A Dream of Life Essay

Try to picture this: A big white house with light blue shutters and a big porch. Two young children are playing with their dog without arguing or fighting. The mom is preparing dinner ready at 6 o’clock in the big kitchen. Meanwhile, the dad is just arriving from work in his BMW and stops to play a little with his kids. The mom comes out the porch, tells them â€Å"dinner is ready, go wash your hands† and gives the husband a big hug and a welcome kiss. They are the perfect American dream family. This perfect life is what most Americans dream of when they work an eight-hour day in exchange for a two-week vacation and a one-week sick leave. Americans work all this time because they think that the democratic government in the US is working hard to provide them the right of equality, prosperity, and adventure. The people of this nation become slaves of themselves and their dream of life by working too much for something only few get. The right of equality is a big part of this American Dream. But is equality being attained by every citizen? There are myths that stop citizens from acquiring this equality. Simone De Beauvoir in her â€Å"Myth and Reality† essay explains how myths are used to break this equality between women and men. She explains how the eternal myth that women are mysterious and incomprehensible to men affects the equality at work. In a relationship of master to slave, it is always the slave who is mysterious and difficult to understand (818). This myth keeps the women in a lower status than the men, and the equality wanted by every American citizen is not met. There are more myths about equality. For example the myth of working hard to have a secure job, this myth might have been formed by people that had a business and wanted employees to work as hard as possible, so they would make more profit. Americans follow these myths to have a better economic status, but all they are gaining is to be in an uneven equality status. They work hard and slave themselves to their masters (or bosses in this case) to gain this dream, but instead they end up trapped working for life. In contrast, democracy by the society is not always used in a prudent way. Alex De Tocqueville makes a strong point explaining how equality among individuals eventually produces a desire for centralization in government. Consequently the people will be too busy with their own activities and lives making their own fortune. As the outcome, this society will expect the government to take care of the nation so that they will be free to peruse their own opportunities (566). This freedom of democracy might consequently produce governors whose power will be concentrated in a way that the people will exercise this freedom unwisely. The conditions that produce equality on the citizens might as well produce a despot. If a ruler with absolute power if produced from equality then equality stops being equality for everybody, because this ruler will divide the power among the people according to what might be better for him. Furthermore, Alex De Tocqueville explains that â€Å"the principle of quality, which makes men independent of each other, gives them a habit and a taste for following in their private actions no other guide than their own will† (569). This independence tends to make them live with a natural favoritism towards free institutions. For example, the killings of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Shah of Iran, Pol Pot, Pinochet and others could have been prevented by a free institutionalized government. The problem with this is that â€Å"private life in democratic times is so busy, so excited, and so full of wishes and of work, that hardly any energy or leisure remains to each individual for public life† (573). With no time for public life, half of the dream is gone, and gone not to ever come back again. But people work even harder to get more time, but the harder they work the less time they have. This busyness of working fifty two weeks a year for this freedom makes the society slaves of itself, takes away the freedom generated by equality. Additionally, stereotypes formulated by the government about the people living in this society break the equality given to them by democracy. James Baldwin was a Negro revolutionist, in his essay of â€Å"The American Dream and the American Negro† he explains how the stereotyped generated by the government, of the people living within the society do not allow them the same equality. â€Å"One of the things the white world does not know, but I think I know, is that black people are just like everybody else. We are also mercenaries, dictators, murderers, liars. We are human, too.† There is no exception to who is an American, but the society seems to be making exceptions for color, race or religion. This exception shatters equality, and prosperity is not the same for everybody anymore, but still people work so hard to attain what they dreamed for that they spend too much time doing so, and they lose the occasion of adventure. The American dream is not for everybody as the society seems to believe. Americans are willing to enslave themselves in order to attain their big white houses with light blue shutters. Different myths stop them in the middle of slavery where they stay for the rest of their lives, still trying to reach that dream. While all this is happening, centralization is occurring in the country, and the society is too busy with their own activities and lives making their own fortune, expecting the government to take care of the nation so that they can be free to peruse their own opportunities. This leaves a huge unsecured gap in the government for rulers to have absolute power over the nation. Citizens then become slaves of the country, working endless hours that never seam to end until they die, and their sons and daughters do the same thing, and it becomes a vice circle. At the end, only a few citizens attain their big houses with enough financial security to adventure the world. Those few li ve the American dream. Works cited: Baldwin, James. â€Å"The American Dream and the American Negro.† A World of Ideas Essential Reading for College Writers. By Lee A Jacobus. Sixth Edition ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002. 261-. Rpt. in A World of Ideas Essential Readings for College Writers. Beauvoir, Simone De. â€Å"Woman: Myth and Reality.† A World of Ideas Essential Reading for College Writers. By Lee A Jacobus. Sixth Edition ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002. 75-81. Rpt. in A World of Ideas Essential Readings for College Writers. Tocqueville, Alexis de. â€Å"Influence of Democratic Ideas and Feelings on Political Society.† A World of Ideas Essential Readingfor College Writers. By Lee A Jacobus. Sixth Edition ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002. 247-257. Rpt. in A World of Ideas Essential Readings for College Writers.