issue without question. Moreover, I believe Dalton is equally guilty of the same type of mental oppression that those that he would seek to detract. Members of this so-called underclass, though they may be outside the caste system of sorts here in America, are not in any way clueless to their state or the uncontrollable factors that have placed them there nor are they uncomfortable with recognizing the paradox of both subscribing to the myth and recognizing it to be fundamentally false. He claims that White people are interested in dissolving this paradox by dispensing with the second portion of the lacuna, i.e. it being fundamentally false. This sort of racialized thinking is equally destructive to the opportunities for the development of race relations here in the United States. The assumption about the difference in thinking regarding the nature of this paradox is tendentious and fundamentally unprovable given the already divisive nature of such question, receiving a legitimate or an authentic answer is nigh impossible. The role of the American Dream or the Horatio Alger myth serves in the same capacity that any other myth does, to promote an idealized or romanticized version of the current situation so that it provides something more than hope, it is there to provide a goal. The views on the American Dream, its benefits, its consequences-socially destructive or spiritually debasing are as myriad and variegated as the citizens who populate the United States. The thought that there is any one American Dream should be disabused of rather dismissively, because many of us have different ideas of what is going to count as success. If this is the case, then how one goes about going to get that success is going to be equally different. Gioia's images regarding money are both insightful and measured. It is something that sparks a kind of poetic response; it is something that urges us onward and spares us a great deal of discomfort. Insofar that it can serve our purposes and meet our ends is good as it goes, as long as it does not consume us-some suggest that this is essentially unavoidable. This is a notion of the American Dream that I can subscribe to, money is a means to do things I want to do in life. If I am so lucky in my life to be allowed to do things I want, then I will define that as ultimate success. The converse of this is much more worrisome, if success is not the stars, then how one compensates for failure is important. It is easy to attribute failure to causes outside one's control. The conventional wisdom is that this too easy, and Dalton is right to claim that such a impulse to indict people of taking the easy way out is sometimes unjustified. But it is not always unjustified; however, from a practical standpoint I do not know how useful it is to engage in this sort of questioning. Attempting to turn poetry and myth into truth can be dangerous and self-destructive; preferably, we should strive to turn the truths of one's life into the myth and poetry of money and success. Works Cited Dalton, Harlon L. "Horatio Alger." Dalton, Harlon L. Racial Healing: Confronting the Fear Between Blacks & Whites. New York: Anchor Books, 1996. 127-136. Gioia, Dana. "Money." 2001. Dana Gioia Online - Poems. 17 March 2008 . Read More