What's Wrong with the American Dream?
Jennifer L. Hochschild
Introduction
The idea of the "American dream" has been attached to everything from religious freedom to a home in the suburbs, and it has inspired emotions ranging from deep satisfaction to disillusioned fury. But one must know what the dream is and how it operates. One must know how America really works.
Hochschild describes the American dream and the "four tenets of success." She describes the importance of this ideology to American culture. She also points out the flaws in this dream and how the pursuit of it can lead to dysfunctional outcomes for individuals and for American society. She offers some intriguing comments about virtue, success, and failure in America and the importance of these related concepts for American ideology.
Key Points
- The American Dream is the idea that anything can happen and good things might. An essential element of the American Dream is the idea that anyone can be successful.
- The four tenets of success:
- anyone can pursue success,
- success is possible for anyone,
- success is achieved through hard work and prudence, and
- success is associated with virtue (see: Protestant Ethic).
- Hochschild points out that:
- American society has erected social barriers to some (i.e., related to skin color, ethnicity, sex, sexual-orientation, and so forth),
- although it is fine to dream of success, not everyone can be rich and famous,
- hard work does not guarantee success (e.g., ask any Iowa farmer!), and
- the successful are no more virtuous and the unsuccessful are no less virtuous
for being so.
- Hochschild describes possible personal and societal dysfunctions of adhering too closely to the ideology of the American dream.
- The frustrations of the minority can escalate when the majority fails/refuses
to acknowledge their privileged position.
- When people realize that success might not be possible they experience "relative deprivation," a sense of failure compared with what they thought possible.
- Lack of success can be especially devastating if one cannot achieve it despite a life time of hard work.
- If outcomes do not match promise, then those who do not achieve success are deemed to be unworthy. Such perceptions can result in cruel and harsh societal penalties imposed upon those who did not have an equal chance for obtaining success.
Discussion Questions
- From a symbolic interactionist perspective, in what ways do we reinforce the connection between virtue and success in our everyday interactions with one another?
- From a structure-functional perspective, what is the problem of adhering to the ideology of the American dream?
- From a conflict perspective, what is the importance of challenging the validity of the American dream?
