The Death of the American Dream

Just as a point of interest, this post started as a criticism of suburbs, then a rant against the priorities of those living in gated communities, and now it's a rant against the mistaken ideals of American-style (and thus Canadian) society.

The American dream is a powerful idea for a great many people, as it represents the ideal that merit alone will make you successful, and it can be summed up that in America, through hard work and intelligence you can become rich. While there are many cases in which someone has brought themselves from poverty to astounding wealth completely on their own, as a whole the American dream is dead. I'm not even sure it was alive.

Achieving wealth is no easy feat in the current social climate, reflected in figures showing the widening gap between the rich and the poor as well as descriptions of America being not so much a melting-pot as a centrifuge. If the American dream were true, then the deserving lower-class citizens would be achieving their goal of the ideal American life, and the middle-class would grow. Instead, the middle-class is fragmenting, with the upper-middle class having more wealth, and the lower-middle class having to take on more debt to live the life they feel they deserve.

The American dream promises equality of opportunity instead of equality of wealth. However, it is quickly clear the opportunities are not equal. The disparity starts when wealthy parents send their children to private schools while a poorer but more intelligent child is forced to struggle through public school. And given the huge financial cost of university, many intelligent and motivated but poorer students cannot attend a prestigious college while a richer student, especially if his parents have good connections, can. Finally, a university diploma no longer guarantees a range of good opportunities, but being rich and well-connected is. With money opening doors at every step of life, how can it be claimed that America is a land of equal opportunity?

One of the major causes of inequality of opportunity, and the resulting increasing disparity between the rich and the poor, is a misplaced set of priorities. As wealth becomes harder to obtain, people can either race for the glorious prestige of a huge house with a huge TV and a huge car in a walled, guarded community, or they can examine why this trend is occurring to begin with. The two are exclusive because by fighting your way to the top, the cost you unwittingly inflict on society ensures that inequality will increase. If everyone, everywhere examined the cost of their actions and weighed them against their personal benefit so as to minimize cost while maximizing benefit, then a great many social problems would become easier to address.

Destruction as a Business

If I ever wanted to open my own business, this is probably what I'd do. I, like most other human beings, like destroying things. Preferably without causing any harm, in fact. But destruction often is harmful, so there's no real outlet for my wish to destroy things. That's why I think it would be awesome if someone were to build such an outlet, in the form of a giant warehouse, where you can go and annihilate things.

There are almost endless possibilities for things that you can break. Give people goggles, a sledgehammer, and a room full of porcelain and tell them to go nuts. Give them a (dull) sword and planks of balsa wood. Give them a button that sets off a flamethrower. Show me a person who doesn't want to blow shit up, and I'll show you someone who's repressed that aspect of their character. Well, okay, maybe there are some Buddhist monks that wouldn't tear paper in anger, but scientists claim that the majority of the population are not monks. Come on, this is the ultimate stress relief.

No, tearing shit up with a sledgehammer will not solve your problems. But for added business potential, offer counseling on the side. Psychiatrists to deal with stress, anger, or the occasional psycho, and they can solve the problems that violence won't. Violence is just a hell of a lot more fun.

Rocking Out

I went out this morning and bought myself a Fender Frontman 15R amplifier (I forgot that word. It's kinda crucial for understanding the rest of the post.) That is guitar-speak for "fucking awesome," I believe. Because I've had it for a day and I'm having a blast. It sounds great, it's louder than I'd ever need it to be, and it has a mysterious "reverb" knob that I'm told could be cool. Well, I know roughly what it does, I just don't know how to use it. Then again, I've had my guitar for two? three? years now and I'm only making full use of the various pick-ups now. (Pick-ups turn the vibrations of the strings into an electrical signal. My guitar has three, with five combinations total.)

I started playing guitar more than six years ago when I had a guitar class in the second half of 8th grade. I liked playing it, enough so that I got my parents to buy me a cheap guitar and pay for lessons. My guitar teacher fixed the bad habits I'd gotten into, and soon I could play Beatles and Johnny Be Good. It was fun, and I had lessons on and off for four years, but I never practiced enough to get really good. I felt kind of bad, since some weeks I wouldn't even pick up my guitar between lessons, but over the years I became a fairly competent guitar player.

There are many songs in my guitar book that I have forgotten how to play, and a lot of songs that I don't know in full, but my technical skill isn't bad. I want to become better though. I want to learn a lot more songs, entire ones even, and I want to start making some of my own. Right now, I'm thinking Jimi Hendrix would be cool. I'd be learning "Hey Joe" right now except my wrist is killing me- too much guitar. But with some effort, I'll be able to proudly say that yes, I play guitar.

I can't remember who it was, but some musician pointed out how odd it is that so many people say music is their life when they don't play an instrument, let alone actually live off of that instrument. If you truly love music, why not give a shot at playing some yourself? That's not to say that if you don't play an instrument, then you don't truly love music. It's just that if you do, it's more fun to rock out than to be a passive consumer.