I don't remember the first time I heard the term "American Dream," but this pithy little cultural descriptor has been batted around by social commentators for as long as I can remember. It's what drives us. It's why we climb out of bed at ungodly hours, drug ourselves with $3.50 coffee from Starbuck's, take our lives in our hands on the freeway and spend eight hours (and often more) fulfilling someone else's American Dream, in hopes that, somewhere along the line, we'll somehow find and realize ours.
We've heard it so often, we don't even think about it much. It's just there. Yeah. The American Dream. But ... what exactly is the American Dream, anyway?
If no definition quickly jumps to the forefront of your mind, don't feel like the Lone Ranger. I don't think it's supposed to. The fact that the "American Dream" is for most of us a rather vague thing is, I believe, the genius of its design. I can't prove this, of course, but I'm pretty sure this shadowy, nebulous catch-all for American aspirations is, like almost everything else "American," the creation of some advertising wizard.
Whatever it may have been, once upon a time, the American Dream today is mostly about money. And not about getting money or having it, but mostly about being able to spend it. Advertising agencies spend millions trying to convince us that something most of the rest of the world would consider an incredible luxury (or downright profligate) is something we can't live without.
Drive around the average middle-class neighborhood on a warm Saturday afternoon and count the number of two-car garages which do not have room for two cars because at least one stall is full of stuff. Note the number of RVs, and tarp-covered watercraft and snowmobiles that sit unused week after week in the driveways. The great American pastime is not Baseball, it's buying. And we're so jaded -- we already have so much stuff, that it's not the purchased thing itself, but the act of acquisition that we crave. Not convinced? Ever watched what people buy at garage sales? I rest my case.
Acquisition is at the core of the American Dream. It's all about getting something you don't yet have. In fact, it's an addiction. How else could so large a portion of the American populace have become so enamored of Donald and Ivana Trump? The Donald, who subsequently traded his trophy wife in for a newer model, Marla Maples, wrote "The Art of the Deal." I'm still amazed that a man could be so lionized for writing a book in which taking advantage of people financially is described as an art form. It was Trump's contention that the real fun wasn't the thing itself, but the getting of the thing. It was the Deal itself that he dreamed about.
One of his most talked about deals was one in which he got a large yacht for about 10 percent of its estimated value. He didn't even want the yacht. It wasn't even part of the deal he was there to negotiate. But at some point in the talks, it came up, and Trump saw a chance to take it for a fraction of its actual worth. He couldn't resist.
And poor Ivana? It says a lot about our country that "trophy wife" is a job description to which a significant number of women actually aspire. She spent a few years jet-setting around on Trump's credit card while he did his deals, then came away with a fortune in the settlement. Not to mention her Book Deal. In fact, you don't even need to be married to a Trump anymore, to cash in big. Palimony suits can net you everything you'd get from a divorce settlement, as long as you don't get foxed into a pre-nup. Such a deal.
Since Trump made his big splash, greed has become not only permissible but fashionable. Mergers and Acquisitions became the ultimate power occupation. People wore power ties, had power lunches. "Hostile takeover" now rivals golf as the most popular sport among the super-rich. Speaking of sports, somewhere along the line, those "old school" heroes that once played for love of the game stopped competing for the Stanley Cup, a Super Bowl ring or Olympic Gold and sought to become the Highest Paid Player or negotiate the Biggest Endorsement Contract.
When America got a little queasy with all this exercise of raw greed and threatened to go spiritual, scientologists such as John Travolta and Tom Cruise did their bit to give acquisition a religious underpinning. A "clear" Travolta, for example, went out and bought his own personal airliner. His lifestyle has been the subject of a number of respectful articles in popular magazines. And the arbiters of American culture (otherwise known as TV programming executives) gave us the soft, feminine side of avarice with Martha Stewart (whose employees might dispute that dear Martha has a "soft" side) and the pseudo-spiritual pop-psychology talk show Oprah! Oprah is Acquisitions Nice. She blows kisses while her agent plays hardball renegotiating her TV contract. She has her own magazine, which is primarily a forum for showcasing all the stuff she has acquired.
Not to be left out, the American Church has done it's best to keep pace. Robert Fuller's Crystal Cathedral in California became one of the most notable (but certainly not the only) monuments to a sort of Celestial Capitalism. Amway and other pyramid-style get-rich-quick sales schemes were started by ... yes, Christians. Around the same time, a number of charismata-oriented churches managed to find in the Bible the long hidden Prosperity Gospel. Hosanna! God Wants You Wealthy! Believe and Receive!!
Thanks to Oprah, shopping -- always a guilty pleasure for many American women, is now just good therapy. One popular Health and Wealth Gospel advocate, a few years back, made no bones about it: Having problems? Feeling blue? No need to kneel at the foot of the cross -- go get your nails done! Buy that new dress! Redecorate!!!
Well, I'm done. You can pay $3.50 for a cup of coffee -- and $350 for a new XBOX, $3,500 for the big screen TV, $35,000 for an SUV and $350,000 for that step-up townhome if you want. It is, after all, the patriotic thing to do. Can't let the Engine of American Commerce stall. But I'm joining the ranks of the unpatriotic. I'm done propping up the always just-out-of-reach American Dream.
Actually, I've been a secret member of Acquisitions Anonymous for sometime: I cancelled my cable contract and stopped watching broadcast TV six years ago. (I do have a smallish TV, however. It's a gift form my older son, given to me when he bought his 25-incher. On it, I watch movies, which I take seriously and consider a spiritual discipline. Really.) But now I'm coming out. I drive a 14-year-old car only because I still can't figure out how to entirely do without one, but I prefer to ride the bicycle I picked up at a garage sale 12 years ago for $25 dollars and would be thrilled to take the light rail to work if it went anywhere near my job. Most of my furniture is other people's cast offs. My nicest sweaters cost me under a dollar apiece. My favorite jacket -- real leather -- cost me $6 because the zipper didn't work. But the piece de la resistance was the house, a good-sized three-bedroom bi-level with two-car garage on a quiet street in a good neighborhood: Gave it to my ex-wife in the divorce settlement. Didn't see a dime. The most freeing thing I've ever done in my life. I honestly haven't missed it -- or the lawn mowing, cleaning, upkeep, house payment, insurance and utility bills -- not even for a single day. And I'm going through what little unused stuff I still have left and I'm divesting, down-sizing, streamlining, simplifying.
If that's not treasonous enough: I don't dream about winning the lottery. In fact, I've never even bought a lottery ticket. Never will. Not because I think the lottery is wrong, which I do, but because I really, honestly have absolutely no desire to be rich like The Donald and have my very own trophy wife and a yacht. Or a personal airliner. Or a Martha Stewart home that Oprah would want to picture on a spread in her magazine.
There, I've said it. Hang me for a traitor, but here I stand.
No comments:
Post a Comment