American Dream????

but dont we lose something in saying how special the american dream is?

*i totally get your point(s), i just wanted to discuss it. *

thank you for sharing your view points. i actually have the same ones...and i am trying to think through how to help people manifest what we are talking about, instead of putting an american flag on their RV.....calling it participation...and not appreciating the freedom ringing, the possibilities and the dreamings.

> Because although the dream is universal in the hearts and souls of every human being it was only America where it was made truly manifest.

)barf( do you really believe that?! of over 200 countries only Americans have the Answer..

> America took it's freedom and created a truly magnificent nation that has given opportunity to more people than any other on the face of the earth. France took its new found freedom and came up with Napoleon and the guillotine.

And America came up with genocide, slavery, the world's bloodiest civil war (which was not initially fought over slavery), gender inequality, etc etc etc. America was one of the last nations on earth to practice slavery on a large scale.

These "dark patches in its history and current events (that) may not be to everyone's liking" that you mention are the rule, not the exception. Even as women, minorities, and gays -groups that collectively make up at least two thirds of the population- were finally wrestling their way out of persecution and into equality, the CIA was busy toppling foreign democracy and teaching torture..

> There is something in the hearts of Americans (who are, don't forget the people of the world) that is radically different.

If this were so, the "American Dream" wouldn't have a universal appeal. The "truly amazing scope of what America has meant to humanity" is in large part truly amazing PR.

I'm not saying America has done nothing positive or that good ideas have not originated or been championed here. Just saying that historically much of the time our walk hasn't matched our talk, and Americans have no hammerlock on good ideas and noble dreams, and absolutely no excuse for arrogance.

Pulpracer wrote:

>>>The American Dream [was] and always will be about the fundamental right to live and dream and hope for a better future....Because although the dream is universal in the hearts and souls of every human being it was only America where it was made truly manifest.<<<

As others have said here and elsewhere, there is nothing *special* about Americans or America. If you look throughout history, it is such views that America and Americans are superior to everything else which eventually leads to "Hey, we are all equal, ...get the f*** out of our lives!" Nothing pisses anyone off (even if it does take some time to figure out) like someone being faced with a condescending view of them as needing American (or Roman, or English, or German, or Chinese) this or American that. It in fact takes many peoples a very long time to get over the fact that America invaded their country to set them free, short of reengineering their "nation-state." This is not to say one thing or another about whether America is right to intervene here or there, it only goes to show that the American Dream for a whole lot of the world's peoples typically is seen, and, yes, is propagated within dualistic, black and white, and, typically, politcal terms....

I have travelled abroad a bit, and work regularly with a lot of immigrants, and if ever one is stepping into the idea that "I'm an American, therefore you should look to me....," the negative repercussions can be long term, if one (not saying anyone here is doing so) fails to appreciate that "America this and America that" is just another box:

We are all equal.

>>>France took its new found freedom and came up with Napoleon and the guillotine. There is something in the hearts of Americans (who are, don't forget the people of the world) that is radically different.

Having studied a very great deal of French history, and French Revolutionary and Napoleonic History, in particular, the above statement misses on several points, not to mention that it would probably make a whole lot of french-speaking peoples, other europeans, and other world peoples rather angry...

Simply put, comparisons (as, for example, in between the French and American Revolutions) are never clear-cut, therefore they typically break down with further analysis and experience. Such a matrix can all too easily egress into "who is superior / inferior," which is fallacious to begin with. It is important to keep in mind that using such comparisons typically involve concepts, which, are just that -- concepts. Moreover, aside from the fact that the events within the "French and American Revolutions" were very different, some of the causes did involve some of the same ideologies -- but we're talking about places with VERY very different histories, cultures, and institutions.

If one can look at two or more different cultures without involving comparisons, say, as to study deeper, longer, shared root causes, then it will be easier to see that there have been PLENTY of folks throughout history who fall in some of the same framework of actions like Napoleon, BECAUSE they all typically shared the same ideal of there being some world and/or nationalistic dream that they were championing.

I guess that for me, beyond the idea that "The American Dream" may end up politicizing Burning Man (as, well, the term assumes several political concepts and contsructs from the very beginning, such as the nation-state, E Pluribus Unum, free markets), such a theme perhaps does not take (enough) careful heed of something core to the human experiences of equality, uniquity, and modesty: "Arrogance can also involve failing to refrain from telling others to do what is right for oneself."