US History: Knowledge and Myth

How many people here have heard the events of our first Thanksgiving and the events that followed from the prospective of the Natives? They have a completely different story to tell, that is, the few who survived.

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Exactly

 

The definition of the American Dream seems to vary, depending on the background of the person doing the talking. It always seems to be a lifestyle that is one or two steps above where they started out. For example, many recent immigrants think that America is all about giving people the opportunity to work hard and make a good enough living that you never have to worry about where your next meal is coming from, or being homeless. Working class Americans used to talk a lot about the dream of owning a brick house in the suburbs and two cars. Middle- to upper-middle class individuals generally seem to define the dream as the ability to get rich if you get a good education and work hard. Others define it as the expectation of doing better than the previous generation, no matter how well or how poorly they did.

If nobody agrees on exactly what the American Dream is, then we aren't going to know if it is alive or dead.

 

We have our own definition of the American Dream in Georgia, we call it "Lotto," or, in Georgian, "Latree."

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No doubt many people in the US think this way, at the same time though there's an odd contradiction a lot of people have where they have the "ends justifies the means" syndrome going on, where they're fully aware of some of the terrible things the US has done but ignore it saying in the end it was for the greater good, ect.


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I'd disagree, I think the American system is very open to change, especially since so many states have an open referendum system. To a lot of people that is the American dream, that Americans can work together and overcome anything when the time calls for it. Granted it's often winds up not being true but the same is true for every single country, but at least we give ourselves a false sense of optimism. The British could use a bit of it. It may seem obnoxious in other countries but the whole "yes we can" spirit sits on both sides of the political spectrum here, and I agree, it's very egotistical of us that we need to be number one in everything. Even Obama in his state of the union was doing the same thing, I remember specifically him saying there's no reason for America not to have the world's fastest train. Things like that come down to just being plain asinine sometimes but I like the spirit here from both liberals and conservatives that we will be the best in everything because we can be.

Again often winds up not being true, but it's good inspiration that both sides feed off of. Tea baggers really behind their belief America is already the best, liberals on their belief America has the power to be anything it wants.

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See the problem is I wouldn't call it social class divide vs monetary divide. Britain is more divided by class in terms of society and culture, where there's a whole very ingrained culture surrounding each class. America it's more simply about how big your checkbook is.

I'm sure there's plenty of nice people in France, and I hear France is generally a nice place outside of Paris. Paris though I hear is full of snobs. Also culture I think plays a big role between the countries. America is an extremely polite place, France on the other hand people seem to have no problem being abrasive to each other in public, this sets the stage for Americans seeing the French as rude and the French seeing the Americans as prude and uptight.


Also I live red wine and cheese.

Still applies, Americans are Americans, are collective experience is a smorgasbord of cultures from around the world smashed into one overly polite, overly egotistical and overly obese society.

Well yes, you just made my point, because America is a bit of an experiment in social Darwinism. People are a product of their environment. And yes, there is a trait immigrants shared that has ingrained itself into American culture that is nowhere near as strong as anywhere else in the world that effects our entire culture and political system, individualism. Why do you focus just on the word bravery when the next line after it is "we're over fearful" The whole point of the quote is showing how Americans are contradictory in what they do and say. But back to immigrants. Our country was built on the backs of dirt poor people who risked everything to come to a place they had probably never even seen a picture of. All they knew was supposedly in America you could do whatever you wanted to with no one to bother you. Where there was vast expanses of land that had yet to be settled, wilderness just up for the taking, cities just waiting for you to open a store, ect. Granted most of this minus wilderness never was true for original immigrants, but they grew to see their kids assimilated into America though.
At the same time people who didn't stay in the east were literally pioneers, people going across a whole continent, or people who stopped in the middle and settled there, hundreds of miles from any major city.

Point being though most people came here with a "I can make something of myself and god damnit I will" attitude" and its still stuck in the heads of our people. Considering how many people risk life and limb to be brought here it seems to still be stuck in the collective world imagination too.

Nope, I'm claiming Americans are weird, and we're aware of it, yet we like it. Going back to the East of Eden quote, its really true. We're overly egotistical and boisterous in our bragging, but then cry like babies when anyone insults us. We're overly sentimental about our past and do everything to protect every tiny thing from it but argue endlessly over improving actual in use infrastructure. We take great pride in our national parks yet have no problem destroying the environment. We tell our kids that education is the most important thing and to do good in school yet fear the educated "elite". We hold the American dream dear and believe all change is possible, yet constantly complain America is turning into a third world country. We're ridiculously kind and friendly to complete strangers, yet we keep guns in our homes because we're convinced one of them will rob us. It's about contradictions, take Americans and welfare. A good deal of the country is all "arrgh, no free handouts, no welfare, ect" yet, at the same time we give more to charity to give people handouts than any other country in the world.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-06-25-charitable_N.htm
In another words we fully believe in handouts to the extreme, but god forbid if the government does it its "arrgh communism!"

The American dream is all part of our American experience, and the great thing about it is there is no specific American dream, it's whatever anyone wants it to be. Our country is so vast, so diversified, relatively young, and became a world power so quick that it does give us some ridiculous sense of optimism. It all does come down to that singularity of immigration, even if it was forced. Most of our ancestors had to overcome ridiculous hardships and we're young enough where its still in our collective minds and it gives us a "anything is possible!" attitude.

Again, it's really in reality no different then the rest of the world but I prefer a country full of overly polite and friendly people who even when dirt poor still have some hope for a change that will often never happen then a bunch of people walking with their heads down grumbling to themselves.

Optimism is a great thing when reality sucks. We're really no better than any other country, but we collectively think we are, and it makes us happy and hopeful. What can I say, I live in a country with the most austere welfare system in the world, a draconian legal and prison system, where I haven't had health insurance in 3 years and where I think about 1/4 of our population is mentally retarded, but what can I say, I love America. Maybe its a form of constant and subtle brainwashing.

But it's all good, I'm voting for death to America in 2012. Real change.

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Stinkfoot made me think of something, the only common theme running through Americans is that they all generally love America. Why do we have so many contradictions? We're just so diverse. Really, the only country that can even come close is Brazil. The US is probably the greatest experiment in sociology in the past 200 years, and when you put people from every corner of the world together in one spot I guess the only thing they can really agree on is they like America, they're not so distant ancestors came here for a reason(or were forcibly taken here) and they're going to keep that dream alive.

America, America, please hear us when we call
You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and bustle
You got Atticus Finch
You got Jane Russell
You got freedom of speech
You got great beaches, wildernesses and malls
Don't let the might, the Christian right, fuck it all up
For you and the rest of the world

 

Mad

Your argument seems to back up my own; I’m saying that many Americans prefer the myth to reality and you seem to be saying the same that they prefer to have a “false sense of optimism”, in other words that they would rather believe in the myths than face the reality. They like to think of the US and their fellow American in a certain way even if that is to one extent or another untrue.

The difference between us seems to be in the level of conscious though involved, I think they can’t tell the difference between the myth and the reality, while you seem to think they do know they are myths but prefer to ignore it.

 

Sorry that not what Steinbeck or you seem to be saying –

“America is a bit of an experiment in social Darwinism” you say and he said “If our ancestors had not been that, they would have stayed in their home plots”

Basically you’re saying that people with more pronounced traits of such things as bravery and independence ‘chose’ to leave the old world for the new, and that has breed a people that are very brave and very independent (more so than other people).

But what I’m pointing out is that this outlook would basically exclude those descended from slaves. I mean interracial marriage was against the law in many states of the US right up until 1967, so you’re basically saying they were not part of the breeding programme you’re talking about.

Did the descendents of slaves choose to come to the Americas? Did they choose to ‘risk everything’?

Did those captured in Africa or bred for work know this?

If as you seem to claim these things ‘bred’ modern American thought and attitudes then it means the descendents of slaves were excluded from it.

Point being that while many people may have gone to the US with the attitude "I can make something of myself and god damnit I will" was that the experience or view of the slaves?

So when you talk of “Our people”, which people are you thinking about?

I mean choosing hardship is very different from having hardship forced on you.

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Are you honestly saying that given the same circumstances an American would be more fearful than an Italian, a Kenyan or a Cambodian?

Are you honestly arguing that you believe Americans are the bravest people in history braver than, the Mongols, the Turks or the Russians?

Are you claiming that Americans are inherently more independent minded than say the Greeks the British or the French?

You say that “The whole point of the quote is showing how Americans are contradictory in what they do and say” are you really claiming that is clearly and purely an American trait?

One moment you seem to be claiming American exceptionalism and the next you’re saying that Americans are “reality no different then the rest of the world”.

You seem confused.

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Again, these just arn't purely America traits; they could be said of many around the world.

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LOL – it’s no different than the rest of the world just more polite and friendly than other places and full of people who are much more hopeful than any others.

So that’s not different then?

Again you seem confused?

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That is what I’ve been contending that it is a form of constant and subtle brainwashing.

My point is that the US is like it is today (with an austere welfare system, draconian legal and prison system, and historically low healthcare cover) because alternative viewpoints were systematically suppressed and myths like the one that somehow Americans are exceptional were disseminated to try and stop people looking at those alternatives (because they were ‘un-American’).

I mean there is this myth that the reason why many Americans are against such ‘collective’ ideas - things such as welfare or healthcare systems - is their exceptional ‘individualism’ and not because of “constant and subtle” propaganda against such ideas of which some involved spreading the myth of ‘American individualism’.

 

Here is an edited version of something I posted some time ago

I’m unsure what is meant by the supposed exceptional ‘individualism’ of Americans.

All people are individuals and nearly all of us are also part of a community.

If you look at history including US history it is nearly always a story of individuals working together.

Columbus needed people to man his ships, Plymouth was a colony, Washington could only gain American independence with an army (of Americans and French individuals), the ‘red Indians’ natives could only have be subjugated and ethnically cleansed by bands of Europeans, the train tracks could only be laid with the help on an army of Irish and Chinese labourers, do I need to go on?

The thing is that the whole nature of US democracy is of individuals coming together as ‘the people’ to bring about a ‘government of the people’.

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And is individualism as wholly good trait, one too be celebrated?

Or can it all too easily turn into an ‘am all right jack’ attitude of looking after number one and not giving a fuck for other people or the community you live in. I mean over the years here I’ve meet many self proclaimed ‘individualists’ that thought like that some where seemingly even proud of it.

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Also I get the impression that this term has been popularised as a means to try and portray individual’s collective actions or activities as un-American.

So you get this thing were right wing pundits like to suggest that such things as Unions that protect and promote the interests of the common worker are ‘collective’ and seem to run contrary to the ‘individualism’ of American society and history.

But these same pundits don’t say the same about the business associations, think tanks and Lobby groups that promote and protect the interests of the rich and instead portray business leaders as rugged individualists and especially concentrate on the relatively rare cases of rags to riches stories.

In other words it’s just a political tactic that some on the right try to use to smear or shut down discussion.

And it has been ingrained so deep into the American psyche that it is more often than not, not even questioned.

So for example a supposed ‘American individualism’ is often put forward as the reason why left wing ‘collective’ ideas have never flourished in the US.

People nod and walk away without questioning the statement but in fact it seems to be a bit of a myth.

But as I’ve shown it doesn’t stand up that well to scrutiny, American history is as a mixture of individual and collective actions.

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Balbus why do you keep bringing up slavery when slaves if anything further my point. Immigrants overcame ridiculous hardships both to come here including racism and kept their cultures and hope alive, slaves overcame even more ridiculous hardships including racism to keep their culture and hope alive during slavery. Not to mention slavery ended in 1865, the mass waves of immigration began around 1875-1880 to 1923. The descendants of former slaves were basically perpetual first generation immigrants just by being black, but still formed an integral part of our culture.

Heck even Rock n Roll going all the way back has its roots in the songs that slaves sang to keep up their spirits.

Perhaps you are the one who's confused.

Come to America, you obviously can't understand it without living here for a while. Everything comes back to America bashing, saying Americans were on the frontier and made up of people who wanted to do their own thing without interference; instead of treating at as historical fact that Americans spent the good deal of their young history viewing themselves as a frontier nation made up of people who were promised absolute freedom to live their lives as they wanted to explain the current American mindset, it instead becomes bragging that Americans are braver. Wtf?

Or even the quote, yea it may be true everywhere to some degree but you fail to address the fact it's by far the most extreme here. Americans(and Canadians) are by far the most puritan polite friendliest people to absolutely strangers they'll never see again in the world, yet by far own the most personal weapons in the world with the number one stated reason as protection. We give by far more to charity then any other western nation yet fear government handouts despite it being the same. We think we're number one in everything yet we're constantly losing our place. We celebrate our immigrant heritage then complain about immigration, ect. So please, instead of brushing it off saying it applies everywhere actually examine it.

Must be a symptom of living on an island where it rains every other day.

Also yes, I do think America is more independent then France and Germany. *cough* european union *cough*

 

LOL

Mad don’t blame me, you choose the Steinbeck quote not me – and it was you that claimed it was the best explanation of why Americans are the way they are today, not me. I’m just pointing out that the quote and your subsequent comments around it don’t apply to those forced against their will into coming to the Americas.

(They had a choice, to stay or go)

The argument is that Americans are how they are now because they are descended from those brave and independent enough to ‘risk it all’ to come to America – ask you say -

(They chose to come, they were not forced)

And that what drove those brave, independent and generous people to take that chance was that America gave them the chance to be freer

(The slaves could do whatever they wanted?)

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The thing I’ve noticed is that it’s pointed out to you that this isn’t true of those dragged to the Americas you suddenly change your tune and what we have now is you claiming that ‘hardship’ is what created the America viewpoint and attitudes.

But hardship is not exclusive to Americans, it is also relative and subjective and I don’t see anything in the American experience that isn’t duplicated elsewhere. I mean reading history it seems to me that many of the poor that lived in city slums and worked in factories or those that toiled on the land for little pay had as tough if not tougher life as those setting up farms or punching cows on the American ‘frontier’.

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But this is my point is the frontier notion ‘true’ or a myth. To me although it might have elements of ‘truth’ to a much larger extent it is a myth.

As you point out the big wave of immigration happened at the end of the 19th century by then the ‘frontier’ wasn’t really there it was mostly settled to one degree or another.

And the thing is you seem to agree but to you its not that its true but that its thought to be true, that believing in the myth has shaped the American viewpoint.

That they prefer myth to reality (which is what I’ve been arguing)

The problem is that the myth not surprisingly doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and falls apart once someone tries to explain it – because Americans are just not that different from other people, they are not exceptional.

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American private giving during the tsunami crisis was significant, indeed; one month after the tsunami, it was over $400 million, outpacing the U.S. government pledge of $350 million. But just as with government donations, the private giving of Americans was smaller in proportional terms than that of most Western European and Scandinavian countries.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2676


The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development also lists countries by the amount of money they give as a percentage of their gross national income.

In that list Sweden comes first 1.02% (the UK is 7th 0.51%) and the US is at 23 with only 0.18%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_charitable_countries

The thing about charity in the US is that most goes to Religious organisations and a lot of that is spending on maintenance and evangelical work.

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That’s not what I said – and I think you know that – I asked –

There is a big difference between what I asked and how you chose to reply and again I think you knew that when you did it.

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I am trying to examine it, but frankly you’re not giving me much to examine. You’re making claims about Americans (that they are “weird” or that they are contradictory) and then claiming that this makes the American people ‘different’ to other people, but I’m sorry that argument doesn’t seem to stand up.

I’d agree that there views might be coloured by certain ideas of themselves and their history (like all other people) but what I’m arguing is that a lot of the things they base their ideas on are more myth than true (including the view they are exceptional).

So far you haven’t dispelled that view and instead seem to have re-enforced it.

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Notdeadyet

If you look at it the way you did, it’s not that different than the situation in a lot of places outside of the US.

Economic immigrants from most places are migrating to seek out places where they have the opportunity to work hard and make a good enough living that you never have to worry about where your next meal is coming from, or being homeless. Be that from countryside to city within a countries borders or from Afghanistan to Britain or North Africa to Europe or Mexico to the US.

Working class Britain’s still talk of owning a home in the suburbs.

Middle- to upper-middle class individuals in most places generally want to improve their financial position by getting a good education and working hard.

And it is normal for the people of one generation (parents) to want the best for their children.

You’re not describing a purely ‘American Dream’.

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I think once there were great opportunities to be made in America from the exploitation of resources that hadn’t been previously been exploited. I think that was where the myth of the American Dream came from.

Europe has been inhabited by homo sapiens for about 200,000 years, the Americas for only about 12,000, and while the mineral resources of the US were barely tapped by the time the European arrived, in Europe they’d been exploited for thousands of years.

The last land rush was only in 1898, but since European colonists arrived they had just been taking ‘free’ land and claiming it as their property.

The big gold rushes were in 1849 and 1896, and the period of oil discovery 1859 (Pennsylvania) 1865 (California) and 1901 (Texas). But along the way many previously untapped mineral deposits were exploited, many have gone or are going.

And all that ‘free’ wealth couldn’t do anything else but boost the countries economy.

And once the US was the manufacturing centre of the world between 1900 and 1950, the city of Detroit’s population soared from 265,000 to over 1.8 million because of manufacturing. Someone straight of the boat or from across the border could get a factory job and in a few months have all the trappings of the ‘the American life’ (car fridge television etc). Today many think that Detroit is dying and there is talk of turning areas back to prairie farms.

The thing is that once the ‘free’ American land had all become owned and the gold, silver, copper, iron, coal, oil etc had been found and in many cases, used up or mined out, US opportunities began to stagnate and today social mobility in the US is lower than in many European countries.

 

The dream today is a new refrigerator box in a private alleyway near the soup kitchen.

I think you are correct. British companies would fund the first colonies who would send back lumber, fur and other raw materials. Many of the colonists were indentured servants who hoped to work off their debt and become free men.

Maybe they should give the land back to the surviving natives and go back to Europe. As a descendant of those natives, I have a different take on the migration of Europeans all over the world. While the Europeans flourished from the resources they "took" from other lands, they slaughtered the native peoples and too many of the ones who survived are living in poverty today.

They even had the audacity to glamorize their migration and demonize the natives they slaughtered and took into slavery.

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I know that, but the term is still used by the media in a way that implies there is a national consensus on its meaning. I don't think that is a valid assumption.

 

Not everything is physically tangible, it makes people feel good and that is extremely important to a person/country's well being not to mention motivation. I've yet to hear people speak of the Portuguese, Italian, Canadian, German, ect dream. It's not just an American mindset, it's a global one.

 

Jack

But the thing is there is another myth that has long been used to justify the treatment of such people as the Native Americans. In the US it was given the name of ‘Manifest Destiny’.

It basically mean – ‘we are better than you so that means not only are we justified in whatever we do to you, we actually need to do it for the good of everyone’

Its a self serving myth

http://www.historyonthenet.com/American_West/manifest_destiny.htm

Many think the spirit of ‘Manifest Destiny’ (that the American system and the American form of Capitalism were the superior world models) was behind the views of Ronald Reagan and neo-con ideology.

 

notdeadyet

That is why it is more of a propaganda based myth rather than being a reality. It is whatever the propagandist wants it to be, that’s why it is so difficult to pin down.

But when any of its many forms are actually pinned down they evaporate into nothing because in the reality of today’s America the so called ‘American dream’ doesn’t actually exist.

 

Mad

It’s not a mindset, it is a myth and like many myths they are accepted by some as true (and not just by Americans) with little or no thought or examination. But as I’ve said above if you actually pin it down it disappears.

Also as I’ve explained earlier other peoples have had their own manufactured ‘myths’.

As I said earlier in the UK there was the myth of a ‘better’ class that was bred to lead and that the British Empire proved the superiority of the British people and political system.

The myths were severally wounded by the world wars and loss of empire but still linger usually amongst the old and the far right.

The thing is that if these ideas are looked at with any rational thought they evaporate.

The concept of a people or system being ‘exceptional’ isn’t new the ‘American Dream’ myth just seems like just another means of social manipulation, that evaporates when examined.

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But is it positive?

It seems to work against the people’s wellbeing and tries to stifles any motivation for change.

As I said at the beginning of this thread the whole ‘American Dream’ myth is a form of social control, like religion, or a cast or class system, it a way of keeping crowd control.

That is why the US is like it is today with an austere welfare system, a draconian legal and prison system, and historically low healthcare cover (Mad’s description not mine) because alternative viewpoints were systematically suppressed and myths like the ‘American Dream’ or the one about supposed ‘American exceptionalism’ were disseminated to try and stop people looking at alternatives to a system that very often doesn’t seen to work in the majority of peoples favour.

The American people are being manipulated by lies to try and stop them working in the interests not only of themselves but of their country.

Can that really be seen as a positive thing?

 

During a parley at Fort Pitt on June 24, 1763, Captain Simeon Ecuyer gave representatives of the besieging Delawares two blankets and a handkerchief that had been exposed to smallpox, in hopes of spreading the disease to the Indians in order to end the siege. Indians in the area did indeed contract smallpox. However, some historians have noted that it is impossible to verify how many people (if any) contracted the disease as a result of the Fort Pitt incident; the disease was already in the area and may have reached the Indians through other vectors. Indeed, even before the blankets had been handed over, the disease may have been spread to the Indians by native warriors returning from attacks on infected white settlements. So while it is certain that these British soldiers attempted to intentionally infect Indians with smallpox, it is uncertain whether or not their attempt was successful.
Though many are unaware of the exact details surrounding these incidents, the idea of European settlers giving infected blankets to Indians is a part of public consciousness, and a common metaphor for a gift given with underhanded intentions..