Peggy Noonan on the American Dream

This doesn't happen very often.  Ms. Noonan, a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed columnist, can sometimes be very reasonable, but more often touts the GOP anti-Obama (at a personal level) line.

Today, however, she reviewed a book about the Obama campaign and what they mastered in the last campaign:  Speaking to the middle class.  In doing so, she also revealed a most unfortunate bi-product of the 30 year focus on tax cuts (which I supported back in 1982 because tax rates were too high).

I quote her now.

"The groups revealed that the American dream meant less to younger workers than older ones.  Here is a departure from the book:  There is pervasive confusion about what the American dream is.  We seem to redefined it to mean the acquisition of material things - a car, a house and a pool.  That was not the meaning of the American dream a few generations ago.  The definition then was that in this wonderful place called America, you can start out from nothing and become anything.  It was aspirational.  The limits of class and background wouldn't and couldn't keep you from becoming a person worthy of respect, even renown.  If you wanted to turn that into houses and a pool, fine.  But you didn't have to.  You could have a modest job like a teacher and be the most respected woman in town."

Amen.  I remember Miss Metz (my 11th grade English Teacher) and Mrs Armondi (my 6th grade teacher.)  Modest houses, quite lives dedicated to teaching, living within their means, but looked up to by students and parents alike in a town of 5,000 where everybody knew them.  And it wasn't just teachers.  Engineers, factory workers, Dentists, salesman, pilots, entrepreneurs all lived on my street.

That was the town.  Aspiration for respect in what they did to contribute to their job and the community.  Living within their means and hoping their children would live life with more security than they had.  Now security is surely financial because the business cycle created unemployment then, and we still have unemployment today.  That is the way our economy functions and supports everything in an efficient manner.

But there is a focus today in the media and the political debate that seems to focus on worthiness based on your financial success alone.  Money in politics.  Newspaper articles about financial success and failure.  That may be how the American dream became redefined, but it is not positive.

Everyone cannot be rich, but that does not mean people should not be able to be rewarded for effort and become rich.  People must aspire to things and be respected for whatever they choose to do (so long as it is not criminal or unethical).

I grew up with the old American dream and wonder if we can ever convert it back.  I think we can because I don't think it has changed for the working class, where such respect is most needed, based on an interaction I had this week with a "Man with a Van" delivery service.  I think the issue lies in the attitudes of college students, who no doubt were the target of the survey Ms. Noonan references, and within the media and the tone of the political discourse.  That is not simple to address, but it is a worthy goal.  The American Dream should be aspirational, not materialistic.