The American Dream Never Dies

We’re amused and disappointed when reports surface every couple of years questioning whether ‘the American dream’ remains alive. There are of course two main parts to this subject: (1) what exactly is the American dream, and (2) who or what is it that decides whether it is alive or dead? It’s worth a little time to think about these questions. They are deeper than they first appear.

The American dream is often described in material terms—the children of one generation growing up to have better clothes, a nicer car, a bigger house and eat at better restaurants than their parents. In times of economic hardship, it’s fairly easy to roll out the arguments by which these things may in fact be farther out of reach of one generation of children than another.

But material-based or surface-level definitions of the American dream miss many deeper points, one of which is that these ‘things’ are merely symbolic of the results of a life devoted to self-improvement through hard work and playing by the rules. (Self-improvement, by the way, is not a selfish or self-centered concept but a term encompassing improvement to all aspects of the human condition—i.e., you and your neighbor). So the American dream isn’t about whether a particular generation of children can or will accumulate more material things than their parents, but about whether the upcoming generation has (1) the right to live, and the aspiration to live, a life devoted to self-improvement through hard work and playing by the rules, and (2) the assurance that good results will follow from doing so.

Well, the assurance of good results was pretty well codified a long time ago in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He promised that all these ‘things’ would be added unto anyone who put God first and lived by His rules of righteous living. So the other questions are whether each generation of human beings has the right to live, and are capable of living, a life a life devoted to self-improvement and playing by the rules. That initially and fundamentally depends on who ‘we’ are—a question we first explored in “We Do Not Want This”.

The founding fathers of America had a firm conviction that ‘we’ are the children of a loving Creator—they said so in the Declaration of Independence. That settled the question of whether we are capable of living life for the purpose of self-improvement. The only remaining question was whether we have the right to live that life in the nation they were founding. The founding fathers answered that one with firm conviction as well: our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were expressly stated to be endowed by God and unalienable by human government.

So in effect, the founding documents of America enshrined the spiritual foundation of what is in truth, the universal dream or longing of every human heart. They didn’t create the dream; they just provided the organizational framework by which the divine foundation of the dream was affirmed and the right to pursue it protected from the despotic tendencies of evil men and women who would take it for themselves and deny it to others. It has become known as the American dream; its roots are actually much older and deeper.

This spiritually-grounded American dream isn’t dead and can never die. It isn’t based on economic conditions but on the truth of what we are and the opportunity to freely make and live by the consequences of our moral choices. And the rewards that come to the individual who pursues the dream and to the society comprised of many such individuals are always unlimited. The ‘things’ which manifest these rewards may change from one era to another, but the substance of what they represent does not.

So the periodic reports about the faltering or rising condition of the American dream are amusing to the extent that they try to measure it in the shallow terms of the prices of desirable things and who can or cannot afford them at any given point in time. But these reports can also be disappointing in the sense that they are forever coming out of the mouths and minds of those who decided long ago that faith in God was either stupid (because they have decided there is no God) or irrelevant (because they have decided faith in God has no practical impact in human life).

That wasn’t the way the founding fathers thought. And the religious awakening going on throughout the country is reminding Americans of every size, shape and color that it isn’t the way they think, either.

The American dream is eternal, and it is inherent in the America of the founding.

Paul Gable

September 23, 2010