life, liberty and the pursuit of (fill-in-the-blank)

LIFELIBERTY PURSUITOF

An analysis of the changing faces of the

American Dream

( fill-in-the-blank)

AND THE

Thoughts on POPTONE paper from the French Paper Company.

LIFELIBERTY PURSUITOF

An analysis of the changing

faces of the American Dream

( fill-in-the-blank)

AND THE

Copyright © 2011 by Emily Shields

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Dedicated to my parents, who inspire me to pursue my dreams.

THEAMERICAN

DREAM

From the first days of its founding, the United States has fascinated the

rest of the world with its distinct character , an identity firmly rooted in an

American Dream of rising from nothing to greatness, largely by virtue of

talent and hard work. And the Dream has been leveraged as a powerful

marketing tool, to sell everything from cigarettes to prefab houses to politi-

cal candidates. It resonates in marketing and advertising in ways that are so

ingrained as to be barely detectable. But time and tide have had their effect

on the Dream, and the character of the people who believe in it.

Over the past half-century, the changing faces of the American Dream have

paralleled the evolution of the American character, a parallel that has been

greatly reflected in pop culture throughout the decades.

THE CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE

LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF .

Mobilization for World War II lifted the American economy permanently out of the Great Depression.

Hard work pays off in material well-being and respect. I will be better off with each passing year. My children will be better off than I have been. All hard-working Americans can own a home. Sacrifice, self-denial, and deferred gratification are virtues. Social acceptance is more important than our self-expression. Faith in God and country is unquestioned. Cars, possessions, and vacations are all badges of respectability. Men and women have traditional gender roles as breadwinner and homemaker.

THE 1950’S AMERICAN DREAM

07


Pent-up consumer demand fueled exceptionally strong economic growth in the post-war period. The nation’s

gross national product rose from about $200,000 million in 1940 to $300,000 million in 1950.

Many Americans feared that the end of WW II

and the subsequent drop in military spend-

ing might bring back hard times of the Great

Depression. Instead, pent-up consumer demand

fueled exceptionally strong economic growth in the

post war period. The automobile industry success-

fully converted back to producing cars, and new

industries such as aviation and electronics grew by

leaps and bounds. In 1947, commercial television

with 13 stations became available to the public.

Computers were developed during the early forties.

The digital computer, ENIAC, weighing 30 tons

and standing two stories high, was completed in

1945. A housing boom, stimulated in part by easily

affordable mortgages for returning members of

the military, added to the expansion. The nation’s

gross national product rose from about $200,000

million in 1940 to $300,000 million in 1950 and to

more than $500,000 million in 1960. At the same

time, the jump in postwar births, known as the

“baby boom,” increased the number of consumers.

More and more Americans joined the middle class.

College became available to the capable rather than

the priviledged few.

The United States recognized during the postwar

period the definite need to restructure interna-

tional monetary arrangements,

initializing the creation of the

international Monetary Fund.

Business entered into a period of

consolidation and firms merged

to create huge conglomerates.

The American work force also

changed significantly. The num-

ber of workers providing services grew until it sur-

passed the number who produced goods. By 1956, a

majority of U.S. workers held white-collar jobs.

Growing demand for single-family homes and the

widespread ownership of cars led many Americans

to migrate from central cities to suburbs. Coupled

with technological innovations such as the inven-

tion of air conditioning, the migration spurred the

development of “Sun Belt” cities such as Houston,

Atlanta, Miami, and Phoenix. As new, federally

sponsored highways created better access to the

suburbs, business patterns began to change as well.

Shopping centers multiplied, rising from eight at

the end of World War II to 3,840 in 1960. Many

industries soon followed, leaving cities for less

crowded sites.


family. house. car. television.

POSTWAR PROSPERITY

The Four Freedoms paintings offer tremendous insight into how US citizens viewed their idealized selves. This idealization became the backbone of the post-war American dream.

Levittown is today a byword for creepy suburban conformity, but Bill Levitt,

with his Henry Ford–like acumen for mass production, played a crucial role

in making home ownership a new tenet of the American Dream. From 1900

to 1940, the percentage of families who lived in homes that they themselves

owned held steady at around 45 percent. But by 1950 this figure had shot up

to 55 percent, and by 1960 it was at 62 percent. Likewise, the homebuilding

business, severely depressed during the war, revived abruptly at war’s end,

going from 114,000 new single-family houses started in 1944 to 937,000 in

1946—and to 1.7 million in 1950.

Buttressed by postwar optimism and prosperity, the American Dream was

undergoing another recalibration. Home ownership was the fundamental

goal, but, depending on who was doing the dreaming, the package might also

include car ownership, television ownership (which multiplied from 6 mil-

lion to 60 million sets in the U.S. between 1950 and 1960), and the intent to

send one’s kids to college.

HOME OWNERSHIP BOOM


13

Nothing reinforced the seductive pill of the new,

suburbanized American dream more than

the burgeoning medium of television.

The introduction of television after World War II

coincided with a steep rise in mortgage rates, birth

rates, and the growth of mass-produced suburbs. In

this social climate, it is no wonder that television

was conceived as, first and foremost as a family

medium. Over the course of the 1950s, as debates

raged in Congress over issues such as juvenile

delinquency and the mass media’s contribution to

it, the three major television networks developed

prime-time fare that would appeal to a general

family audience. Many of these policy debates and

network strategies are echoed in the more recent

public controversies concerning television and

family values, especially the famous Murphy Brown

incident in which Vice President Dan Quayle

used the name of this fictional unwed mother as

an example of what is wrong with America. As

the case of Quayle demonstrates, the public often

assumes that television fictional representations of

the family have a strong impact on actual families

in America. For this reason

people have often also assumed

that these fictional households

ought to mirror not simply

family life in general, but their

own personal values regarding

it. Throughout television his-

tory, then, the representation of

the family has been a concern in Congress, among

special interest groups and lobbyists, the general

audience and, of course, the industry which has

attempted to satisfy all of these parties in different

ways.

In the early 1950s, domestic life was represented

with some degree of diversity. There were families

who lived in suburbs, cities, and rural areas. There

were nuclear families (such as that in The Adven-

tures of Ozzie and Harriet) and childless couples

(such as the Stevens of I Married Joan or Sapphire

and Kingfish of Amos ‘n’ Andy). There was a variety

of ethnic families in domestic comedies end family

dramas (including the Norwegian family of Mama

and the Jewish family of The Goldbergs). At a time

when many Americans were moving from cities to

mass-produced suburbs these programs featured

nostalgic versions of family and neighborhood

bonding that played on sentimentality for the more

“authentic” social relationships of the urban past.

The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet was one of the most enduring family based situation comedies within the

history of the American television. Ozzie & Harriet were a direct reflection of what Americans wanted to be.

THEFIRSTTVFAMILY


Within the domestic comedy form itself, the nuclear family was increasingly

displaced by a counter-programming trend that represented broken families

and unconventional families. Coinciding with rising divorce rates of the

1960s numerous shows featured families led by a single father (My Three

Sons and Family Affair and the Western Bonanza), while others featured

single mothers (Julia and Here’s Lucy and the western The Big Valley).

By 1967 the classic domestic comedies featuring nuclear families were all

canceled. At the level of the news these fictional programs were met by the

tragic break up of America’s first family as the coverage of President John

F. Kennedy’s funeral haunted America’s television screens. We might even

speculate that the proliferation and popularity of broken families on televi-

sion entertainment genres was in some sense a way our society responded

to and aesthetically resolved the loss of our nation’s father and the dream or

nuclear family life that he and Jackie represented at the time.

RISE OF THE UNCONVENTIONAL FAMILY


19

THEREAGAN

ERA

While the song, “Born in the USA” demonstrated

that American pop culture could generate powerful

critiques of Ronald Reagan’s vision for America,

in truth, it was very typical of its time. Popular

American songs and movies of the 1980s were more

likely to celebrate Reagan’s values than to challenge

them. For most of his presidency, Reagan was quite

popular, and pop culture, by and large, reflected the

American public’s admiration for the president and

his worldview.

The most dominant trend even in hip-hop, was not

toward social activism as it was toward material-

ism; legendary ‘80s rhymes celebrated hot women,

big bling, hot cars, and even cool sneakers. Ronald

Reagan and his conservative supporters may not

have appreciated the cultural aesthetics of hip-hop,

but most rappers embraced an individualistic, com-

petitive, and materialistic ethos that shared much in

common with President Reagan’s own worldview.

American culture generated a wealth of works

seemingly simpatico with the prevailing ideolo-

gies of Reaganism. For example, one of the early

hits that lifted Madonna to a career of pop super

stardom was “Material Girl” (1985), Madonna’s

material values marked a sharp break from those

that had predominated in the 1960s and ‘70s heyday

of countercultural rock n’ roll, when tunes like

Loggins & Messina’s “Danny’s Song” (1971) preached

a different message.

Ronald Reagan was without a doubt popular for the majority of his presidency, and pop culture, by and large, reflected the American public’s admiration for the president and his worldview.

The shift in lyrical themes in pop music from

the ‘60s to the ‘80s mirrored a distinct shift in

values and priorities for many young Americans.

It is always dangerous, of course, to make broad

generalizations about entire generations of people;

there were plenty of corporatist strivers around

in the hippie ‘60s and plenty of countercultural

dropouts on the scene through the “materialist”

‘80s. That said, young Americans who reached

maturity during the Reagan Era were much more

likely than their ‘60s predecessors to

hold Reagan-like values. College cam-

puses that had erupted in protest and

anarchy during the ‘60s welcomed

burgeoning Young Republican clubs

in the ‘80s. Young grads sought law

degrees and MBAs in record numbers.

Today, Americans who came of age during Ronald

Reagan’s presidency remain, the most conserva-

tive generational cohort within American society.

The “Reagan Generation” Americans born between

about 1960-70—is currently the only age cohort

of the American population in which Republicans

outnumber Democrats.44. Perhaps the iconic pop-

culture representation of that cohort was Alex P.

Keaton, the character played by Michael J. Fox on

the hit ‘80s sitcom Family Ties. Alex P. Keaton was

the perfect embodiment of the Reagan generation;

the teenage son of aging hippie parents, he idol-

ized Milton Friedman, kept a portrait of Richard

Nixon at his bedside, subscribed to the Wall Street

Journal, and never went anywhere without his

briefcase. The huge generation gap between the

ultra-capitalistic Alex and his parents provided

Family Ties with seven primetime seasons on NBC.


A NEW REALITY


25

As the ‘70s gave way to the ‘80s, the center of gravity in thinking about the

American Dream was forced to accommodate a new reality—that of economic

uncertainty. Standards of living no longer moved up automatically each year.

Second jobs became a necessity to maintain the desired standards of living.

For the first time, Americans had to ask if the Dream really could apply to

every American, or just some Americans.

If the American Dream of this period had many faces, it is important to

acknowledge that some of those faces were ugly. The sexual revolution,

widespread divorce, single parenthood, and improvised schooling criteria

had side effects, not all of which were attractive. The American character

soon had to accommodate the reality of unintended consequences from

change—from declines in education results and rises in sexually transmitted

diseases to psychologically troubled kids and rampant drug abuse.

HEREIN LIES THE AMERICAN PARADOX. WE NOW HAVE, AS AVERAGE AMERICANS, DOUBLE REAL INCOMES AND DOUBLE WHAT MONEY CAN BUY. WE NOW ALSO HAVE LESS HAPPINESS, MORE DEPRESSION, MORE FRAGILE RELATIONSHIPS, LESS COMMUNAL COMMITMENT, LESS VOCATIONAL SECURITY, MORE CRIME AND MORE DEMORALIZED CHILDREN.

THEAMERICANPARADOX

HEREIN LIES THE AMERICAN PARADOX. WE NOW HAVE, AS AVERAGE AMERICANS, DOUBLE REAL INCOMES AND DOUBLE WHAT MONEY CAN BUY. WE NOW ALSO HAVE LESS HAPPINESS, MORE DEPRESSION, MORE FRAGILE RELATIONSHIPS, LESS COMMUNAL COMMITMENT, LESS VOCATIONAL SECURITY, MORE CRIME AND MORE DEMORALIZED CHILDREN.


HIGHUN

EMPLOYMENT

RATES

OVERSPENDING


In hewing to the misbegotten notion that our standard of living must trend

inexorably upward, we entered in the late 90s and early 00s into what might

be called the Juiceball Era of the American Dream—a time of steroidally out-

size purchasing and artificially inflated numbers. It was no longer enough

for people to keep up with the Joneses; no, now they had to “call and raise

the Joneses.” This personal debt, coupled with mounting institutional debt,

is what has got us in the hole we’re in now. While it remains a laudable

proposition for a young couple to secure a low-interest loan for the purchase

of their first home, the more recent practice of running up huge credit-card

bills to pay for, well, whatever, has come back to haunt us. The amount of out-

standing consumer debt in the U.S. has gone up every year since 1958, and up

an astonishing 22 percent since 2000 alone. The over-leveraging of America

has become especially acute in the last 10 years, with the U.S.’s debt burden,

as a proportion of the gross domestic product, in the region of 355 percent.

Which means debt is three and a half times the output of the economy, which

is most definitely an historical maximum.

THE CONSEQUENCES 29

The American dream can no longer be just about money. While a nice house and a pay raise will always be attractive, the new American dream has to be about living within our means and simple continuity for the sake of our future.

THEAMERICAN DREAMWILLPREVAIL


GOING FORWARD


A dream is an aspiration. A sense of greater possibility and a motivation to

push through difficulty to a better day just beyond reach but within sight.

It’s not a dream if you’re hanging on by a thread, trying to keep what you’ve

already got. The aspiration of ‘greater, better’ is gone when all you’ve got is

‘protect, preserve.’ It is a fragment society, there can no longer be a single

vision anymore of what each individual aspires to.

It is time for a change. The market crash, the ensuing recession, the

worsening societal inequality—these are not normal cyclical downturns or

growing pains. We are in a crucial transitional stage. The nature of our

economy is changing; the nature of what people want from our economy is

changing. A whole new system for creating wealth is taking shape, a new

kind of capitalism that is powerful and full of promise, but far from fully

formed. Yet neither party is proposing measures that might help it along

because neither appears to grasp what’s going on.

35

And what about the outmoded proposition that each successive generation in the United States must live better than the one that preceded it? It’s no longer applicable to an American middle class that lives more comfortably than any version that came before it. The time has come for simple continuity, where the standard of living remains happily constant from one generation to the next.

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