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Whose [American dream] is it?
spacekungfuman
Poor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERS regular
Poor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERS regular
An interesting tangent arose in the defining feminism thread, which I think merits it's own topic. Privlege is discussed a lot on these boards, usually in the context of pointing out that one side of a debate is benefiting from it, but the origin of that privlege is mentioned far less. @Lolken posted a very interesting article from New York magazine (http://nymag.com/news/features/money-brain-2012-7/index4.html), which I recommend that everyone read. Here is a quote that stood out to me:
I think a lot of the article seems to show a pretty clear bias (and some of the researchers mentioned seem to even acknowledge this) but I think this part is spot on. The question in my mind is whether or not we should view this finding as a bad thing. If the wealthy are subscribing to ideas of rugged individualism and unbridled opportunity, does this mean they are harming others for the sake of their own advancement, or are they simply the last adherents to the "American dream" while the less well off have veered towards an attitude that is more community focused but also in direct opposition to classical American thought?
Based on discussions on these forums, it seems like there is a connection between people thinking the American dream is dead and being in favor of policies that favor groups over individuals. Have we outlived the usefulness of th American dream, or is the problem that some people have moved away from it, while other are holding fast to these traditional ideals and actually achieving them, while the rest of society isn't even throwing their hat in the ring?
The aforementioned research seems to show that getting money and having money makes people selfish and antisocial. But it also appears to be true that selfish, antisocial people are the ones that ascend. And that is, in part, because rich or striving people tend to pass on their values and priorities to their children, as all parents do. Members of the lower and upper classes usually date and marry within their own ranks and “live in neighborhoods and attend schools and work with individuals who share similar levels of educational training and income,” write Kraus and his co-authors in their forthcoming article. And so the values of each group become both more and more clearly entrenched and incomprehensible to the other. “Parents in working-class contexts are relatively more likely to stress to their children that ‘It’s not just about you’ and to emphasize that although it is important to be strong and to stand up for oneself, it is also essential to be aware of the needs of others and to adhere to socially accepted rules and standards for behavior,” wrote a team led by Nicole Stephens, with Stanford University psychologist Hazel Markus, in 2007 in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Parents with higher incomes “more often tell their children that ‘It’s your world’ and emphasize the value of promoting oneself and developing one’s own interests.” The cries of “Go get ’em!” you hear in the playgrounds and on the baseball diamonds of America’s best neighborhoods reflect not just concern for children’s self-esteem but a worldview that emphasizes looking out for No. 1.
This is Markus’s main research interest: the mind-sets of class. She and her colleagues have found, broadly speaking, that the affluent value individuality—uniqueness, differentiation, achievement—whereas people lower down on the ladder tend to stress homogeneity, harmonious interpersonal relationships, and group affiliation. In 2005, Markus co-authored a paper that showed those with only a high-school education like country music for its message of group coherence, while those with college educations like indie music because it emphasizes personal uniqueness. In her 2007 paper, Stephens found this same variance in self-image by testing people’s preferences in ballpoint pens. She divided her subjects into two groups of lower and higher incomes and showed each subject five pens and asked him to choose one. The pens were identical and were widely considered to be good, even desirable. The only difference among them was their color. Three pens in the handful would be one color (say, green); two would be another (orange). In the test, lower-class people overwhelmingly chose the green pens, whereas higher-class people picked the less common color. Lower-class people wanted to be the same as their peers, whereas better-off subjects showed, Stephens wrote, “a preference for uniqueness and individuation.”
I think a lot of the article seems to show a pretty clear bias (and some of the researchers mentioned seem to even acknowledge this) but I think this part is spot on. The question in my mind is whether or not we should view this finding as a bad thing. If the wealthy are subscribing to ideas of rugged individualism and unbridled opportunity, does this mean they are harming others for the sake of their own advancement, or are they simply the last adherents to the "American dream" while the less well off have veered towards an attitude that is more community focused but also in direct opposition to classical American thought?
Based on discussions on these forums, it seems like there is a connection between people thinking the American dream is dead and being in favor of policies that favor groups over individuals. Have we outlived the usefulness of th American dream, or is the problem that some people have moved away from it, while other are holding fast to these traditional ideals and actually achieving them, while the rest of society isn't even throwing their hat in the ring?
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And it's both telling and damning that the period of greatest economic growth for the US coincided with strong feelings of collective unity, whereas periods where individualism was celebrated are marked by weak economic growth.
Plus you see various European countries rate higher than America on social mobility and social cohesion, so its clearly not an either/or situation as well.
Traditionally, grasping dicks have been granted low cost access to the public trusts. That "unclaimed" land to the west actually belonged to everyone who's tax money bought it in some way.
I host a podcast about movies.
Yes, but those resources was still in many places consolidated into Planter Plantations and Robber Baron fiefdoms. My point being that in the past that would occur and there would still be economic opportunity left over - the small farmer bought out by the cotton plantation could go grow wheat out west, the guy from the Appalachian company town or foreign immigrant could go get a job in the Factory belt with a cheap house. There was space that could absorb those displaced by the machinations of the elite, but there really isn't any more (unless you're willing to take a massive drop in quality of life).
Boy howdy is that some kind of stretch. I hate motivational research because people do this kind of thing all the time and extrapolate whatever they want from it. I would have picked the pen that was either a color I liked or promoted the greatest symmetry in remaining pens. What class am I?
There's undeniably a difference in class mindset, though. It's most readily apparent in schooling and codes of conduct between neighborhoods of high socioeconomic status and those of low socioeconomic status.
The American dream was largely funded, as other people have noted, by the abundance of land and resources left in this country after all the natives were relocated or wiped out. Once all that land was bought up, the American dream focused on new industries and ideas like fast food or film and radio, now that those industries are all glutted up the American dream has moved on to whatever innovations you can milk out of the internet. Eventually we'll be out of those too and mega corporations will own the internet and we'll have to move on to some other frontier. The real problem is that society doesn't have enough turnover. Since corporations are essentially immortal as long as they can continue selling their product, it's had to clear up room for new stuff to grow. We're like one of those choked European forests or deep jungles with no undergrowth because no sun reaches past the trees.
I think framing the "American Dream" in terms of individualism versus collectivism demonstrates quite a bit about your own presumptions.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Correlation does not equal causation. I don't think the point you are trying to prove is necessarily mistaken, but the way you're trying to prove it here is.
@Thejakeman: There has been a lot of research done previously that shows that members of relatively collectivistic societies as compared to those of individualistic societies (eg US/Japan, though the latter is growing less collectivistic) choose objects according to those patterns, on a group level. Of course, there aren't a lot of folks who go "oh my GOD I gotta conform here" - everyone is influenced by a multitude of factors stemming from personal history and biological development and our choices, which are formed to a large degree on a subconscious level, are too. But when two groups differ mainly in regards to only one of these factors, you get a group difference. And to make sure that there's not some other factor they differ in that's creating the pattern you do the experiment all over again with members of another couple of collectivist/individualist societies. What I'm saying is, there is some background to this, showing that the experiment really does seem to have some value when trying to figure out differences in collectivism/individualism. Of course, it's not perfect, few things in Psychology research are, and so many other methods to analyze this should be used to see if the results are consistent or not, and if they aren't, you have to start looking at other explanations. But yeah, when researchers/journalists do this jump from one study pointing somewhat in one direction to "CONFIRMED, RICH PEOPLE DON'T CARE" it can turn into a problem. In this case though, the context shows that the study is only one part of a large body of research and the article was well-written IMO, so I for one can forgive the article writer for her imprecision.
Again, I don't disagree with the premise, I just disagree with science trying to graft itself into inherently subjective recording of subjective opinions from people with a diverse set of worldviews by devising tests to demonstrate a conclusion that is not itself apparent in the data (motivations). While scoffed at by the scientific community because of the inherent subjectivity and very loose data, collecting anecdotes and performing embedded ethnographic research is a much more tenable way of demonstrating an internal mindset.
Some have accused me of being a post-modernist, though. *shruuuug*
The American Dream is about upward social mobility, not individualism. And it is the current trend of sociopathic libertarianism among the ultra-wealthy that is in opposition to classical American thought.
Edit: Also, the experimental method allows, to some extent, for investigating what COULD be instead of just the current situation. It's hard when it comes to social psychology because even if you find, in experimental settings, consistent findings showing that people who are made to be poor for a while and THEN become wealthy are more caring for others than those who are wealthy from the start, you can't be sure that is how it will play out in reality. But, combined with other research, not leastly social statistics, you can get some potentially valuable pointers.
And this is entirely about finding out the mindset and how it relates to what they do, by the way. That's what the article was about, the mindset of the wealthy as opposed to that of the poor. That's what the experiment was about, extrapolating the mindset from the behaviors it causes. So your second sentence doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Edit: Oh! I forgot something! The writer makes a huge mistake when she says that wealth is the sole reason for the richer classes' higher levels of cognitive function, it's the correlation does not equal causation thing again. There's quite a lot of research that indicates that people with higher social economic status have relatively more advantageous genetic makeup when it comes to cognitive function, actually. I think the differences have been exaggerated by many researchers (mostly due to ignorance in regards to effects of diet, etc. and bias stemming from political motivations) but still, to say that the difference in cognitive function is wholly caused by more wealth instead of the relationship being high cognitive function leading to more wealth is frankly incorrect and a huge blunder. In reality, of course, there is a bidirectional interaction.
Not a comfortably wealthy income and a single-family home?
I don't think "the American Dream" includes an overpriced apartment and an invitation to the correct parties.
Second, upward social mobility doesn't necessarily mean that being at the top is the only thing that should be called success, just that there is a chance that you can take if you have the necessary skills to go up, maybe only to the middle, but up nonetheless.
@SKFM: [..."all men are created equal" and.. they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."[2] ] That kind of implies that you should have a high level of respect for others and not step on their rights, which so very often happens today in the name of individualism. Moreover, the high income group is NOT the only place where you find people "pushing for making it on your own", just no. Did you miss Eminem? All the prominent black athletes from the slums? Steve Jobs? I don't even know what you're saying.
"In the name of" was putting it poorly since few would explicitly say they do something because they believe in individualism, but what I mean is for example when a highly-educated, rich high-up who was born into a wealthy family abuses law loopholes so that she can fire her workers at anytime and does so without a second thought as long as it benefits her, because it is in her best interests. You might say she doesn't really violate their rights because she didn't actually break the law, but IMO that is more of a technicality - if the laws were intended to grant the workers rights related to work safety, she is violating them.
Edit: And my point is, of course, that individualism(as a growing proportion of rich Americans envisages it, I think) makes this kind of behavior more acceptable, at least among the rich.
@SKFM: Well sure, those tendencies exist, it's right there in the article, I just reacted to how you said the rich were the ONLY ones to say "you can do it, on your own!". Compared to how people parent in Sweden I think even the poorest Americans are cramming the whole "you are the best and most beautiful in the wooorld!" shtick down their kids' throats. But if the American dream is about [having the opportunity to] moving up the ladder, who says you have to do it on your own? Why can't you become part of a basketball team that makes it big, or work really hard with your colleagues to improve the school you work at to make things better for the people you care about and yourself? Why would co-operation run counter to the American dream? Many of the "greats" we've mentioned in this thread have had some kinds of partners that they cared about. Besides, traditional American society has always placed great emphasis on the core family - within that small group, "Everyone should do well together and help each other out" is upheld as important, even among most of the very rich.
And to claim that Bill Gates is a result purely of his mindset is patently ridiculous. His dad is a multimillionaire lawyer, and the only reason Bill Gates Jr. was even exposed to computers as a youth was his super-expensive private school. Bill Gates didn't achieve the American dream; his father did, and only with the help of the government (he went to UW on the GI Bill). Also worth mentioning: the Gates (both Junior and Senior) are huge advocates of collectivism. Sr. co-wrote a book about how awesome the Estate Tax is, and funded a referendum in Washington to try to put an income tax on the wealthy.
I for one think that societies get what they deserve - if social mobility is stifled for too long the poor rise up and lynch some rich people. Governments destroy themselves, and if market logic is allowed to reign for too long the ranks of the losers will soon become so large they destroy it.
Uh duh? Those who aren't from wealthy backgrounds are saying the 'world isn't your oyster', because for their kids it isn't. Thanks to a systemic dismantling of mechanisms that used to mean everyone had a chance, if your parents don't bankroll you you're not going to be able to do whatever you want in life.
Even the dude building a house on a deserted island probably isn't individually inventing all carpentry technique.
And I'm not even interested in living on a deserted island! I want to be relevant to society at large! That's pretty tough without a large society.
You can only manifest that attitude if you're born with assets.
When you aren't, people will accuse you of having a sense of entitlement.
There seems to be this pervasive modern notion that hard work is necessarily individualist; that socialists and communists and other community-oriented -ists are such because they want to parasitically ride on somebody else's labor. Of course, this idea is based on ignorance and is counter to common sense. Ignorance because it ignores the roots of socialism and communism in the labor movements of the late 19th century and early 20th century; these labor movements were all about collective action and solidarity. Common sense because humans rarely achieve anything without the help of others - the whole reason that (as one dramatic example) the Amish value physical labor so much is because they know the sense of community it can foster. The idea that you can achieve success without cooperation is one of the most poisonous Libertarian lies, IMO.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Then the progressive movement happened and thanks to labor reforms and two world wars that left us the strongest intact economy and industry we had a strong middle class for a couple decades. But now there is a new wave of that spirit of Fuck the Poor creeping up.
You didn't build your business on your own, if you didn't have people helping you or a country supporting you or a customer base you wouldn't be able to build a business.
The American dream is for everyone to have an equal chance to make bank, not that everyone will or that we should take money away from people like Romney and SKFM and give it to people like me (aside from a fair and progressive tax structure that will foster a stronger nation with good infrastructure, education, and defense capabilities). There should be a baseline of needs that are met so we don't have people dying in the streets and going into bankruptcy because they got sick. There should be a fair and honest criminal justice system that addresses the actual problems in our society and meters out equal protection under the law. Any kid should be able to graduate high school and have the tools they need to choose further education or entering the workforce.
And yes, there should be the capability to fail. We wouldn't have WD-40 without WD 1-39.
Opportunity. That is what's missing. And it's because people use the myth of Lonely Islands to dismantle the programs and ideas that made the middle class possible.
Opportunity: that's the American dream.
Yet again, you post something that is even more entertaining when imagined in Toby Ziegler's voice.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I think the avatar in influencing my writing style a little bit.
Historically, Lochner v. New York and Plessy v. Ferguson.
Or heck, slavery itself. The emancipation of slaves would tread, according to some secessionists and pre-secessionists intellectuals, over private property, which was the most sacred right of all. Basic XIXth-century economical liberalism thinking.
I see it as exactly the opposite... A failure of collectivist thinking where an entire society draws together to protect an institution because it affirms their social standing as a group, defending it even to the point of harming themselves.
Ok, whatever. What's your excuse for Lochner?
Well, I'm not sure it's that either, because it's not the entire society. The slaves are part of the society too.
It's really about othering and an overemphasis on the rights of the wealthy. I don't think individualism or collectivism is relevant to it.
Hahah. That seems not very much about individualism either, unless you grant that labor rights are inherently collectivist. I'm not willing to just grant that, so you'll need to explain why it is.
From the Lochner decision:
There is no reasonable ground, on the score of health, for interfering with the liberty of the person or the right of free contract, by determining the hours of labor, in the occupation of a baker. Nor can a law limiting such hours be justified a a health law to safeguard the public health, or the health of the individuals following that occupation.
Someone better tell all those confederate apologists in the tea party, especially Ron Paul...
And history books...