Page 30 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 3-4: Education and the American Dream, ed. Mitja Sardoč
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šolsko polje, letnik xxviii, številka 3–4
bilized as political agents in the cause of democracy. He argues that, for
Whitman and Dewey, the conjunction of the concepts “America” and
“democracy” is an essential part of a new description of what it is to be hu-
man. Rorty’s success as a philosopher is related to his ability to tell a new
story about America and the American Dream, to re-describe the past
using a different vocabulary and to highlight how a new philosophical hi-
story can make us feel differently about who we are and who we might be-
come. Rorty offers us a “philosophy of hope,” a philosophy based on the
narrative of cultural invention, self-discovery and national self-creation.3
What Rorty’s book also draws attention to is the power of narra-
tive and the way in which the American Dream is a specific narrative that
comes into being at a particular time and place and then can be “read
back” onto American history – on the Puritan beginnings and those who
wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It is a nar-
rative that can be “read forward,” projected onto the future, as a means of
establishing a vision for a society and economy. This is the art of narra-
tive retellings of the America Dream, which, in the hands of Rorty or Ba-
rack Obama, becomes a shining beacon to unify the people in recogniz-
ing what is best in America. The question is whether, in a time of radical
change and transition – when America is losing its world position as the
only superpower, when millions of Americans are losing their homes and
jobs as a result of the recession and financial crisis, when America enters
into a massive budget-cutting and deficit-financing mode – whether the
American Dream can be reclaimed, refurbished, re-articulated and retold
in era of decline.
Obama is a skillful politician and is well known for his oratory. He
has consistently made reference to the American Dream in his campaign-
ing for the presidency and after, often focusing on his own remarkable sto-
ry as emblematic of the possible. He has also carefully used the intellectu-
al resources of the American Dream to unify Americans and to provide
the vision for the society he wants others to dream of. The question is, in a
time of decline, how serviceable is this dream: Can it be restored? Are its
core ideals able to be refashioned?
Fareed Zakaria, like Obama, believes that it is possible to restore
the America Dream and, like millions of immigrants in developing coun-
tries, remembers the attraction of America when he was young:
3 See Rorty’s (1999) “Philosophy and Social Hope,” which represents his hope for, “a glob-
al cosmopolitan, democratic, egalitarian, classless, casteless society” (p. xii) and runs this
hope together with his antagonism towards Platonism – towards the search for Truth (as
correspondence), certainty, reality and essences. He finds the roots of his view in the work
of the American native tradition in pragmatist philosophy best represented in the work of
John Dewey.
28
bilized as political agents in the cause of democracy. He argues that, for
Whitman and Dewey, the conjunction of the concepts “America” and
“democracy” is an essential part of a new description of what it is to be hu-
man. Rorty’s success as a philosopher is related to his ability to tell a new
story about America and the American Dream, to re-describe the past
using a different vocabulary and to highlight how a new philosophical hi-
story can make us feel differently about who we are and who we might be-
come. Rorty offers us a “philosophy of hope,” a philosophy based on the
narrative of cultural invention, self-discovery and national self-creation.3
What Rorty’s book also draws attention to is the power of narra-
tive and the way in which the American Dream is a specific narrative that
comes into being at a particular time and place and then can be “read
back” onto American history – on the Puritan beginnings and those who
wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It is a nar-
rative that can be “read forward,” projected onto the future, as a means of
establishing a vision for a society and economy. This is the art of narra-
tive retellings of the America Dream, which, in the hands of Rorty or Ba-
rack Obama, becomes a shining beacon to unify the people in recogniz-
ing what is best in America. The question is whether, in a time of radical
change and transition – when America is losing its world position as the
only superpower, when millions of Americans are losing their homes and
jobs as a result of the recession and financial crisis, when America enters
into a massive budget-cutting and deficit-financing mode – whether the
American Dream can be reclaimed, refurbished, re-articulated and retold
in era of decline.
Obama is a skillful politician and is well known for his oratory. He
has consistently made reference to the American Dream in his campaign-
ing for the presidency and after, often focusing on his own remarkable sto-
ry as emblematic of the possible. He has also carefully used the intellectu-
al resources of the American Dream to unify Americans and to provide
the vision for the society he wants others to dream of. The question is, in a
time of decline, how serviceable is this dream: Can it be restored? Are its
core ideals able to be refashioned?
Fareed Zakaria, like Obama, believes that it is possible to restore
the America Dream and, like millions of immigrants in developing coun-
tries, remembers the attraction of America when he was young:
3 See Rorty’s (1999) “Philosophy and Social Hope,” which represents his hope for, “a glob-
al cosmopolitan, democratic, egalitarian, classless, casteless society” (p. xii) and runs this
hope together with his antagonism towards Platonism – towards the search for Truth (as
correspondence), certainty, reality and essences. He finds the roots of his view in the work
of the American native tradition in pragmatist philosophy best represented in the work of
John Dewey.
28
