Talk:American dream
From Academic Kids
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The poor are stupid?
Am I only one who find the following part quite offensive?
"...the American dream also ignores other factors of success such as...inheritable traits such as intelligence."
What? Am I reading this wrong or is it implying that people are poor because they are stupid?
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I believe the implication is a different one: People who a poor and less intellectually gifted will find it difficult to escape poverty by means of work alone. However, it is possible to be poor for many other reasons as well.
Although somewhat controversial, you may find it interesting to read Wikipedia's article on intelligence quotient, where the fraction of people living in poverty is compared to their score on a standardized IQ test. It drops from around 30% among those with the lowest scores to only 2% among those with the highest.
Filur 01:24, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
"Can" is the key word here
Some of you seem to miss the word "can" in the opening sentence. Contrary to what has been posted below, the dream does not involve *everyone* in the country getting rich. If that were true, it would suggest that people in America are entitled to wealth because they live here. That misses the point entirely. I deleted a paragraph in the criticism section that reflected this inaccurate viewpoint.
The gist of the American dream is that if you work sufficiently hard, you CAN be a success--not that you're guaranteed to do so. The point is that in other places (like, say, North Korea) you do not have that opportunity. You could work your butt off until the cows come home in Pyongyang and you still ain't getting rich. The American dream is related to the general idea of freedom--that you're free to make your own economic decisions, and that maybe, if you play your cards right, you'll make it big.
- I may be wrong hear, but i don't think this is true. I have lived in US and have heard this dream a couple of times. And in all cases, the speaker was implying this applies to everyone. And if this doesn't apply to everyone, then its not unique to America at all. Luck my friend is universal. For example, i am Kenyan and can name a number of people born poor but ended up filthy rich. An example is Josiah Mwangi Kariuki. One more thing, your chance for being rich depend with how ethical you are. The more ethical you are, the more remote your chance of getting rich. Probe a couple of the rich figures around. There is one common characteristic with all of them. They were all willing to do evil, ranging from simple back stabbing to embezzlement and murder.
- In fact, i even know of a primary school classmate who was really freaking rich. After leaving primary school for secondary school life, i never say him again. At that time, he was a dirt poor village boy. One day, i was reading news when i came across his name. Since i was at US then, i called home and to my surprise, my instinct was right. I was even told the guy had a huge house, numerous girlfriends and drove a Range Rover. Since he even never went to high school, i knew he must have been up to no good. He did eventually close the wrong person. I hear he had contact with one of the Rwanda's criminals. (That imply he was working with him, as i can see how else he came to know this criminal) He approached the USA embassy and offered to assist them catch him(the criminal) in return for money. Someone buggled it up and he ended up with a bullet in the head. This is the story i am refering to. [1] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2680329.stm)
- In short, as recently as two years ago, someone in Kenya had managed to go from rugs to riches. Granted, he didn't use means that anyone should be proud of. In fact, i have no sympathy for greedy people as i think they are the root cause of the world's evil.
What happens when you wake up?
Just a thought...
- Then you daydream.
I can understand the thought behind this but it is very poorly written. Also, it is presumptuous to denote a single nation to this cause. SD6-Agent 01:18, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Word to SD6. This is an important topic, but the entry itself is kind of dreamy, and does not attempt to define what, in fact, the American dream might be. There is value in this topic--many American studies majors have ponder the question of the American dream, but this entry needs a great deal of enrichment.
Nice dream, but here's our wake-up call:
- (and dealt with the native Americans)
- (and shared anew by later generations of immigrants)
We need some contrast between the airy idealism of the American Dream and the harsh realities of real history and real life. --Uncle Ed 19:16, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I inserted the above parenthetical remarks as ironic comments, the page started off in a very ironic fashion, and I was surprised to see that my ironic comments ('blazing trails', _dealing _ with 'Native Americans') were built upon in the eulogistic expansion of the page. Perhaps irony is wasted in the histrionic larger than life image of the american dream? If wastedm then these remarks are better left out, but where do you stand, Ed? TonyClarke 19:40, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- I like irony, but find it hard to apply it in writing encyclopedia articles. Also, I think the topic of the American Dream is a worthy one.
- We should describe what the American Dream is, as well as mention problems attaining it, or objections to it.
- My understanding is rather vague, but as an American I feel there is some sort of shared aspiration there -- not that it shouldn't be critiqued, don't get me wrong. Just that if there's to be an article at all, it should come up to our usual standards. --Uncle Ed 20:59, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Yes you are right Ed.
TonyClarke 21:50, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Here's a nice quote:
- For our parents and grandparents, the American dream meant hope – an unshakeable belief that happiness and security were truly possible. They knew they had a unique opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families. That dream still exists. [2] (http://www.newdream.org/) --Uncle Ed 22:02, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
____
But we all have that dream, hope isn't unique to America TonyClarke 22:43, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- I'm glad at least one person, I hope you're American, has enough sense to realize hope isn't just some word exclusive to the United States.
SD6-Agent 22:51, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
____
Nope, sorry there boy, born and reared in Ireland. TonyClarke 23:56, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
But maybe to paraphrase JFK, nowadays we are all american. Silly remark, really. TonyClarke 23:58, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Silly is an understatement SD6-Agent 10:05, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Yes, and people thought JFK was silly when he declared himself a Berliner: but look at the place now. No offence intended.
TonyClarke 11:41, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I don't even know WHO that would be offensive to! SD6-Agent 00:22, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I still think this page should be deleted. It's patriotic rubbish. That definitely falls into the category of it being a candidate for VfD due to it being a biased article. SD6-Agent 04:07, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- This page really ought to be rewritten from scratch. It offers little to no definiton for the phrase American Dream and contains quite a bit of bias. There should still be an article on the phrase, though--not because the concept is limited to America (which it isn't), but because the phrase is in the vernacular. --Erik Carson 20:16, 2004 May 7 (UTC)
The section "Critisism of the American dream" needs to be rewritten. As it stands, it is really not a critisism at all.
The real critisim is that the American dream is false and misguided. It is not possible for everyone to become prosperous through determination and hard work. This false belief is likely to have negative consequences, such as the poor feeling that it is their fault that they are not successful, and less effort being put into raising standards for the poor since they "are all lazy" (according to one survey I saw 60% of Americans believe that the poor are poor because they are lazy, while this was true for only around 25% of Europeans).
- Actually, your definition of the American dream is false and misguided. See above.
Just as important, or perhaps more important, than hard work is the family one is born into and inheritable traits such as intelligence. Although many people may think that George W. became the current US president because he worked so much harder than anyone else, a more plausible explanation is that he was born into a family of politicians. Filur 30 Jul 2004
The American dream is like a rainbow...a beautiful illusion. You think you see it; you believe that at the end of it there is your pot of gold, but if you look for it you are searching in vain. Why does America not stop searching for its 'dream' and actually do something constructive and usefel for the world? - Ruthie14 19 Nov 2004
Filur, perhaps unwittingly, showed something important about the American Dream: that it is strictly American. Social attitudes in America are different from those of the rest of the world. Beliefs about life and about history in America are different fromt hose of the rest of the world. This particular fantasy of a prosperous, suburban existence is a uniquely American one. Here there is a blend of laissez-faire capitalism and nationalistic pride that doesn't exist wherever else one looks. For better or worse, this dream was bred in America and is maintained in America.
And Ruthie would do well to recognize that there are a number of selfless Americans who do concentrate on the needs of the world over their own.Lebob 06:26, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I re-wrote the Criticism section to try to make it more NPOV. Regarding most of the material I removed, I did so because it seemed to be more of a criticism of American policy than of the American dream. It was valid criticism, but it didn't seem to belong in this particular encyclopedia entry. Please feel free to edit/re-add material. (I suggest just adding a wiki-link-- these topics must have been dealt with in other articles.) I removed the Israel/Palestine sentence because I just didn't see the connection or parallel to criticisms of the American dream. Please feel free to re-add it with information that would make it more clear. Thanks. --Ben James Ben 23:51, 2004 Dec 26 (UTC)
The American Dream revealed
For evey American who achieves the "American Dream," there are three who fail miserably and must clean his yard, sweep his floor and cook his food.
-D. Issent
