Page 16 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 3-4: Education and the American Dream, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 16
šolsko polje, letnik xxviii, številka 3–4
failure. In Tocqueville’s estimation, the restless ambition to master busi-
ness and amass wealth that he witnessed only led Americans to dwell on
the advantages that they do not possess. For Tocqueville, the restless spir-
it of unchecked desire that drove Americans was a burden that overhung
their lives and darkened their brows. The aspiration for upward mobility
was then, in a term the film director Alfred Hitchcock was said to have
created, a “Macguffin” – an object of desire that everyone wants and in-
spires the action in a plot, but one that will often reveal itself, as the Mal-
tese Falcon did, in the book (Hammett, 1929) and film (John Huston,
1941) of the same name. Allegedly gold encrusted with diamonds, the
Maltese Falcon turned out in the end merely lead painted black.
The upshot is that Adams, in initially framing his vision of the
American Dream, only had the first word – not the final word – about
its meaning. Other writers have offered subsequent definitions and treat-
ments of the idea, whether directly or indirectly. Indeed, not too long af-
ter Adams formulated his vision of the American Dream, Robert Merton
(1938), in perhaps the most famous ten page sociological paper ever writ-
ten, used the idea of the “success ethic” to help explain the social forces
that contribute to Emile Durkheim’s (Simpson, 1963) meditations on an-
omie. In so doing, Merton disagreed, albeit implicitly, with Adams’ ideal-
istic emphasis on the American Dream of a nation where every man and
woman can attain fulfillment as the United States most characteristic cul-
tural quality. In its place Merton instilled competition and, most particu-
larly, competition within a capitalist economic order where the accumu-
lation of wealth as a pecuniary symbol of success is the dominant cultural
goal (Merton, 1938: pp. 675–76). Merton, in short, saw the principal driv-
ing motivation of American culture to be the attainment of material suc-
cess contrary to Adams’ renunciation of materialism’s primacy and his ex-
altation of opportunity for all. The two visions of the central cultural aim
and impetus within the United States are thus diametrically opposed.
For Merton (1938), however, the situation in which the principal cul-
tural goal was pecuniary success was only one part of the cultural equa-
tion. Equally important was the degree of access to institutionalized
means to achieve success as well as the relative proportion between suc-
cess within the institutionalized means for achieving valued goals and
actual (or perceived) receipt of pecuniary reward. In Merton’s view, an
equilibrated balance between cultural ideals and social structural oppor-
tunities was the only manner in which a society could sustain itself suc-
cessfully. He found in the United States that the strength of the drive for
pecuniary success constituted “a disproportionate accent on goals” (Mer-
ton, 1938: p. 674) that overwhelmed the institutionalized means to satisfy
14
failure. In Tocqueville’s estimation, the restless ambition to master busi-
ness and amass wealth that he witnessed only led Americans to dwell on
the advantages that they do not possess. For Tocqueville, the restless spir-
it of unchecked desire that drove Americans was a burden that overhung
their lives and darkened their brows. The aspiration for upward mobility
was then, in a term the film director Alfred Hitchcock was said to have
created, a “Macguffin” – an object of desire that everyone wants and in-
spires the action in a plot, but one that will often reveal itself, as the Mal-
tese Falcon did, in the book (Hammett, 1929) and film (John Huston,
1941) of the same name. Allegedly gold encrusted with diamonds, the
Maltese Falcon turned out in the end merely lead painted black.
The upshot is that Adams, in initially framing his vision of the
American Dream, only had the first word – not the final word – about
its meaning. Other writers have offered subsequent definitions and treat-
ments of the idea, whether directly or indirectly. Indeed, not too long af-
ter Adams formulated his vision of the American Dream, Robert Merton
(1938), in perhaps the most famous ten page sociological paper ever writ-
ten, used the idea of the “success ethic” to help explain the social forces
that contribute to Emile Durkheim’s (Simpson, 1963) meditations on an-
omie. In so doing, Merton disagreed, albeit implicitly, with Adams’ ideal-
istic emphasis on the American Dream of a nation where every man and
woman can attain fulfillment as the United States most characteristic cul-
tural quality. In its place Merton instilled competition and, most particu-
larly, competition within a capitalist economic order where the accumu-
lation of wealth as a pecuniary symbol of success is the dominant cultural
goal (Merton, 1938: pp. 675–76). Merton, in short, saw the principal driv-
ing motivation of American culture to be the attainment of material suc-
cess contrary to Adams’ renunciation of materialism’s primacy and his ex-
altation of opportunity for all. The two visions of the central cultural aim
and impetus within the United States are thus diametrically opposed.
For Merton (1938), however, the situation in which the principal cul-
tural goal was pecuniary success was only one part of the cultural equa-
tion. Equally important was the degree of access to institutionalized
means to achieve success as well as the relative proportion between suc-
cess within the institutionalized means for achieving valued goals and
actual (or perceived) receipt of pecuniary reward. In Merton’s view, an
equilibrated balance between cultural ideals and social structural oppor-
tunities was the only manner in which a society could sustain itself suc-
cessfully. He found in the United States that the strength of the drive for
pecuniary success constituted “a disproportionate accent on goals” (Mer-
ton, 1938: p. 674) that overwhelmed the institutionalized means to satisfy
14
