Reflect on the aphorisms brought forward in your mind by this post's title. For the recent high school graduate, it emotes a sense of welcome into a newly opened world. For the successful professional, this symbolizes the fulfillment of hard work and hard-won luck; epitomizing in commonsense language the "American Dream," which deserves a few words of its own.
The "American Dream" received only that moniker from James Truslow Adams' 1931 work, The Epic of America. (For as Carlin puts it, you have to be asleep to believe it.) For several centuries, explorers looked across the ocean, dreaming of opportunity and freedom in lands less bound by kings and kingdoms, more open to the free will of man. Eventually, a French-made monument beckoned the world to the shores of America. As this rising tide of nationalism swelled, Truslow Adams and others ignorantly judged as boundless the magical lives which supposedly came with treading American soil, already forgetting the fate of Native Americans.
Yet, simply put, the above idea of the American Dream purports an untruth.
Haves and Have-Nots
On one hand, America's stunted striving to live up to its founding promise to be a place of equality for all people is a logical fallacy. On the other, a growing idea of entitlement by all her citizens means a growing divide between the "haves" and "have-nots."
Regardless of their moral turpitude or one-in-a-million odds, Americans love to note "rags-to-riches" stories, such as: John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Chris Gardner, Russell Simmons, Mark Zuckerberg, or Oprah Winfrey. To attain a likeness of these, our common sense often cedes to a good gamble, as record lottery payouts of $640M in May 2012 for the Mega Millions and $587.5M Powerball in Novermber 2012 indicate. (Three tickets split the Mega Millions and two split the Powerball winnings in a population of approximately 312.8 million.) Despite its allusion to simply seek contentment, moderation, and comfortability, the true American Dream has become wealth and/or power at all costs.
But even the idyllic prosperity-by-proxy-of-citizenship springs from the disproved notion that if one works hard enough for long enough they will achieve financial stability and be monetarily comfortable. The latest figures indicate that roughly 15% or 46.2 million people live below the poverty line. The national jobless rate recently fell (from this time last year) to 7.9%, but even these numbers fail to indicate the number of people who have simply given up on finding work or those forced out of homes due to poverty. Now, the realization of an unofficial but growing classist system is making its way out of academic circles into the public forum, shaking up a withering citizenry.
The Trouble
Several delineations of thought make "being whatever you want to be" a problem for many Americans. I wish to explore the two most important. First, in a "winner-take-all," capitalist society, those who find themselves dealt a lousy hand can never truly fold. Thus, without adequate and efficient social programs, they are left to the winds and whims of charity. Charity's arms are long on idealism but generally lacking in reality. The shortened stature can be partly attributed to the second problem: religious ambivalence to poverty.
Let's be clear, many wonderful charities are faith-based. However, with more than half the world's population believing in god and with a foundational tenet of most religions being charity, only a smidgen of the faithful seem to be "abiding in love" for such as those less fortunate... or ironically, they, the faithful, are the "less fortunate." For all those sacrificial individuals, giving of their means to help others in need, many more of Christian denominations quote Deuteronomy, Matthew, or Mark, as their pass on socially progressive measures for the people in material need. They seem resolute in their belief that the "poor will always be with us," so why bother. An addendum to this by more fundamentalist types goes similar to the Carroll Roberson tune "This Old House."
Given desperate odds for years, perhaps generations, on end, we know that the human brain itself becomes atrophied into poverty. Cyclical poverty leads to leaned helplessness. Learned helplessness results in an impasse to be upwardly, socially and economically mobile. But for educational, vocational, psychological, and emotional programs designed to assist such individuals out of poverty, these unfortunate people would, and often do due to fear - and learned helplessness - remain entrenched in generational poverty.
To be sure, there exist some maladjusted and maladaptive individuals, who for one reason or another, feel entitled to a life of being served by others. (Be careful of the vision your mind just created with that last statement. The extremely wealthy have been known to exude this attitude as much as anyone receiving welfare benefits.) Yet, thankfully, America currently allows for the competitive and cunning, the bold and the daring to rise above classical perceptions... almost.
Aside from poverty and misguided religious reasoning, a third, more controversial element cannot be ignored. Simply put: not everyone has or can attain the academic and/or mental capacity to be a rocket scientist, medical doctor, or PhD. While one may consider this a rather brash statement, the truth is no less salient. I firmly believe one should and can be the best they can be, but realism unseats idealism when considering the competencies, capacities, and opportunities of individuals with varying cognitive and academic abilities. To go one step further, even the most intensive of interventions can only produce limited outcomes given certain neuro-biological circumstances. Still, this does not unequivocally mean these individuals should or will be any less happy than their "higher-achieving" counterparts in society. (This does not in any way suggest that abject suffering is acceptable or relished.)
The Hope
Delimiting as the troublesome aspects of "becoming" what one wants to be may seem, hope does exist for all to enjoy a happy, if not prosperous, future.
I propose the following in no anachronistic order.
We must inevitably move beyond mythology and superstition as reasons for aiding our fellow human. While highly inflammatory, I do believe that the universal well-being of individuals is much more scientific than metaphysical in nature. (Why is it important to make this distinction?) Simple, if we know something to be irrevocably true in principal or practice, we are less likely to advert excuse for remaining static. Put another way, we will less likely deny developing the abilities of others, the more we believe that our actions/reactions matter in the here and now. For no matter our piety, the illusory nature of ethereal benefits give us just enough rope to hang ourselves on our good intentions.
More in the realm of everyday practicality, our future systems of education must be designed with more than the singular focus of collegiate admittance in mind. Granted, at no other time in human history has the need for specific, strategic knowledge been in greater demand. But, we can deliver this form of knowledge in far less cumbersome manners than the current (general) university system allows. Additionally, we should place a renewed emphasis on vocational training beginning at the secondary school levels and apart from archetypal higher education programs.
Currently, a spattering of Americans and American institutions endeavor to make incremental changes towards the ends mentioned above. Despite my personal desire to see a rapid increase in the uptake and mass acceptance of these programs, Americans are not keen on macro evolutionary processes. Our resistance to change presents a comical, painful irony considering our beginnings as a nation. Yet, refusal to tolerate, support, and embrace change to our ideas of American "exceptionalism" will only led to the inevitable surpassing of the United States as a nation of ingenuity and invention.
Personally, I doubt we, as a society, will allow this to happen. For one, Jurassic billionaires, who block such progress, will slowly but thankfully expire. And in the end, peer pressure may exert little reason to change, but increasing economic and social dominance, of say Asian nations, will prod and/or force the reluctant patricians of our Great Nation to make open the avenues of opportunity to all our citizens. This will not and cannot result in equity of results, but it should and can result in equity of opportunity for each person in their own dreams - be they "American" or not.
Yet, simply put, the above idea of the American Dream purports an untruth.
Haves and Have-Nots
On one hand, America's stunted striving to live up to its founding promise to be a place of equality for all people is a logical fallacy. On the other, a growing idea of entitlement by all her citizens means a growing divide between the "haves" and "have-nots."
Regardless of their moral turpitude or one-in-a-million odds, Americans love to note "rags-to-riches" stories, such as: John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Chris Gardner, Russell Simmons, Mark Zuckerberg, or Oprah Winfrey. To attain a likeness of these, our common sense often cedes to a good gamble, as record lottery payouts of $640M in May 2012 for the Mega Millions and $587.5M Powerball in Novermber 2012 indicate. (Three tickets split the Mega Millions and two split the Powerball winnings in a population of approximately 312.8 million.) Despite its allusion to simply seek contentment, moderation, and comfortability, the true American Dream has become wealth and/or power at all costs.
But even the idyllic prosperity-by-proxy-of-citizenship springs from the disproved notion that if one works hard enough for long enough they will achieve financial stability and be monetarily comfortable. The latest figures indicate that roughly 15% or 46.2 million people live below the poverty line. The national jobless rate recently fell (from this time last year) to 7.9%, but even these numbers fail to indicate the number of people who have simply given up on finding work or those forced out of homes due to poverty. Now, the realization of an unofficial but growing classist system is making its way out of academic circles into the public forum, shaking up a withering citizenry.
The Trouble
Several delineations of thought make "being whatever you want to be" a problem for many Americans. I wish to explore the two most important. First, in a "winner-take-all," capitalist society, those who find themselves dealt a lousy hand can never truly fold. Thus, without adequate and efficient social programs, they are left to the winds and whims of charity. Charity's arms are long on idealism but generally lacking in reality. The shortened stature can be partly attributed to the second problem: religious ambivalence to poverty.
Let's be clear, many wonderful charities are faith-based. However, with more than half the world's population believing in god and with a foundational tenet of most religions being charity, only a smidgen of the faithful seem to be "abiding in love" for such as those less fortunate... or ironically, they, the faithful, are the "less fortunate." For all those sacrificial individuals, giving of their means to help others in need, many more of Christian denominations quote Deuteronomy, Matthew, or Mark, as their pass on socially progressive measures for the people in material need. They seem resolute in their belief that the "poor will always be with us," so why bother. An addendum to this by more fundamentalist types goes similar to the Carroll Roberson tune "This Old House."
Given desperate odds for years, perhaps generations, on end, we know that the human brain itself becomes atrophied into poverty. Cyclical poverty leads to leaned helplessness. Learned helplessness results in an impasse to be upwardly, socially and economically mobile. But for educational, vocational, psychological, and emotional programs designed to assist such individuals out of poverty, these unfortunate people would, and often do due to fear - and learned helplessness - remain entrenched in generational poverty.
To be sure, there exist some maladjusted and maladaptive individuals, who for one reason or another, feel entitled to a life of being served by others. (Be careful of the vision your mind just created with that last statement. The extremely wealthy have been known to exude this attitude as much as anyone receiving welfare benefits.) Yet, thankfully, America currently allows for the competitive and cunning, the bold and the daring to rise above classical perceptions... almost.
Aside from poverty and misguided religious reasoning, a third, more controversial element cannot be ignored. Simply put: not everyone has or can attain the academic and/or mental capacity to be a rocket scientist, medical doctor, or PhD. While one may consider this a rather brash statement, the truth is no less salient. I firmly believe one should and can be the best they can be, but realism unseats idealism when considering the competencies, capacities, and opportunities of individuals with varying cognitive and academic abilities. To go one step further, even the most intensive of interventions can only produce limited outcomes given certain neuro-biological circumstances. Still, this does not unequivocally mean these individuals should or will be any less happy than their "higher-achieving" counterparts in society. (This does not in any way suggest that abject suffering is acceptable or relished.)
The Hope
Delimiting as the troublesome aspects of "becoming" what one wants to be may seem, hope does exist for all to enjoy a happy, if not prosperous, future.
I propose the following in no anachronistic order.
We must inevitably move beyond mythology and superstition as reasons for aiding our fellow human. While highly inflammatory, I do believe that the universal well-being of individuals is much more scientific than metaphysical in nature. (Why is it important to make this distinction?) Simple, if we know something to be irrevocably true in principal or practice, we are less likely to advert excuse for remaining static. Put another way, we will less likely deny developing the abilities of others, the more we believe that our actions/reactions matter in the here and now. For no matter our piety, the illusory nature of ethereal benefits give us just enough rope to hang ourselves on our good intentions.
More in the realm of everyday practicality, our future systems of education must be designed with more than the singular focus of collegiate admittance in mind. Granted, at no other time in human history has the need for specific, strategic knowledge been in greater demand. But, we can deliver this form of knowledge in far less cumbersome manners than the current (general) university system allows. Additionally, we should place a renewed emphasis on vocational training beginning at the secondary school levels and apart from archetypal higher education programs.
Currently, a spattering of Americans and American institutions endeavor to make incremental changes towards the ends mentioned above. Despite my personal desire to see a rapid increase in the uptake and mass acceptance of these programs, Americans are not keen on macro evolutionary processes. Our resistance to change presents a comical, painful irony considering our beginnings as a nation. Yet, refusal to tolerate, support, and embrace change to our ideas of American "exceptionalism" will only led to the inevitable surpassing of the United States as a nation of ingenuity and invention.
Personally, I doubt we, as a society, will allow this to happen. For one, Jurassic billionaires, who block such progress, will slowly but thankfully expire. And in the end, peer pressure may exert little reason to change, but increasing economic and social dominance, of say Asian nations, will prod and/or force the reluctant patricians of our Great Nation to make open the avenues of opportunity to all our citizens. This will not and cannot result in equity of results, but it should and can result in equity of opportunity for each person in their own dreams - be they "American" or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment