OPINION:
The American dream has animated generations with the conviction that hard work and perseverance are inevitably rewarded with success. The dream must survive a collision with the competing notion that “seeing is believing,” and for many, optimism has become old-fashioned.
A recent poll conducted by The Wall Street Journal and the University of Chicago finds just 36% of respondents still adhere to the American dream. A larger portion, 45%, say the dream was a meaningful incentive once upon a time, but not anymore. Sadly, 18% assert that the idea that we live in a “land of opportunity” has always been a myth.
Women and younger adults register the greatest tendency to view the American dream as a fantasy: Only 28% say their heart is in the struggle for success. Men and those older than 65 are more apt to still trust the promise that effort is the pathway to success, at 46% and 48%, respectively.
Disturbingly, comparison with previous surveys reveals a steepening downward trend: Believers in the dream polled at 53% in 2012 and 48% in 2016. Apparently, Americans don’t find much progress in the “progressive” current culture.
To be sure, the rise in disconsolation is a natural human response to troubling times. The terrorist-triggered war in the Middle East, prosperity-killing inflation at home and head-spinning propaganda across the cybersphere all conspire to throw a spanner at the uniquely American knack for making lemonade out of lemons.
If moderns tend to conclude that a world spiraling out of control is justification for giving up on their dreams, it is fortunate that their forebears were made of sterner stuff. Those venerable lovers of liberty risked life and limb on the high seas over personal intrusions far fewer than those wielded by the 21st century’s officialdom, which schemes to clamp secret controls on Americans’ right of free speech and their ability to travel freely, among other things.
Landing destitute upon New England’s wild coastline as winter set in, the early settlers chose to fight ravaging hunger by scratching mollusks out of the freezing mud rather than consuming seed corn meant for spring planting. These settlers — men and women — demonstrated uncommon fortitude. It would be more than 150 years of self-reliant labor before the establishment of the United States and the Congress that today’s Americans henpeck for trillions of dollars in benefits.
“The Polar Express,” a 2004 animated film that has become a holiday classic, features a vignette worth remembering. A train conductor, voiced by actor Tom Hanks and modeled in his image, uses his hole puncher to magically hammer out upon a golden ticket a one-word message serving as the movie’s paramount motif: “believe.”
It isn’t simply a lesson to ponder as Christmas approaches. Rather, it is a reminder that in all seasons and at all ages, dreadful events that loom large are thrust aside by those who refuse to surrender their conviction that the American dream is real. Now, as much as ever, belief is the ticket.
