Class 6
The Core values of the « American Dream ».
The AD (American dream) is based on two lines:
1. Politic Changes (the oldest).
2. Economic changes.
2. During the end of the 19th there was the hope that immigrants had to make a better life in the US.
The four components of the American Dream:
.Freedom
.Individualism
.Progress
.Melting Pot
The US is where freedom is the best protected. It’s the land of freedom.
The founding of the US was the following: A republican place where individual liberties were protected.
10 amendments were posted: Bill of Right in 1791. The First amendment is the most important: guarantee for individual freedom and freedom of speech, of the press and religious matters.
But there’s a paradox: Slavery: it’s most obvious the rejection of constitutional freedom. Blacks were piece of Property.
In the 19th many racial groups started demanding application of the 1st amendment and constitutional rights to them.
The fight for individualism was made for individual liberties.
In the 19th there was a rise of the expansion towards the weak colonisation of the West. In the Frontier: it will reinforce status of individual liberties. Everyone had to be self-reliant. Everyone had to manage by himself. This led to the creation of the self-reliant individualism. It reinforced the founding political values.
Negative side: the American society is a very harsh and highly competitive society. Individualists are not supposed to rely on others. Individualist who fails are responsible for their failure.
Progress is directly linked to the two others. It’s linked to the fact that the US is a society of immigrants. The American people want to improve their way of life. In the US, each generation had to be better than the previous one. American people believed in technologie. Thechnological progress is supposed to make life better. They don’t pay attention to their past. If something is historical, it’s something bad. Tomorrow is always better than today.
The late 18th word itself is much recent. Created in 1908 in a play wrote located in the US. A French immigrant St John de Crevecoeur wrote Letters of an American Farmer in which he said taht in America, individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of man. All people on earth may find a heaven in US and be incorporated in something new.
America was founded by people from Britain and Dutsh and German. They shared the same religious background, they were Protestants, later described as WASPS group (White Anglo-Saxon Protestans) in the late 19th when Brittish settlers has the feeling to be invaded by other groups.
The melting of races in 1782 was never implemented. All the groups ha to adopt Wasos way of behaving at the begining. After few years most of them stayed among themselves. The language is the only things which was adopted.
Things changed in 1960’s when all minotities started demanding recognation (Civil Right movement) and since then ethnik identities has become one majure of defining American politic life (identity politics).
The AD experienced a complete redefinition in 1960’s-1970’s. It was a true crisis because of the war un Vietnam and political scandal like Watergate. The confidence of people have collapsed.
Since 1980 things have chaged. For the past twenty years there was a strong conservative renewal based on the promotion of the Amercian nation.the AD had recovered. People are convinced of it.
The AD is a part of the American nationalistic feeling. It’s the best value in the world for American so they think they had to export it to the other countries.
It’s a nationalistic assension.