I heard some talk on here about the validity/worth of "The American Dream", and thought I'd throw my two cents in with a thread. One of the last posts I ever made at HookingUpSmart was back in March of this year and actually deals with this subject. I thought I'd post it here as well for people to ponder if they see fit. In it, I essentially claim that the American Dream is really a rigged game. It is all theoretical, so make of it what you will.
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Athlone McGinnis March 4, 2011 at 10:58 am
I’ve got a feeling that America’s economy is, in many senses, kind of a rigged game. I’m going to put on my tinfoil hat and rant about it for a minute(no class today, too much time on my hands).
The society starts by promoting the growth of rampant materialism/consumerism amongst Americans from an early age, with the media as a main tool. They learn early on that “bigger is better”, regardless of whether it actually is. A celebrity centric, materialist culture heavily focused on spending and the trappings of it(as well as how to look like you have it) is the result. Add American culture’s uniquely competitive/adversarial nature to this and you’ve got an even bigger phenomenon, with Americans all striving to outdo one another in this materialistic effort(“Keeping up with the Jones”) and spending money they don’t have in the process.
Then the society uses a host of clichéd but heavily romanticized tropes about the “American experience” that are designed to reinforce all of this.
The first important trope is “The american dream”(sizable suburban home, some land, fence, two $30,000 cars, etc), which is romanticized to an extent that many Americans can’t be satisfied with anything less. That, combined with the promotion of materialism/consumerism mentioned earlier, makes them susceptible to overspending to acquire it, ensuring that they never have much to save. Of course, thanks to the promotion of the trope, most Americans still feel it is all worth it even if they can’t afford it and go into debt.
Then you have another important trope involving work ethic. This stems from Americas puritanical roots, and basically is the reason why Americans work more and vacation less than almost anyone else in the developed world(save for some parts of East Asia). This is the type of trope that keeps the average american worker bee laboring almost constantly.
All of these things, combined, help to ensure that the average american is always spending, never saving, and constantly producing with relatively less leisure. The wage slave, the majority of the USA’s populace, can’t save(goes into debt due to ideal of American dream, keeping up with the Jones’ and bigger is better, on top of other expenses like healthcare costs that can trap the uninsured) and so can’t stop working. He/she is, in essence, a slave to consumerism.
The tropes noted are particularly important, since they essentially cover the bases even for most of the minority of Americans who earn more (upper middle class or above) and could in theory end up saving more. Because materialism/consumerism are so heavily promoted and “bigger is always better”, those who make more(like the upper middle class individuals Susan mentions) rarely use the surplus to save-they just spend more, even dipping into pools of money they don’t have for frivolous things like Swedish convertibles.
Thus, you have a rigged game. Nobody really wins. Even when you do “win”(read: succeed as a capitalist and gain a high income), you end up losing because you spend it all trying to outdo everyone else and/or live up to the materialistic ideal that have most likely been drilled into you (and if the consumerist impulse doesn't get them, then absurdly high school loans/debts will). In the end, even these high earning individuals have nothing more to show for it than those below their income level (unless, of course, they’re aware of these tropes, which most Americans aren’t).
This is actually kind of an intricately brilliant formula, and a great way to maintain the hegemony of those at the top. I assume this elite group might consist primarily of “old money” families, those that still maintain an ethos of inter-generational wealth(read: controlled spending, investment, etc) and often control much of American finance, manufacturing, government, etc.
Same goes for the small minority within the American populace that can see this all for what it is and avoid falling into the consumerist trap. I don’t think this is more than a fifth of the populace(probably a lot less actually), but thats just my opinion/educated guess. Those few people can do very well here by just being more reasonable with their money than the average Joe.
But I’d say about 80% of Americans are kind of screwed. The few beneficiaries I mentioned will be able to work to live, but most Americans will always live to work.
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An addendum to this from a later post I made in this thread:
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Athlone McGinnis March 4, 2011 at 6:32 pm
@Mike C.
If I ever get pushed too far, I can tell whoeve to f off, and not worry about paying rent that month.
That’s my goal as well. Freedom is invaluable. I don’t want to go 100mph until I drop dead.
Regarding spending habits, people shouldn’t get me wrong on all of this. I want nice things to. To use myself as an example, I am a car nerd, and I’ve always had an infatuation with Aston Martins. I love Lambos to, always wanted one. For all my railing against consumerism, it is likely that you’ll one day see me making an effort to grab one of these, among other expensive cars.
I’m not saying one should never purchase these things. The key is to just do it within reason, which means making sure you can REALLY afford them.
That new Lamborghini LP-700 Aventador, for example, looks great to me, but unless I can buy it cash(and said sum is less than 10% of my total liquidity available, which in this case would mean that I have nearly $5 million banked and a cumulative net worth even higher than that with zero debt), I won’t do it. If those conditions aren’t met, then I can’t truly afford the car. Too bad for me.
That is where the game is rigged. It says “if you want it, you should have it!” not “If you want it, make dead sure you can afford to have it”. A lot of veteran exotic car owners will tell you that the only good way to buy an exotic car is to put lots of cash on the hood up front, but nobody listens to them.
So you end up with a bunch of well-to-do worker bees calculating just how much credit they can get away with taking to afford the monthly payments on a six-figure Benz/Bentley/Porsche/Ferrari. Then they get on a payment plan at the dealership, rack up other expenses (big house, etc), and end up living paycheck to paycheck on a $350k+ yearly salary.
But they still have the nice car/house so they’ve “made it”.
The Beta Male: The Fuel that Keeps it all Running?
Seeing through the rigged nature of the Sexual Marketplace is as hard as seeing through the larger game. In fact, I think a lot of the tropes associated with our modern sexual marketplace are intimately related with the consumerist/materialist tropes we’ve been talking about.
Betatized and married men, for example, make much better wage slaves, and in fact form the backbone of this entire system. Their instilled “duty” to their wives and family is easily co-opted and exploited to fit the rigged game. Now its not just about competing with other individuals, but outdoing other families (bigger houses, two or three nicer cars in driveway, bigger vacation trips, better and more expensive private schools, etc). The element of family just makes the consumerist/materialist stakes a lot higher.
The ability of a betatized and married man to see through the game and avoid its pitfalls is much lower than that of a disconnected single guy, especially when single guy is anything like Roissy or Solomon2. Because he is betatized, he’ll see few other options aside from slaving away into eternity and going into debt to provide what America calls “the perfect family life/American dream”.
The game knows that the ethos of materialism/consumerism it promotes is especially effective on women, who shop and consume more often and more leisurely than men do and are much more wary of their social status relative to one another(which means they’ll want to compete more, spending more in order to do so). Modern marriage serves to link the betatized men to these women. Result? He is likely to face a lot more pressure from his wife to push further and further(bigger house, money for shopping, nice car, etc, etc-men complain about this nagging all the time), more pressure than he’d likely deal with if he were just on his own. Women are often a little less willing than the average guy to drop out of it all and quite keeping up with the Jones’. By linking them, the game helps to keep men in the fold more firmly.
Her presence will also make it more likely that more of his income goes into consumer purchases than it would on his own(women do much of the shopping in these families, and thus control how much of total household income is spent).
All of this is key to keeping the worker bee in line, and also ensuring that there will be more future worker bees(kids = much more money spent come christmas time and many other occasions = even more indebted and dependent worker bees = profit, successfully rigged game).
In the case of divorce? The game has a simple solution: shift laws in womens favor so as to guarantee that, more often than not, they will garner a larger sum of the male’s income(alimony, etc). The game realizes that women are more prone on average to their message of consumerism, so it seeks to ensure that a decent sum of money still remains in their hands in all scenarios.
Thus, the SMP is geared to create more betatized men. The game needs them in order to work, and they’re the main force holding it all together. If too many men start going their own way and forgoing marriage(and the expensive duties now intimately linked to the institution), the game might lack for players.
That is when society has the type of issues guys like Whiskey have warned about(“Misandry Bubble”, etc).
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Athlone McGinnis March 4, 2011 at 10:58 am
I’ve got a feeling that America’s economy is, in many senses, kind of a rigged game. I’m going to put on my tinfoil hat and rant about it for a minute(no class today, too much time on my hands).
The society starts by promoting the growth of rampant materialism/consumerism amongst Americans from an early age, with the media as a main tool. They learn early on that “bigger is better”, regardless of whether it actually is. A celebrity centric, materialist culture heavily focused on spending and the trappings of it(as well as how to look like you have it) is the result. Add American culture’s uniquely competitive/adversarial nature to this and you’ve got an even bigger phenomenon, with Americans all striving to outdo one another in this materialistic effort(“Keeping up with the Jones”) and spending money they don’t have in the process.
Then the society uses a host of clichéd but heavily romanticized tropes about the “American experience” that are designed to reinforce all of this.
The first important trope is “The american dream”(sizable suburban home, some land, fence, two $30,000 cars, etc), which is romanticized to an extent that many Americans can’t be satisfied with anything less. That, combined with the promotion of materialism/consumerism mentioned earlier, makes them susceptible to overspending to acquire it, ensuring that they never have much to save. Of course, thanks to the promotion of the trope, most Americans still feel it is all worth it even if they can’t afford it and go into debt.
Then you have another important trope involving work ethic. This stems from Americas puritanical roots, and basically is the reason why Americans work more and vacation less than almost anyone else in the developed world(save for some parts of East Asia). This is the type of trope that keeps the average american worker bee laboring almost constantly.
All of these things, combined, help to ensure that the average american is always spending, never saving, and constantly producing with relatively less leisure. The wage slave, the majority of the USA’s populace, can’t save(goes into debt due to ideal of American dream, keeping up with the Jones’ and bigger is better, on top of other expenses like healthcare costs that can trap the uninsured) and so can’t stop working. He/she is, in essence, a slave to consumerism.
The tropes noted are particularly important, since they essentially cover the bases even for most of the minority of Americans who earn more (upper middle class or above) and could in theory end up saving more. Because materialism/consumerism are so heavily promoted and “bigger is always better”, those who make more(like the upper middle class individuals Susan mentions) rarely use the surplus to save-they just spend more, even dipping into pools of money they don’t have for frivolous things like Swedish convertibles.
Thus, you have a rigged game. Nobody really wins. Even when you do “win”(read: succeed as a capitalist and gain a high income), you end up losing because you spend it all trying to outdo everyone else and/or live up to the materialistic ideal that have most likely been drilled into you (and if the consumerist impulse doesn't get them, then absurdly high school loans/debts will). In the end, even these high earning individuals have nothing more to show for it than those below their income level (unless, of course, they’re aware of these tropes, which most Americans aren’t).
This is actually kind of an intricately brilliant formula, and a great way to maintain the hegemony of those at the top. I assume this elite group might consist primarily of “old money” families, those that still maintain an ethos of inter-generational wealth(read: controlled spending, investment, etc) and often control much of American finance, manufacturing, government, etc.
Same goes for the small minority within the American populace that can see this all for what it is and avoid falling into the consumerist trap. I don’t think this is more than a fifth of the populace(probably a lot less actually), but thats just my opinion/educated guess. Those few people can do very well here by just being more reasonable with their money than the average Joe.
But I’d say about 80% of Americans are kind of screwed. The few beneficiaries I mentioned will be able to work to live, but most Americans will always live to work.
------------------
An addendum to this from a later post I made in this thread:
-----------------
Athlone McGinnis March 4, 2011 at 6:32 pm
@Mike C.
If I ever get pushed too far, I can tell whoeve to f off, and not worry about paying rent that month.
That’s my goal as well. Freedom is invaluable. I don’t want to go 100mph until I drop dead.
Regarding spending habits, people shouldn’t get me wrong on all of this. I want nice things to. To use myself as an example, I am a car nerd, and I’ve always had an infatuation with Aston Martins. I love Lambos to, always wanted one. For all my railing against consumerism, it is likely that you’ll one day see me making an effort to grab one of these, among other expensive cars.
I’m not saying one should never purchase these things. The key is to just do it within reason, which means making sure you can REALLY afford them.
That new Lamborghini LP-700 Aventador, for example, looks great to me, but unless I can buy it cash(and said sum is less than 10% of my total liquidity available, which in this case would mean that I have nearly $5 million banked and a cumulative net worth even higher than that with zero debt), I won’t do it. If those conditions aren’t met, then I can’t truly afford the car. Too bad for me.
That is where the game is rigged. It says “if you want it, you should have it!” not “If you want it, make dead sure you can afford to have it”. A lot of veteran exotic car owners will tell you that the only good way to buy an exotic car is to put lots of cash on the hood up front, but nobody listens to them.
So you end up with a bunch of well-to-do worker bees calculating just how much credit they can get away with taking to afford the monthly payments on a six-figure Benz/Bentley/Porsche/Ferrari. Then they get on a payment plan at the dealership, rack up other expenses (big house, etc), and end up living paycheck to paycheck on a $350k+ yearly salary.
But they still have the nice car/house so they’ve “made it”.
The Beta Male: The Fuel that Keeps it all Running?
Seeing through the rigged nature of the Sexual Marketplace is as hard as seeing through the larger game. In fact, I think a lot of the tropes associated with our modern sexual marketplace are intimately related with the consumerist/materialist tropes we’ve been talking about.
Betatized and married men, for example, make much better wage slaves, and in fact form the backbone of this entire system. Their instilled “duty” to their wives and family is easily co-opted and exploited to fit the rigged game. Now its not just about competing with other individuals, but outdoing other families (bigger houses, two or three nicer cars in driveway, bigger vacation trips, better and more expensive private schools, etc). The element of family just makes the consumerist/materialist stakes a lot higher.
The ability of a betatized and married man to see through the game and avoid its pitfalls is much lower than that of a disconnected single guy, especially when single guy is anything like Roissy or Solomon2. Because he is betatized, he’ll see few other options aside from slaving away into eternity and going into debt to provide what America calls “the perfect family life/American dream”.
The game knows that the ethos of materialism/consumerism it promotes is especially effective on women, who shop and consume more often and more leisurely than men do and are much more wary of their social status relative to one another(which means they’ll want to compete more, spending more in order to do so). Modern marriage serves to link the betatized men to these women. Result? He is likely to face a lot more pressure from his wife to push further and further(bigger house, money for shopping, nice car, etc, etc-men complain about this nagging all the time), more pressure than he’d likely deal with if he were just on his own. Women are often a little less willing than the average guy to drop out of it all and quite keeping up with the Jones’. By linking them, the game helps to keep men in the fold more firmly.
Her presence will also make it more likely that more of his income goes into consumer purchases than it would on his own(women do much of the shopping in these families, and thus control how much of total household income is spent).
All of this is key to keeping the worker bee in line, and also ensuring that there will be more future worker bees(kids = much more money spent come christmas time and many other occasions = even more indebted and dependent worker bees = profit, successfully rigged game).
In the case of divorce? The game has a simple solution: shift laws in womens favor so as to guarantee that, more often than not, they will garner a larger sum of the male’s income(alimony, etc). The game realizes that women are more prone on average to their message of consumerism, so it seeks to ensure that a decent sum of money still remains in their hands in all scenarios.
Thus, the SMP is geared to create more betatized men. The game needs them in order to work, and they’re the main force holding it all together. If too many men start going their own way and forgoing marriage(and the expensive duties now intimately linked to the institution), the game might lack for players.
That is when society has the type of issues guys like Whiskey have warned about(“Misandry Bubble”, etc).
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Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time.