In high school I had the same teacher two years in a row for my advanced English class, and she made us take the class with the other teacher the next year, rather then take all of our required high school English education with her. We needed diversity in our teaching styles she said, and then promptly reminded us that not everyone teaches like she does. In retrospect, she would have fit right in at Evergreen, but the teacher that we then had to take the next two years would not have. The first day of class as we were all grudgingly trying to conform to more conventional class expectations, we were asked to write down what we thought constituted the American Dream. I will never forget how naive my vision was, and how while at first all of us thought such as discussion was pointless make work but by the end of the year understood what the point had been. It was also depressing to realize just how few of us would ever, be able to obtain what had been sold to us as the American dream and this was in the college track class.
Then my vision had been the rights to economic betterment, the right to own an home, the right to own land, the right to move beyond one’s parents in class development. This matched up with most of my classmates visions. Over the year this vision expanded a little, but not much. One thing that influenced this slight expansion, was to look at what had been considered the American dream in the past, and the idea of Henry Ford’s melting pot came up. I still don’t know which version is the one I buy into, or which is less depressing. But looking at Ford’s vision, while it is clearly flawed, it has none the less been really influential on what makes up a lot of people’s vision of the American dream. The question that lucks out a at me form the dark of my mind is what on earth is left if we all dissolve into a big melting pot? Is there a single American culture that can develop out of this or, is this just an effort by the people in charge to create a more cooperative and docile work force? Ford’s intentions were motivated directly by his efforts to create the optimized American worker. This vision was created as a means of control, and it is very effective. If you have no were to go back to, you have to play along with the game of employment and survival or unemployment and death/failure. You don’t refuse to work because you feel your rights are being violated, you keep working, because work is your new culture, your new home, your new leas on life.
So what is the American Dream? Is it really just a lie? I still can’t answer this and I don’t know if I ever will.