Page 74 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 3-4: Education and the American Dream, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 74
šolsko polje, letnik xxviii, številka 3–4
more than a genre, but rather as a type of speech, in other words, as a way
we tell stories about ourselves to ourselves, or to others as if it were the
natural way the world works, rather than as a perspective generated by
human beings as social constructions but given legitimacy as naturally
occurring social relations—a natural state of the way the world is. Myths
are expressed through a wide range of media and populated by other peo-
ple’s intentions, desires and prejudices that permeate the culture, mass
media and institutional life of societies. But I think of the American
Dream more as a zeitgeist that dominates what I call the macrostructur-
al unconscious of the United States, the pervasive set of ideals and beliefs
that give intentionality to the actions of the American public and gives
direction to American foreign policy. This zeitgeist that inflects our mac-
rostructural unconsious needs to be unpacked critically in order to un-
derstand why we acquiesce to the root-and-branch deceptions of our po-
litical and religious leaders and to abuses of power by the government and
its corporate courtiers and masters of officialdom. It is manufactures loy-
alty and is part of what I call the hidden catechism of American identity.
Marx and Engels understood this well when they wrote that the “ideas of
the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is
the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellec-
tual force,” exercising “control at the same time over the means of men-
tal production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who
lack the means of mental production are subject to ... nothing more than
the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the domi-
nant material relationships grasped as ideas ... the ideas of its dominance.”
This insight still holds true today and is perhaps more consequential for
humanity than at any other time in world history, with the potential na-
tion states now have for destroying the world through nuclear catastro-
phe and through ecocide. Trump uses his thrasonical hyperbolic rheto-
ric of the fascist imaginary to suture the notion of the American Dream
in a way that plays upon fear and insecurity, heightened of course since
September 11, 2001 and after the Great Recession of 2008. The macro-
structural unconscious keeps the popular majorities from remembering
the genocidal history of the United States; it keeps it repressed or entirely
out of view. For instance, in schools we disattend capitalism’s economic,
cultural, social, and geopolitical attributes. The reason for the existence
of the macrostructural unconscious can be related to the primary chal-
lenge faced by the ego, which is to resolve the contradiction between the
claims of ideology and the actual structure of social power and the need
to defend oneself against socially constructed antagonisms. The function
of the macrostructural unconscious is to reconcile reality and ideology
72
more than a genre, but rather as a type of speech, in other words, as a way
we tell stories about ourselves to ourselves, or to others as if it were the
natural way the world works, rather than as a perspective generated by
human beings as social constructions but given legitimacy as naturally
occurring social relations—a natural state of the way the world is. Myths
are expressed through a wide range of media and populated by other peo-
ple’s intentions, desires and prejudices that permeate the culture, mass
media and institutional life of societies. But I think of the American
Dream more as a zeitgeist that dominates what I call the macrostructur-
al unconscious of the United States, the pervasive set of ideals and beliefs
that give intentionality to the actions of the American public and gives
direction to American foreign policy. This zeitgeist that inflects our mac-
rostructural unconsious needs to be unpacked critically in order to un-
derstand why we acquiesce to the root-and-branch deceptions of our po-
litical and religious leaders and to abuses of power by the government and
its corporate courtiers and masters of officialdom. It is manufactures loy-
alty and is part of what I call the hidden catechism of American identity.
Marx and Engels understood this well when they wrote that the “ideas of
the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is
the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellec-
tual force,” exercising “control at the same time over the means of men-
tal production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who
lack the means of mental production are subject to ... nothing more than
the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the domi-
nant material relationships grasped as ideas ... the ideas of its dominance.”
This insight still holds true today and is perhaps more consequential for
humanity than at any other time in world history, with the potential na-
tion states now have for destroying the world through nuclear catastro-
phe and through ecocide. Trump uses his thrasonical hyperbolic rheto-
ric of the fascist imaginary to suture the notion of the American Dream
in a way that plays upon fear and insecurity, heightened of course since
September 11, 2001 and after the Great Recession of 2008. The macro-
structural unconscious keeps the popular majorities from remembering
the genocidal history of the United States; it keeps it repressed or entirely
out of view. For instance, in schools we disattend capitalism’s economic,
cultural, social, and geopolitical attributes. The reason for the existence
of the macrostructural unconscious can be related to the primary chal-
lenge faced by the ego, which is to resolve the contradiction between the
claims of ideology and the actual structure of social power and the need
to defend oneself against socially constructed antagonisms. The function
of the macrostructural unconscious is to reconcile reality and ideology
72
