Fantasy Aspirations and the American Dream

[elfs]

1.

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh the other day, and he was going on and on about how Obama's health care plan, whatever it is, must be stopped. His major reason, in fact for the half hour I listened his only reason, was on something that affected him personally: it'll raise his marginal tax rate.

I'm sure a lot of Rush's listeners don't have healthcare of any kind. They have too many assets to qualify for state aid, yet have so little income they can't afford their own health care coverage. Here they are, listening to a man with his own private jet, and then some of them will still go to the phones and call their congressman and tell him not to vote for the health care reform package. I had ask myself, why, why would they do such a thing?

2.

Shortly after my encounter with Limbaugh, I was in a convenience store where a big, middle-aged woman in a shabby, fading summer dress was scratching at a long streamer of lottery cards with the kind of frantic eneregy starving badgers reserve for abandoned termite mounds. She must have spent fifteen or twenty dollars on a game where we all know the house wins, no matter what, and state lotteries especially are nothing more than taxation against those who were failed by the school maths system.

3.

Andrew Cherlin has a book out, The Marriage Go-Round, in which he writes:

Americans believe in two contradictory ideals. The first is the importance of marriage: we are more marriage-oriented than most other Western countries. The second is the importance of living a personally fulfilling life that allows us to grow and develop as individuals–call it individualism. Now, you can find other countries that place a high value on marriage, such as Italy where most children are born to married couples and there are fewer cohabiting relationships. And you can find countries that place a high value on individualism, such as Sweden. But only in the United States do you find both. So we marry in large numbers–we have a higher marriage rate than most countries. But we evaluate our marriages according to how personally fulfilling we find them. And if we find them lacking, we are more likely to end them. Then, because it's so important to be partnered, we move in with someone else, and the cycle starts all over again.

There is a part of me that can't help but think that Cherlin has put his finger on something that explains the other two, but there's a piece missing, and that piece is this: The American dreams come from a fantasy ideology of eternal aspiration to magnificence.

Fantasy ideologies are those that are pursued even at great personal pain and great communal cost-- indeed, that pain and cost validates and grants significance to the pursuit-- because the core story of the ideology is personally satisfying, even though the participants also know the goal of the ideology to be impossible.

Limbaugh's listeners, the lottery player, and the re-re-remarried, all have the same ideology: the American aspiration to some form of magnificence. I think Cherlin is wrong about the personal fulfillment part; it's more profound than just that. The personal fulfillment is a consequence of having a magnificent marriage, just as Limbaugh's listeners will act against their own self-interests, and the lottery player will spend money she's almost guaranteed to lose, because while the chances of magnificence are infinitesimally small, making them even smaller (by re-arranging the tax code, or by not playing the lottery) are even smaller.

I read somewhere that the Danes tend not to be too worried about the state of the world because they are not especially aspirational, and they are not anticipating overwhelmingly positive outcomes, and so every year they're happier than the rest of us precisely because they're pleasantly surprised, year in and year out, to discover that life isn't as crappy as they expect. Americans are the opposite, and so we divorce and remarry, with the hope that the next marriage will be magnificent. We play the lottery, in the hopes that we will win that magnificent prize. We listen to Rush Limbaugh, because he is (for some definition) magnificent, and we aspire to someday have a private plane like his.

The funny thing about all of these examples is that all of them contain an implicit element of fate: we know that to have a good marriage you must not only find the right person, you must be the right person, but most people assume that both of those are a matter of luck, not effort; the lottery is, of course, pure luck; and even making it big in any industry is as much a matter of being lucky, of being in the right place at the right time, as it is one's skill and persistence.

Americans, of course, will deny that they believe life is a lottery. Yet they act as it is, and taking it away from them, making them actually see the numbers, draining away the emotional energy that powers fantasy, brings to the fore more outrage than most politicians can handle.

I think that's a lot of the game. Even the birthers play it: they know the whole birth certificate thing is a dud. But they reserve the right to fantasize otherwise. Democrats did it during Bush's term: "Wouldn't it be great if Congress finally impeached Bush?" Republicans are doing it now: "Wouldn't it be great if a nuke went off in Chicago?" (I didn't make that one up.)

Fantasy aspirations to personal magnificence, especially of the ideological flavor, haunt this country. The marriage fantasy hurts children, especially since it's neither single-parent or dual-parent homes that help children, it's affirmative long-term stability that helps children; I've seen what happens to kids whose parent introduces lover after lover as "my life partner," only to have each relationship shatter on a frighteningly reliable three-year cycle. The lottery fantasy hurts the poor; the Limbaugh fantasy hurts the lower middle class willing to listen to him.

America was not always driven by such fantasies. We were much more hard-eyed a century ago. Our current bout of navel-gazing will be much more difficult to get out of than it was to get in to. But we have to do it, or we are looking at the latter days of a once great nation.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

*sigh* the problem is not enough folks watched "The Lorax" when they were kids. Everybody, Wall Street in particular, has this idea that they can keep on Biggering and Biggering and Biggering, to the point where they've enshrined it in corporate law as the end-all and be-all of existence ("Maximize Shareholder Value")... and sooner or later we're going to hear the sickening smack as some idiot bushwhacks the last Trufula Tree.

"Unless."

As for the whole marriage fantasy thing. Once in a great while boy meets girl (or girl meets girl or boy meets boy) and it's totally fscking wonderful, solid like a rebar-reinforced masonry outbuilding. You and your lovely lady, case in point. Sometimes it's solid for a while, and then Stuff Happens. Case in point, the guy typing this comment. Some people wouldn't know a solid relationship if it smacked them up'side the head. No further comment necessary.

I think perhaps it is that kids need to learn what makes a good relationship and what doesn't, and that most importantly "happily ever after" is a snotload of WORK (and just as importantly, if you're not having at least a goodly modicum of fun you're *doing it wrong*) and that it's ok and really *best* to call it off if things get broke beyond fixing.

In a word, less fairy tale, more practical living.

A lesson I just realized I learned in the last year.

Fairy tales are fun, and once in several lifetimes you get a chance to live one. (See also, damiana_swan and satyrblade.) But I gave up on doing it for myself, preferring to get busy living instead of looking forever for some crossroads that don't exist.... and I find I'm having the time of my life, and am *far* too busy for most people's sanity.

We Don't Always Agree

[(Anonymous)]

1: I saw this and thought of you -- especially item #5. Top 10 Geeky Things You Don’t Know About Romance Writers (http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/07/top-ten-geeky-things-you-dont-know-about-romance-writers/).

2: I completely *disagree* with you about why Rush Limbaugh should be taxed because he works hard and is successful in order to pay for *your* health insurance. I also think that if we want to turn the USA healthcare model into that practiced by Britain, Canada, and Massachusetts that this is an absolutely *horrible* idea. Perhaps when the bar falls low enough -- as it will inevitably have to do in order to pay for this boondoggle of liberal pandering to their base -- and you end up paying for other people's health insurance yourself that you may feel differently. You yourself say that we were more hard-eyed a century ago. Do you really feel that this socialist approach to health insurance would have passed muster then? And if you insist that you're not a hypocrite and that you would gladly pay more taxes to benefit those with worse health coverage than your own Then Start Now! You have always been allowed to pay *more* taxes than are assessed. You can even send checks directly to The Bureau of Public Debt (http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/) if you feel you're not paying enough already. Just don't tell the rest of us what we should be paying.

3: When you purchase a lottery ticket you are buying more playing a game with a 50% average payoff at best. You are buying the hope and fantasy for a moment at least that a lucky moment can turn your entire life around. I don't find that nearly as sad as what happens to too many of the people who do actually win big prizes and pretty much have their whole lives totally destroyed in the process. It's more an object lesson to them than boon. I do feel that people shouldn't play more than they can afford, and agree with Ben Franklin who praised the lottery as the best kind of tax because it was completely voluntary.

--DB_Story

Re: We Don't Always Agree

[(Anonymous)]

As an American who lives in Britain, married to a Scot, with a Scottish born son, I only have to laugh at your comment on healthcare. This is the problem with "typical" American ideology. It's all about ME--and screw the rest of you. (And I know not all American's subscribe to this philosophy)

Healthcare is a SERVICE, but in America it is treated as a BUSINESS. People in Scotland are more likely to see their GP (read:doctor) for preventative purposes, and thus are to receive care earlier, and are more likely to catch things earlier, and are therefore less expensive to care for. I think it is is pretty rotten to profit off of others sickness.

Case in point, my son was born with severe complications. He was in the special care unit for three weeks. The doctors thought his recovery would be faster if I was there to attend to him at will, when he needed it, and so told me they'd like me to stay in the hospital (as long as there were no pressing need for the bed) until he could be discharged. This would never happen in the US, and his immediate care would have almost certainly bankrupt us. Should he have been shut out of the hospital and thus left to possibly die because we are not rich? That is just not compassionate.

I'm going to leave it at that, but from one who has experience care on BOTH sides of the Atlantic, I will gladly take the British system over the American one any day.

Re: We Don't Always Agree

[(Anonymous)]

What I didn't state clearly in the post above, albeit my son's care, is that the UK system cares more about wellness, than cost--the US values cost over wellness. I guess it just depends on what you value more.

Re: We Don't Always Agree

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

This is the problem with "typical" American ideology. It's all about ME--and screw the rest of you. (And I know not all American's subscribe to this philosophy)

I would say most in the U.S. subscribe to what I call FYAIGM. It's replaced NIMBY.

FYAIGM :== F*ck You All; I Got Mine


And, yes, the problem with healthcare in the US has nothing to do with public vs. private, single-payer vs. multiple insurance providers. The real problem is that U.S. healthcare is for-profit.

[codeamazon.livejournal.com]

It's not that we aspire to magnificence, I think. It's that we don't know how to deal with a normal sense of failure and so we externalize it. NO spouse (job, money) will ever be enough to fill that hole if you don't figure out how to stand on the side, say "oh..the hole" and move along.

I have watched person after person take what I suspect is a fairly normal developmental stage of "oh shit..my life is half over..and I'm still not sure I'm doing it right!" and respond by throwing away previously functional marriages, careers, etc. hoping to find someTHING that can fill the void.

I suspect the void is a developmental stage like teens being total idiots and that it's not possible to avoid it completely. Unfortunately most of us have no context for "oh..the void..that's pretty normal, just don't stare so long you fall in."

How we respond to it is probably cultural, and American's have no context for "oh...I feel insufficient...but that's actually normal and ok!"

[lovingboth]

Yep. Somewhere I have a survey that discovered that a large percentage of Americans - way over half - think they are, or soon will be, in the richest 10%. They're wrong, of course, but it's what allows the people who are to exploit them.

[lovingboth]

Oh sure, the UK system has faults. But it's better than the involuntary lottery that is the US 'system'.

Still, if you can buy lots of tickets, you'll probably be ok, so that's all right then.

Re: We Don't Always Agree

[mundens.livejournal.com]

For those who don't believe that the US government should, like almost every other world government, support health care for it's citizens, I have two simple questions :

1. What is the point of having a government if it doesn't care for it's citizens?

2. Isn't there something fundamentally wrong with a government that spends more money on killing people in foreign lands than it does on caring for it's own citizens?

[mrf-arch.livejournal.com]

America was not always driven by such fantasies. We were much more hard-eyed a century ago.

I emphatically disagree with your premise. America was founded on such fantasies. Here's my favorite example, and one you've likely heard of too, if not in its original and amusingly megalomaniac form:

The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as His own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways, so that we shall see much more of His wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, "may the Lord make it like that of New England." For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. - John Winthrop, aboard the Arbella, 1630

Winthrop's paradise was, of course, the collection of shacks which eventually became the city of Boston. Another set of Massachusetts Bay exceptionalists 150 years later decided that this collection of Okie colonists was somehow going to prove capable of holding off the entire military might of the largest empire in the world at that time. The 19th century brought the Gold Rush (or, more accurately, a whole set of them.)

I could go on from there, but I think the point is obvious enough. Most fantasists are disappointed, in the end, but as long as there are enough winners to keep everyone playing, the game goes on.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[gromm.livejournal.com]

"But we have to do it, or we are looking at the latter days of a once great nation."

You already are, if you ask me. But then, there's some 5000 reasons why as well. And the funny thing is, that's exactly why Republicans want a nuke to go off in Chicago - to get the country out of it's current bout of navel-gazing. Mind you, that would be more about getting what they want, which at present seems to be some kind of Stalinist or Fascist regime where those that wouldn't *want* to follow them into their version of Magnificence could be put to death for treason.

Remember, that a nation is great when it has a singular focus and a collective harmony of opinion, which is a terrible thing indeed.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

Yes, but consider this:

If you buy one lottery ticket twice a week for 30 years, you have an infinitesimally small chance of winning.

If you save the same amount of money, you have at least $9000 plus compound interest, which over that period would net you probably about 2 or 3 times that amount. Which is guaranteed.

This is what differentiates gambling from investing.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure at least half of those first settlers who held such fantasies died within the first two years, just so you know.

But I suppose they *did* keep coming, in spite of the disastrous personal and societal cost.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I really suck at math

And that's why the state imposes this additional tax upon you.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[shunra.livejournal.com]

How would you feel about a $10/year tax that would be used by the state for discretionary relief of hardship?

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[shunra.livejournal.com]

So you'd rather have no control over who gets to spend the $10/year/person tax than risk having the control be in the hands of someone you disapprove of?

(I am *very* good at math; what I don't get is people.)

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[mrf-arch.livejournal.com]

I'm not attempting to make a point that being a nation of fantasists is necessarily all that pleasant, at least for the disappointed majority. (I just recently stumbled across an Economist article which was discussing some preliminary research linking depression and unreasonable goal-setting.) Only that it's not a recent phenomenon.

[lovingboth]

Hmm, often the interest rate on savings accounts will be lower than the rate of inflation. Who knows what $9k + interest will be worth 30 years from now? A single period of high inflation = you've lost.

It also gives zero chance of the multi-million dream.

For stocks, you've got the overhead of fees to pay and the press here has been full of 'I've done what I was supposed to do - pay into my tracker for thirty years - and now it's worth less than the money I paid into it' articles.

I wouldn't call spending money on lottery tickets a wise investment move, but six dollars a week is very much in the discretionary spending category and there are a lot worse things to do with it.