Americans don’t know when to stop. Anything.
They eat too much, shop too much, hoard too much, work too much.
That’s the viewpoint of a Southern Connecticut State University assistant professor who sees a connection between all this “too muchness” and the American Dream.
“We overdo pretty much everything,” said Gayle Bessenoff, who teaches psychology. “There’s something about the American Dream that leads to overdoing everything.”
How do you discriminate between serious ‘collections’ and ‘investments’ and ‘overconsumption?’
I think Americans take too many college psychology classes…
Let’s face it, folks: We’re Americans!
Generalities are always wrong.
he’s not entirely wrong, but here’s the conundrum: our economy can only recover if consumption goes back up. So what to do? Transition from a consumption based economy to what exactly?
We certainly do overanalyze things.
I don’t think “overdoing everything” has anything at all to do with “the American Dream” and I suspect that the attempt to connect the two as somehow pernicious is more a pointer to the professor’s economic/political worldview than anything.
He is dead on correct. The notion that bigger is better suffuses our value system from breasts to incomes to high rises to political campaign promises and spending. In many states, the death toll on roads is announced in the media with a certain breathlessness, esp if it is greater than last year, and in many states (including Maine) the deer kill is assessed at “better” than last year if it is bigger. If it is smaller the question becomes “What can we do to increase it?” Meals at the fast food places have gotten bigger and bigger and the cokes and pepsis and coffee cups are now enormous. How can you doubt the proposition? The American Dream has become the biggest income and the biggest house with the greatest conspicuous waste with plenty of sex thrown in: Six car garages!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yeah!! How many guys on athletic teams? How much evidence do you want?
Larry
RE: “The American Dream has become the biggest income and the biggest house with the greatest conspicuous waste . . . ”
Nope — I deny that. That is *not* the American Dream, and the attempt to connect the two is false and pernicious.
Of course, anyone is free to define the American Dream as they please — nobody can stop that. I might, for instance, define the American Dream as an Aramaic script.
But that would not actually be the American Dream, no matter how many articles I wrote about the American Dream being an Aramaic script.
There is absolutely *nothing* about the American Dream that inexorably “leads to overdoing everything” any more than there is anything about the American Dream that inexorably “leads to Aramaic scripts.” All that is is an assistant professor touting some of his political propaganda.
I think we’ve overdone funding of post-secondary education.
False and pernicious? You flatter me. But you apparently know what th American Dream is – I mean distinct from the belief that in America, you have the freedom to become rich rich rich. I grant you, a long time ago it had something to do with freedom social and religious. But that’s not why immigrants sneak over the borders: They come because, legal or illegal, they can make money and more money, and move into a variety of businesses and make money. If we offered the man in the streets a choice to become either Mother Theresa or Bill Gates, Martin Luther King or Payton Manning, which will he choose? The other American Dream – “You can be anything you want to be” – appeared in the form of President Obama, until reality set in, as it always does.
I suppose the American Dream includes the legal right to call ever bigger and bigger names, do you suppose?
Old False and Pernicious in Maine
Let’s see… James Watt and Thomas Edison overdid inventing, George Patton overdid tank advancing, the Wrights overdid flying …
Yeah. As we say in Vegas, anything worth doing is worth overdoing.