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?