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> the American Dream is defined ... Thanks for the definition. As a non-American I've always wondered what that idiom really ment, and I didn't even imagine th

> the American Dream is defined ... Thanks for the definition. As a non-American I've always wondered what that idiom really ment, and I didn't even imagine that it had a definition. I honestly assumed it was just referring to the opportunities for the few to get ultra-rich. Not as something for the masses.

nine_k 3y ago
I just looked it up in Wikipedia. To me, the American Dream also was always more about making it big, becoming a self-made man, in a way which is nigh impossible in more traditional, stratified societies.
FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
I disagree with nine_k's definition of "American Dream". I think it refers more to the immigrant dream: Nanna comes on a steamer through Ellis Island, the whole family lives for several years in a cold-water tenement, but Johnny gets into the police academy and Mike gets some kind of job as an insurance adjuster, and pretty soon they're raising grandkids in nice little houses on Long Island. Or update for a new generation and a different "old country" -- Mexico or Guatemala or Vietnam, instead of Ireland and Poland and Italy. It might extend a little beyond the immigrant story though. The GI who came home, went to City College or one of the U.C. schools, and bought a three-bedroom ranch on a teacher's salary -- he was living the American Dream too. The Black man who went north in the Great Migration, who got a steady job in Detroit, whose children or grandchildren, despite the prejudices of their eras, maybe were able to afford small homes and families -- his family's story was also understood as another instance of the American Dream. It stemmed from a different history, but, for a time, it was thought that it would follow the same model, "moving on up" also. And sure, maybe you could even say that some earlier characters of extreme wealth, like Andrew Carnegie, did live the American Dream -- Carnegie having been a nobody, a Scottish immigrant kid who taught himself in public libraries. (Did he also become something of a villain? Perhaps.) But for the most part I'd say that the phrase referred to upward mobility for ordinary people, sometimes over two generations. It wasn't about the 1%.

nine_k 3y ago

I just looked it up in Wikipedia. To me, the American Dream also was always more about making it big, becoming a self-made man, in a way which is nigh impossible in more traditional, stratified societies.

FooBarBizBazz 3y ago

I disagree with nine_k's definition of "American Dream". I think it refers more to the immigrant dream: Nanna comes on a steamer through Ellis Island, the whole family lives for several years in a cold-water tenement, but Johnny gets into the police academy and Mike gets some kind of job as an insurance adjuster, and pretty soon they're raising grandkids in nice little houses on Long Island. Or update for a new generation and a different "old country" -- Mexico or Guatemala or Vietnam, instead of Ireland and Poland and Italy. It might extend a little beyond the immigrant story though. The GI who came home, went to City College or one of the U.C. schools, and bought a three-bedroom ranch on a teacher's salary -- he was living the American Dream too. The Black man who went north in the Great Migration, who got a steady job in Detroit, whose children or grandchildren, despite the prejudices of their eras, maybe were able to afford small homes and families -- his family's story was also understood as another instance of the American Dream. It stemmed from a different history, but, for a time, it was thought that it would follow the same model, "moving on up" also. And sure, maybe you could even say that some earlier characters of extreme wealth, like Andrew Carnegie, did live the American Dream -- Carnegie having been a nobody, a Scottish immigrant kid who taught himself in public libraries. (Did he also become something of a villain? Perhaps.) But for the most part I'd say that the phrase referred to upward mobility for ordinary people, sometimes over two generations. It wasn't about the 1%.