Juliana's RWS 200 Blog

Walter Fisher, along with the other people we have read texts from, explains the idea of how each person, group, community, or even social class think about the American Dream differently. Some see it as a concrete thing and some see it as a mindset. A big idea Fisher discusses in this text from 1972 is that there are actually two American Dreams. He also calls the American Dream a myth, or rather a "public dream."  One of the American Dreams is materialistic in the sense that it is the "rags to riches" success story that has cars, big houses, and fancy clothing to show for it. This dream, Fisher says, is related to "work ethic" and the competition within the system we live in for personal success. He claims that this dream is "compassionless and self-centered." This reminds me of the American Values text we read about. When I read about the part about individualism, the ideas on paper sounded very selfish. Day-to-day, thinking about it does...

Along with other people whose culture is anything other than American, I think I have an interesting perspective on this article.  I grew up in a household that spoke Portuguese, ate Brazilian food, and watched Brazilian TV (yes, you can pay to get Brazilian channels here and you can bet that my parents did that). But I also grew up going to school with people who I spoke English with and ate American-style food and liked watching shows like The Bachelor (sorry guys I really can't relate to this one haha). Because I have been surrounded by American culture my entire life, I have definitely noticed some of the values that Althen mentions in this article. The first one he focuses on is Individualism. I feel like being from liberal California, especially having grown up in the Bay Area and now being in San Diego I am so used to hearing parents allow their children to choose their own path. It seems very normal for people to "live for themselves" rather than for othe...