Defacing the American Dream

I am a second generation American.

My parents came here on boats from Italy in the 1920s. Like many Southern Italian immigrants, they were fleeing significant hardship, poverty and turmoil in their homeland. America was the land of opportunity and freedom.

These courageous men and women brought skills as stone masons and as makers of glass, silk and wine, while others were mariners, architects or musicians. Like my father, many of the first generation adult children enlisted in the Civilian Conservation Corps in the late 1930s, and later fought and died for their country in World War II.

Author and historian James Truslow Adams popularized the phrase “American Dream” in his 1931 book, “The Epic of America,” where he described it as:

“That dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”

Adams was descendent from Venezuelan grandparents and was fortunate to have experienced the dream himself. He was a dedicated student and would go on to achieve an advanced education with a Master of Arts degree from Yale University.

But the tenets of Adams’ American Dream were rooted in the Declaration of Independence and the preamble to the United States Constitution, particularly the principles of democracy, equality, and the belief in the potential for all citizens to thrive.

Adams was also critical of the dream about which he wrote so eloquently. He warned through the 1920s and 1930s that “money making” had risen to overtake moral virtues as the driving force in American culture. A hundred years later we are seeing the full force of Adams’ criticism threaten to destroy the moral vitality of the American Dream.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” — The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, July 4, 1776 (original spelling)

These are indeed powerful words and the authors must have known even then that establishing a new nation based on such high moral values would be extremely difficult.

Certainly Americans have experienced many periods of decline despite the best efforts of its leaders and hard-working citizens. Born into the abomination that was slavery, the nation survived a civil war, two world wars, several “lost” wars, and a brush with nuclear annihilation.

There is so much to be criticized about the development of this nation, it is difficult to know where to begin. Suffice to say that we have not lived up to the high ideals as expressed in our founding documents. We have failed repeatedly to meet those standards, often by our own stubborn ineptitude.

To witness declining moral value as a result of simple ineptitude is one thing. But to watch as immoral men in power take egregious actions to destroy whatever moral value we have left, and with it, the moral standing of our nation, is quite a different matter. Today we are witnessing the defacing of the American Dream.

The American Dream saw a modern-day revisionist uptick beginning in the 1950s. The assumption during this period of restoration following the end of the Second World War was a picture of harmony amid post-war consumerism — for white folks in the new suburbs.

Unfortunately, this picture was never true even for the white folks. It certainly was not true for Black, Indigenous, people of color and the foreign born. Against this white backdrop of a revisionist picture was displayed the systemic racial inequality of the period.

Between then and now, many right thinking individuals have made sustained efforts to end, or at least reduce, this and other systemic inequalities endemic in American culture. Their work paid off in substantial ways that, at the very least, offered hope to those historically deprived of opportunity.

America is a nation of immigrants. If that were not so, then I would not be here. Instead of brutal deportation machismo, why not offer a reasonable path to citizenship to our fellow travelers? We need their labor, we need their fresh ideas and their energy. We must respect their humanity.

America was once a leader in fair and open trade, welcoming ideological allies whatever cultural differences they brought.

America was once a leader in correcting it’s past sins, the courts and government apparatus free to confront systemic racism, poverty and disenfranchisement.

Are there problems that remain, yes! Many of them, and it is certainly time we confront these issues head-on. The childish rampage of macho misfits running things today will eventually self-destruct. The only question is how much of our nation will be destroyed in the process?

Strategizing to counter the current wave of what Ms. Magazine recently called “insecure conservatism” takes courage to stand our ground and confront the mega-wealthy raping our nation’s resources, educational institutions and world standing:

“In the camp of insecure conservatives, you find the worst — men who thinly veil their self-loathing, fears of inferiority and resentment of women with moral posturing and false religious principles. Socially stunted, often physically awkward, with profoundly low self-esteem, they overcompensate for their insecurities with shock value.”

We cannot stop the defacing of the America Dream, as it is well underway. We are already a laughing stock in much of the world with which we were once allies.

We will emerge a wrecking yard for short-sighted autocratic distortions, hype and overt propaganda, a third-world nation with a first-world deficit. We must prepare for the greatest, most profound loss of a nation’s identity since the American Civil War.

We can only look forward and plan the renaissance of the American spirit, rebuild where necessary, and take this opportunity to modify our perspectives to correct endemic problems.

We must return to the integrity, hard work and self-sufficiency that built this nation, dump the toxic media that so divides us, re-organize our corrupt political system, and get down to work on rebuilding the American Dream.

If we do nothing, then all we will have left are colossal entertainment/shopping/waterpark theme centers like the one in New Jersey’s Meadowlands appropriately named “American Dream.” Keeping the people entertained and distracted is a key to lasting autocracies.

But in most cases throughout history, autocratic regimes eventually collapsed the nations they pretended to govern. Let’s not let that happen to us.

…

Vic Caldarola is the founder and lead facilitator of the Shine a Light Men’s Project, a men’s mindfulness discussion program. He holds a PhD in Communication studies.

If you enjoyed reading this story, please show your support and buy me a coffee. Thank you.

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***