Page 156 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 3-4: Education and the American Dream, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 156
šolsko polje, letnik xxviii, številka 3–4
USA. Chocolates, cigarettes, canned food and Coca-Cola, which Ameri-
can liberators benevolently distributed to the exhausted European popu-
lation at the end of WW 2 – sometimes they even traded such goods for
the emotional comfort from local girls – opened the epoch of the appre-
hending of the ‘American way of life’ elsewhere. The logic of the American
Dream gradually penetrated the whole ‘free world’ and, likewise, it had its
effects behind the Iron Curtain too.
Entanglement of Education in the Operating
of the American Dream
Joel Spring (2003) contributed an excellent critical analysis as well as de-
tailed history of the relationship between education and consumerism. In
his analysis, he turns attention from pleasure to hard work as the core of
consumerist ideology. I think that this shift in the criticism of consumer-
ism, namely, the shift from attacking the mass hunt of “pleasure” to the
exposing of enticement to hard work and restraint from pleasure, deter-
mines the logic of misperception included within the ideology of consum-
erism. Actually, the renouncing of profane enjoyment, which is offered by
shopping and leisure in the consumerist model, succumbs to the very ide-
ology that it condemns. Such a renouncement behaves as if a subject like
a consumer not dependant on his own labour – or in a range of cases on
the labour of others – exists. The celebrity cult and its structuring effects
in social-psychological significance, indicated by Lasch, do not do away
with the “need for hard labour”, as a primary imperative within the Amer-
ican Dream in order to reach success. American schools as seen through
Spring’s lens were involved in co-creating consumerism in their curricu-
lum – as, for instance, with the syllabus of home economics – as well as in
their functioning within the consumerist context. “The emergence of the
high school as a mass institution created a common experience for youth
across the nation. This common experience inevitably created a common
culture related to the high school experience” (Spring, 2003: p. 79). But in
a final analysis “The American dream became a nightmare about work-
ing hard to attain the unattainable goal of consumer satisfaction” (ibid.:
p. 61). However, in its perverted state under neoliberalism, the American
Dream obviously still exerts and even amplifies its power over fantasies
and expectations of ordinary Americans. In the era of globalisation the
same pattern of “subtle” domination is spreading all over the world. The
large sections of the diminishing middle and especially lower classes suc-
cumbed to the politics of rude spectacle and obvious fraud. This phenom-
enon is difficult to understand and/or interpret exactly due to its simplic-
ity and transparency. After the presidential elections of 2016 in the USA,
154
USA. Chocolates, cigarettes, canned food and Coca-Cola, which Ameri-
can liberators benevolently distributed to the exhausted European popu-
lation at the end of WW 2 – sometimes they even traded such goods for
the emotional comfort from local girls – opened the epoch of the appre-
hending of the ‘American way of life’ elsewhere. The logic of the American
Dream gradually penetrated the whole ‘free world’ and, likewise, it had its
effects behind the Iron Curtain too.
Entanglement of Education in the Operating
of the American Dream
Joel Spring (2003) contributed an excellent critical analysis as well as de-
tailed history of the relationship between education and consumerism. In
his analysis, he turns attention from pleasure to hard work as the core of
consumerist ideology. I think that this shift in the criticism of consumer-
ism, namely, the shift from attacking the mass hunt of “pleasure” to the
exposing of enticement to hard work and restraint from pleasure, deter-
mines the logic of misperception included within the ideology of consum-
erism. Actually, the renouncing of profane enjoyment, which is offered by
shopping and leisure in the consumerist model, succumbs to the very ide-
ology that it condemns. Such a renouncement behaves as if a subject like
a consumer not dependant on his own labour – or in a range of cases on
the labour of others – exists. The celebrity cult and its structuring effects
in social-psychological significance, indicated by Lasch, do not do away
with the “need for hard labour”, as a primary imperative within the Amer-
ican Dream in order to reach success. American schools as seen through
Spring’s lens were involved in co-creating consumerism in their curricu-
lum – as, for instance, with the syllabus of home economics – as well as in
their functioning within the consumerist context. “The emergence of the
high school as a mass institution created a common experience for youth
across the nation. This common experience inevitably created a common
culture related to the high school experience” (Spring, 2003: p. 79). But in
a final analysis “The American dream became a nightmare about work-
ing hard to attain the unattainable goal of consumer satisfaction” (ibid.:
p. 61). However, in its perverted state under neoliberalism, the American
Dream obviously still exerts and even amplifies its power over fantasies
and expectations of ordinary Americans. In the era of globalisation the
same pattern of “subtle” domination is spreading all over the world. The
large sections of the diminishing middle and especially lower classes suc-
cumbed to the politics of rude spectacle and obvious fraud. This phenom-
enon is difficult to understand and/or interpret exactly due to its simplic-
ity and transparency. After the presidential elections of 2016 in the USA,
154
