Summary: Facing Up To The American Dream

428 Words2 Pages
Regardless of the content of each individual version of the American dream they all include the belief in the opportunity to achieve some form of quantitative or qualitative success. Therefore, in order to better understand the existence of so many different versions of the American dream it would first be helpful to define the different ways in which success can be measured. In her book Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation, Jennifer Hochschild[5] states that definitions of success involves measurement as well as content. She classifies success into the following three categories which have important normative and behavioral consequences: Absolute success- "In this case achieving the American dream implies…show more content…
If we were asked to explain the contradiction between our beliefs and reality many of us would be hard pressed to do so without tracing back how we came to know and understand the American dream to begin with. One way to better understand the meaning of the American dream is to examine it within the framework provided by Hochschild, who places the ideology of the American dream within four tenets of success. According to Hochschild these tenets define the American dream as well as its intrinsic flaws by answering the following questions about the pursuit of success: Question Who may pursue success? Answer-"everyone regardless of ascriptive traits, family background or personal history"(18). Flaws Fails to account for aspects of inequality such as race and sex discrimination (26). Question What does one
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