The American Dream has been widely criticised, and is sometimes referred to as the American Nightmare. The American Nightmare stipulates that the American dream is nothing but an illusion and says that the pursuit of success, happiness and liberty is unrealistic in most circumstances and societies. The American dream has nothing to do with the will to help people in difficult situations. Nowadays, many people are suffering from poverty and the rich are getting richer. As a result, a huge gap between rich and poor arises, which is not a positive aspect of the American Dream.
In terms of unequal opportunities, the American health care system represents inequality at its best. The fragility of the health care system has been a disaster in the USA. The COVID-19 pandemic and the high death rates illustrate their problematic situation. Patients have to pay for most of the therapies or surgeries out of their own pocket if they are not able to pay for private insurance.
In society, although there are equal opportunities by law, we can still criticise the struggle Americans face concerning deep systemic racism, as it is described in the chapter “Migration and the American Dream”. Despite the high unemployment rate, immigrants often encounter barriers in their careers and working lives. Because of potential linguistic trouble or general lack of education, immigrants do not have the same starting conditions compared to Americans. The result is a vicious circle for immigrants because parents who experience barriers and are on welfare [dt.: Sozialhilfe beziehen] set a very difficult starting platform for their children to succeed in society.
Beside the struggles within the American society, it is important to remember the tangible American nightmares, like the Vietnam War or financial crises. After World War II, western politicians were afraid of communism spreading in their countries. During the Cold War, the conflict between the USA and Vietnam arose. The Vietnam War was the longest war in American history and the tension, animosity [dt.: Feindseligkeit] and disagreement within American society was even more extreme than during the times of the Civil War in the 19th century. The US government desperately wanted to win the war, so they kept pushing and pursuing victory in a war that, in reality, they had already lost.
This enforcement induced terrible massacres like rapes, eviscerations [dt.: Verstümmelung] and killings (e.g. the My Lai massacre in 1968). These war crimes [dt.: Kriegsverbrechen] clearly do not mesh with American values and norms, so the Vietnam War can really be seen as an American nightmare. From that time on, America’s neutral and morally exemplary position in the world was criticized. Self-doubt as well as self-criticism became common in American society. Nowadays, both countries, Vietnam and the US have tried to improve their relationship.
Another war which was instigated [dt.: angezettelt] by the USA was the Iraq War in 2003. A main reason for attacking Iraq were the links between the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, al-Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorists.
In addition, the Gulf War (1900- 1991) and the aim of expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait contributed to the Iraq Wars. Some American soldiers thought that it was their duty to take revenge because of the 9/11 terrorist attack in Manhattan. On 20th March 2003, American troops invaded Iraq in order to overturn the Iraqi regime and the dictator Saddam Hussein.
The American government wanted to disempower Hussein and to establish a democratic leadership. “Operation Iraqi Freedom” were President Bush’s words and his mandate. While George W. Bush announced the end of the war with the words “Mission accomplished”, this was extremely contradictory to reality since severe conflicts and fighting were and are still plaguing Iraq, a country that is far from a peaceful democracy. The USA was convinced that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction [dt.: Massenvernichtungswaffen] as well as biological and chemical weapons; however, this has never been proven. In 2011, after 100,000 people had been killed since 2003, the US troops left Iraq.
Nowadays, soldiers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the majority of Americans consider the war to be a total failure. The USA was confronted with a lot of criticism from other countries and members from the UN Security Council. Nevertheless, roughly one-third of Americans do not view the Iraq War as a failure because this would mean thousands of soldiers died for nothing. Other nightmares, described in previous chapters, include slavery and overt racial discrimination, police violence, excessive gun violence, the death penalty, and poverty.
It is necessary to not deny those catastrophes/nightmares, but to acknowledge them and to attempt to prevent further “nightmares” from happening. Even a seemingly positive event can have negative consequences, as in the case of industrialisation. While it allowed for economic benefits, it also led to people working on mass production lines feeling alienated [dt.: entfremdet] and dehumanised. Working processes were split into smaller steps, so even unskilled workers were able to fulfil requirements. Workers’ rights were quite limited. Because the work was so simple, every worker could be replaced by another at any given time and every job was extremely unstable. Although an exploited working class was created to some degree, industrialisation was also responsible for developing the American Dream and the Golden Age.
Nevertheless, the idea of the American Dream is still a deeply held belief, characterised by patriotic and positive thinking, which gives some people strength, motivation, hope or even inspiration. Such role models or examples of people who went “from rags to riches” could be Andrew Carnegie (a “robber baron” from the Gilded Age), Henry Ford, Oprah Winfrey or former president Barack Obama.
All in all, the American Dream remains only a dream which could well become true, but is highly dependent on the individual and their external circumstances.
Visionen und Alpträume beziehen sich immer auf die Geschichte oder Missstände Amerikas oder den American Dream und sind somit bei Diskussionen oder dem Kommentieren in der Transferaufgabe miteinzubringen. Nicht zu vergessen ist der emotionale Aspekt, die traumatischen Belastungen amerikanischer Soldaten aus einem Krieg oder die Entmenschlichung am Fließband zu Zeiten der Industrialisierung. Im Gegensatz dazu stehen Gefühle zur Stärkung, Motivation, Hoffnung und Inspiration. Die emotionalen oder auch psychischen Extremsituationen sind schon in Verbindung mit einer Karikatur oder als kreative Aufgabe abgefragt worden.
Are African Americans still discriminated against?
Newscasters often talk about unarmed African American people being targeted by the police. The discussion shows that extreme prejudice and hate still very much exists in the USA and leads to very real social problems. Lower class African Americans can fall into a vicious cycle, where children grow up in bad living conditions, with poor education, and therefore limited job prospects. With no intervention or changes to the system, their own children will eventually have the same fate. This generalisation can further fuel prejudice and opinions that all African Americans must be naturally incompetent and unsuccessful, which is incredibly unjust and untrue.
This thinking is a deeply-rooted problem and racist ideas and prejudices can still affect many people of all ages. For example, older people can have very strongly conservative attitudes towards foreigners. Today the term THUG life, which means “the hate you give little infants fucks everybody” is a famous quote from late rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur. He was well known for his criticisms of American society and for his rebellious opinion. The quote also appears in Angie Thomas’ novel The Hate U Give. In an interview, she explains that when unarmed African Americans lose their lives at the hands of prejudiced Americans, the hate they have been given puts everyone at a disadvantage, or “screws us all”.
Organisations fighting for African American rights show that there is still inequality which differs in each region. Nevertheless, methods like affirmative actions, established by J.F. Kennedy, attempt to decrease discrimination. Affirmative actions are socio-political measures that try to increase opportunities for minority groups and replace discrimination with non-discrimination.