Work in Progress

This blog is a work in progress. I am also a work in progress. Learning the formating for this page and learning to put my thoughts onto paper will take a little time. I might be the only person that ends up reading this stuff anyways.

The Evolution of the American Dream

PART 2

Looking further into what the American Dream was, and what it may now be, I found an excellent article written by David Kamp April 2009 Vanity Fair.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/04/american-dream200904?currentPage=1

If you have the time to read David Kamp’s article I would definitely recommend it.
It is a long article and I will try to surmise David Kamp’s points, but if you have the time to read his piece I thought that it was a very good read, and an interesting commentary.

In his article David follows the American Dream from 1930 to present:

• We are a unique country to have an Official National Dream. In the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence it states that we have, “certain unalienable Rights” that include “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”—and this is what makes our country and our way of life attractive and magnetic to people in other lands.
  


• In 1931 Historian and writer James Truslow Adams coined the phrase “American Dream” in his book The Epic of America. In his book Adams states “The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with the opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” And that it is, “a dream of social order in which each man and each women shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable.”
  


• In his book Adams never implied that the American Dream guaranteed success for all Residents or Citizens of the US, but he did believe that the U.S. offered personal liberties and opportunities to a degree unmatched by any other country in history.
  


• The American Dream, in F.D.R.’s day, remained largely a set of deeply held ideals rather than a checklist of goals or entitlements.
  


• Roosevelt, in his 1941 State of the Union address, prepared America for war by articulating the “four essential human freedoms” that the U.S. would be fighting for:
  1. “freedom of speech and expression”
  2. “freedom of every person to worship God in his own way”
  3. “freedom from want”
  4. “freedom from fear”
  


• It was freedom from want, not freedom to want—a world away from the idea that the patriotic thing to do in tough times was to go shopping. Though the germ of that idea would form shortly, not long after the war ended.
  


• The G.I. Bill, enacted in 1944, offered returning veterans low-interest loans with no money down to purchase a house that coupled with a severe housing shortage and a boom in young families led to the rapid-fire development of suburbia.
  


• From 1900 to 1940, the percentage of families who lived in homes that they themselves owned held steady at around 45 percent. By 1950 this figure had shot up to 55 percent, and by 1960 it was at 62 percent. Likewise, the homebuilding business skyrocketed, going from 114,000 new single-family houses started in 1944 to 937,000 in 1946—and to 1.7 million in 1950.
  


• The American Dream was undergoing another recalibration. It began to translate into specific goals rather than more broadly defined aspirations. In addition to a house the Dream now included a car and television ownership. It also saw people start attending college.
  


• T.V. ownership multiplied from 6 million to 60 million sets in the U.S. between 1950 and 1960.
  


• Between 1940 and 1965, the number of U.S. adults who had completed at least four years of college more than doubled. Higher education had previously been considered the exclusive province of the rich and the extraordinarily gifted.
  


• Nothing reinforced the seductive pull of the new, suburbanized American Dream more than the burgeoning medium of television.
  


• Priorities of the public had shifted to a focus on consumerism, away from public-sector needs like parks, schools, and infrastructure maintenance.
  


• In 1958 the Bank of America introduced the BankAmericard, the forerunner to Visa, today the most widely used credit card in the world.
  


• What unfolded over the next generation was the greatest standard-of-living upgrade that this country had ever experienced: an economic sea of change powered via credit cards, and the Middle Class’s willingness to take on debt.
  


• Consumer credit, which had already rocketed upward from $2.6 billion to $45 billion in the postwar period (1945 to 1960), shot up to $105 billion by 1970.
  


• In the 1970’s only 22 percent of cardholders carried a balance from one month’s bill to the next. In the 80s, this figure hovered in the 30s, compared to 56 percent today.
  


• The deregulatory atmosphere of the Reagan years saw the American Dream get decoupled from any concept of the common good. Pre-approval for credit cards were only a mailbox away. Taking on debt became guiltless and consequence-free—at both personal and institutional levels.
  


• President Reagan added $1 trillion to the national debt, and in 1986, the United States, formerly the world’s biggest creditor nation, became the world’s biggest debtor nation.
  


• Life for the average American had gotten better than it used to be. Per capita income, adjusted for inflation, had more than doubled since 1960. Almost 70 percent of Americans owned the places they lived in, versus fewer than 20 percent a century earlier. Furthermore, U.S. citizens averaged 12.3 years of education, tops in the world and a length of time in school once reserved solely for the upper class.
  


• In the 1990s and 2000’s with easy credit and a strong stock market, Americans were losing faith in the American Dream. Even when the Dream (by definition of prior generations) had been realized more fully and by more people than ever before.
  


• Many in the U.S. were finding that their American Dream was becoming unattainable, nothing was ever enough. Most Americans and Europeans already had what they needed, in addition to considerable piles of stuff they didn’t need. Americans were setting unmeetable goals for themselves and then considering themselves failures when these goals, inevitably, went unmet.
  


• In the late 90s and early 00’s the American Dream had for many become more than just keeping up with the Joneses; no, now they had to “call and raise the Joneses.”
  


• American’s personal debt, coupled with mounting institutional debt, is what has got us in the hole we’re in now. While a young couple can still secure a low-interest loan for the purchase of their first home, the more recent practice of running up huge credit-card bills to pay for, whatever, has come back to haunt us. The amount of outstanding consumer debt in the U.S. has gone up every year since 1958 and up an astonishing 22 percent since 2000 alone.
  


• The U.S.’s debt burden, as a proportion of the gross domestic product, is in the region of 355 percent. So, debt is three and a half times the output of the economy.
  


• In the last year, 600,000 jobs were lost in January alone, the gross domestic product that shrank 3.8 percent in the final quarter of 2008, the worst contraction in almost 30 years.
  


• Many American’s worry that we are the unfortunate ones who shall bear witness to that deflating moment in history when the promise of this country begins to wither.
  


• What needs to change is our expectation of what the dream promises—and our understanding of what that vague and promiscuously used term, “the American Dream,” is really supposed to mean.
  


• We need to see the American Dream as our fore fathers and James Truslow Adams saw it: that life in the United States offers personal liberties and opportunities to a degree unmatched by any other country in history—a circumstance that remains true today. This invigorating sense of possibility, though it is too often taken for granted, is the great gift of Americanness.
  


• Above all David Kamp concludes, the American Dream should be embraced as the unique sense of possibility that this country gives its citizens—the decent chance to scale the walls around us and achieve what we wish.
  

The American Dream

Part 1

Recently, I have been dreaming of building a smarter house that uses design to be able to help provide for its occupants. Earthships, Straw Bale, Passive Solar, Thermal Mass, Geo-thermal, off the grid and independent are all terms that have been circling inside my head. The dream of building my own house and place to live with my family triggered thoughts of the American Dream, and how that was my American Dream.But what is the American Dream? What is your American Dream? Think about it...

I googled American Dream and found that a lot of people have asked the question, ‘What is the American Dream?’ Books have been written about ‘it’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream

Several interesting points from Wikepedia’s article on the American Dream;

• The Founding Fathers used the phrase, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to encompass all that is available in America. America has been viewed as a land in which one’s prospects in life are defined by one’s talents and energy rather than by one’s family wealth or political connections.


• The phrase ‘American Dream’ has evolved over the course of American history. The Dream has grown to include the opportunity for one’s children to grow up and receive an American education and its consequent career opportunities. It is the opportunity to make individual choices without restrictions of class, caste, religion, race, or ethnic group.


• Historian and writer James Truslow Adams coined the phrase “American Dream” in his 1931 book The Epic of America.
  
• In Adam’s book The Epic of America he wrote that:
  “The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with the opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

After reading up on “The American Dream” I realized that it is something that my Parents drilled into me from a young age. How fortunate I am to have to have had these optimistic values taught to me from a young age. How fortunate I am to live in a country where I am able to make whatever I want of myself.

But what is the American Dream to most people? I find it very interesting that in 1931 Adams wrote that the American Dream “is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each women shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are”.

Have our dreams of motor cars and high wages become what most people’s American Dream consist of? Have mine? Have yours?

Dreaming

I have been blessed with an imagination; I am a constant day dreamer.

I dream of fishing new rivers.

I dream of the fish that got away.

I dream of my next good meal.

I dream of being in awesome shape. Dreams of good meals usually get in the way.

I dream of fun things to do with my family and friends.

I dream of being a provider for my family and friends.

I dream of being creative and creating beautiful things.

I dream of my next vacation.I dream of my next idea.

On and on it goes...

My dreams and my imagination are a blessing. My parent always told me that with hard work I could achieve whatever I wanted. I grew up believing that I really could do anything that I wanted and this belief has kept my head filled with ideas and endless possibilities.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) what I usually want is to have my feet in the water, fly rod in hand, trying to trick the fish into playing with me.