Page 151 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 3-4: Education and the American Dream, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 151
d. štrajn ■ perversion of the american dream
art of cinema. As all this is a too huge subject to be seriously tackled in the
frame of this article, I shall only give a few hints in order to suggest to the
reader the complexity of the American Dream as a historical agency and
as an idea.
In terms of thinking about mobilising any imaginable emancipative
potential in any given configuration of the American Dream, the recalling
of the dimension of “high culture” is indispensable. Stanley Cavell point-
ed out that the intellectual link between European philosophy and the
American thought exists, which he showed in his interpretation of Emer-
son and Thoreau and in quite a few of his books and lectures throughout
his life’s work. For instance, in his philosophical autobiographical exercis-
es, Cavell reminisces about his reading of Emerson by stating how correct
he was to see that Descartes’s “I think therefore I am” has been incorpo-
rated in Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”. In Cavell’s view this was “the philo-
sophical discovery of self-consciousness which is to give us our last chance
to prove our existence” (1994: p. 32). Cavell clearly emphasised Emerson’s
democratic thinking exactly in what is generally perceived as his perfec-
tionism.
/…/ ‘the main enterprise of the world for splendor, for extent, is the
up-building of a man’ – [and this] is not an elitist call to subject oneself to
great individuals (to the ‘one or two men’ ‘in a century, in a millennium’)
but to the greatness, the thing Emerson calls by the ancient name of the
genius, in each of us; it is the quest he calls ‘becoming what one is’ and, I
think, ‘standing for humanity’ (2003: p. 184).
Cavell also founded the philosophy of film, which, arguably, became
only in 21st century a fully developed scholarly field. One of his books on
the subject of film is highly motivated by some elements of the American
Dream, although he does not explicitly say so. However, the main mo-
tive in his identifying the Hollywood film genre of the “comedy of remar-
riage” is the pursuit of happiness, which is along with life and liberty the
most emphasised notion, taken from the American Declaration of Inde-
pendence. “It is not news for men to try, as Thoreau puts it, to walk in the
direction of their dreams, to join the thoughts of day and night, of the
public and the private, to pursue happiness” (Cavell, 1981: p. 65).
Hollywood mainstream cinema has not been recognised by the
Critical Theory – including the above-cited Dialectics of Enlightenment
– for its implicit social criticism. This happened thanks to Cavell’s work
and to a new perspective, which was provided by Young German Cine-
ma and especially Werner Fassbinder, who found inspiration for his own
melodramatic films above all in Douglas Sirk’s films. In this particular
149
art of cinema. As all this is a too huge subject to be seriously tackled in the
frame of this article, I shall only give a few hints in order to suggest to the
reader the complexity of the American Dream as a historical agency and
as an idea.
In terms of thinking about mobilising any imaginable emancipative
potential in any given configuration of the American Dream, the recalling
of the dimension of “high culture” is indispensable. Stanley Cavell point-
ed out that the intellectual link between European philosophy and the
American thought exists, which he showed in his interpretation of Emer-
son and Thoreau and in quite a few of his books and lectures throughout
his life’s work. For instance, in his philosophical autobiographical exercis-
es, Cavell reminisces about his reading of Emerson by stating how correct
he was to see that Descartes’s “I think therefore I am” has been incorpo-
rated in Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”. In Cavell’s view this was “the philo-
sophical discovery of self-consciousness which is to give us our last chance
to prove our existence” (1994: p. 32). Cavell clearly emphasised Emerson’s
democratic thinking exactly in what is generally perceived as his perfec-
tionism.
/…/ ‘the main enterprise of the world for splendor, for extent, is the
up-building of a man’ – [and this] is not an elitist call to subject oneself to
great individuals (to the ‘one or two men’ ‘in a century, in a millennium’)
but to the greatness, the thing Emerson calls by the ancient name of the
genius, in each of us; it is the quest he calls ‘becoming what one is’ and, I
think, ‘standing for humanity’ (2003: p. 184).
Cavell also founded the philosophy of film, which, arguably, became
only in 21st century a fully developed scholarly field. One of his books on
the subject of film is highly motivated by some elements of the American
Dream, although he does not explicitly say so. However, the main mo-
tive in his identifying the Hollywood film genre of the “comedy of remar-
riage” is the pursuit of happiness, which is along with life and liberty the
most emphasised notion, taken from the American Declaration of Inde-
pendence. “It is not news for men to try, as Thoreau puts it, to walk in the
direction of their dreams, to join the thoughts of day and night, of the
public and the private, to pursue happiness” (Cavell, 1981: p. 65).
Hollywood mainstream cinema has not been recognised by the
Critical Theory – including the above-cited Dialectics of Enlightenment
– for its implicit social criticism. This happened thanks to Cavell’s work
and to a new perspective, which was provided by Young German Cine-
ma and especially Werner Fassbinder, who found inspiration for his own
melodramatic films above all in Douglas Sirk’s films. In this particular
149
