The Protestant Ethic, the Spirit of Capitalism and the Inherent Flaw in the American Dream and Why It Has Become a National Nightmare. (Part Three)
“That’s the problem with the American dream; it makes everyone concerned about the day they’re going to be rich.” – President Bartlett from The West Wing.
Being in sales, I often attend sales training seminars: boot camp as I often call it. The purpose of these seminars, officially, is to reacquaint the sales staff with the benefits and features of a particular product or group of products so as to be better able to explain said benefits and features to potential customers thereby increasing sales and profit. The unofficial reason for attending these seminars, and the one you will never see publicly admitted to, is to drum in to the sales staff’s collective heads that you can make as much money as you wish; that ours is the only profession where there are no limits on our income, and that if we weren’t making enough money, then there was something we were doing wrong that needed correction; hence the need for a seminar.
Now, while there is an element of truth in that “unofficial” statement, what is left out is the very real and profound fact that despite every possible advantage that these seminars provide underachievers, the hard truth is that of all the people currently in sales, a handful – say 10 percent – do VERY well; another 25% are doing OK; and the remaining 65% run the gamut from barely making it to just flat out falling flat on their faces. Like the bulk of the American people, the ultimate goal is rarely reached, and the majority toil on, desperately believing that one day they will be in that top bracket. Like Joe the Plumber, they talk optimistically about a day when they can drink from the fountain of success, unfettered by the disadvantages they left behind in another lifetime in a galaxy far, far away. For them, the American dream is real, not because they have a realistic chance at living it out, but because they are terrified that the life they have is as good as it will ever get. They are the ultimate Republican wet dream, because each election cycle they eagerly line up and buy into another faulty notion that the wealthy have their backs, and that with a little more effort on their part, they will soon reach the summit of the mountain they have been climbing all their lives. The Democrats are Socialist kill-joys, they say, looking to rob them of the fortune they still do not have but earnestly believe they will one day achieve. Never mind that they are losing their homes, or are about to lose their jobs, or can’t afford to send their kids to college, or that their 401K just turned into a 201K, or that they don’t have quite enough money to both heat their homes and put food on the table. All that is just negative speak, not to be tolerated. It runs counter to an ethic that goes back centuries and is as deeply embedded into our collective psyches as the faith we profess to believe in. It is as old, it seems, as the printed word itself.
This Protestant ethic that Weber spoke of, whether you completely buy into all his conclusions – and I admit he does not explain all the inherent problems that exist – or not, has been primarily responsible for fostering a system that holds at its core a belief that success was evidence of God’s blessing, and there was something evil or contemptuous about those who could not fend for themselves or who needed assistance. Such people were to be scorned and those who “enabled” them shunned. Words like Socialist are code for non-conformists to an ideology that needs to reinforce a nation’s belief in its hegemony as evidence of God’s pre-determined favor, just as its peoples’ success within its borders were predicated squarely on how well they strived for it. It is an ethic that is self-fulfilling in its totality.
The truth is that for all the rhetoric that gets tossed about in this country, most of the “real” Americans that the Right seems to want to champion, would do well to wake up and smell the caffeine. Far from helping them realize their dreams, the Right has made their lives a living nightmare, a nightmare from which they are reluctant to wake up from. This Joe the Plumber guy is a case in point. Like so many other gullible individuals this “unlicensed” plumber, who can’t even pay his taxes, and is nowhere near being able to afford to buy his boss’s company, if he stopped and gave it some thought, would actually come to the realization that he would come out ahead under an Obama Administration. But John McCain whispers in his ear what he has always wanted to hear: that one day he will be rich enough to buy that business, and that when that happens he will be penalized for being prosperous. McCain has told him what he wanted to hear; Obama told him the truth. In politics the truth is mocked; in real life, however, the truth hurts.
The nation is hurting, more now than at any time since The Great Depression. Maybe now some of this painful truth will seep into the fabric of our society and we will finally be able to emerge if not totally from the nightmarish existence which is our history, then at least partially from it. Self-reliance, along with the arrogance that runs parallel to it, will never be completely exorcized from our collective conscious – they are too deeply embedded for that. But, maybe, we can all come to a fuller understanding that while there is nothing wrong with a little hard work and breaking a sweat for one’s wages, not everyone can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. As Children of God, we are called to help those less fortunate than ourselves, not from a posture of pride and self-righteousness, but from the humility of knowing that while we were still lost in sin, Jesus gave up His own life to save us. He fed the hungry, healed the sick and tended to those less fortunate. As His Disciples, we are no less obligated to return the favor in His name.
“That’s the problem with the American dream; it makes everyone concerned about the day they’re going to be rich.” – President Bartlett from The West Wing.
Being in sales, I often attend sales training seminars: boot camp as I often call it. The purpose of these seminars, officially, is to reacquaint the sales staff with the benefits and features of a particular product or group of products so as to be better able to explain said benefits and features to potential customers thereby increasing sales and profit. The unofficial reason for attending these seminars, and the one you will never see publicly admitted to, is to drum in to the sales staff’s collective heads that you can make as much money as you wish; that ours is the only profession where there are no limits on our income, and that if we weren’t making enough money, then there was something we were doing wrong that needed correction; hence the need for a seminar.
Now, while there is an element of truth in that “unofficial” statement, what is left out is the very real and profound fact that despite every possible advantage that these seminars provide underachievers, the hard truth is that of all the people currently in sales, a handful – say 10 percent – do VERY well; another 25% are doing OK; and the remaining 65% run the gamut from barely making it to just flat out falling flat on their faces. Like the bulk of the American people, the ultimate goal is rarely reached, and the majority toil on, desperately believing that one day they will be in that top bracket. Like Joe the Plumber, they talk optimistically about a day when they can drink from the fountain of success, unfettered by the disadvantages they left behind in another lifetime in a galaxy far, far away. For them, the American dream is real, not because they have a realistic chance at living it out, but because they are terrified that the life they have is as good as it will ever get. They are the ultimate Republican wet dream, because each election cycle they eagerly line up and buy into another faulty notion that the wealthy have their backs, and that with a little more effort on their part, they will soon reach the summit of the mountain they have been climbing all their lives. The Democrats are Socialist kill-joys, they say, looking to rob them of the fortune they still do not have but earnestly believe they will one day achieve. Never mind that they are losing their homes, or are about to lose their jobs, or can’t afford to send their kids to college, or that their 401K just turned into a 201K, or that they don’t have quite enough money to both heat their homes and put food on the table. All that is just negative speak, not to be tolerated. It runs counter to an ethic that goes back centuries and is as deeply embedded into our collective psyches as the faith we profess to believe in. It is as old, it seems, as the printed word itself.
This Protestant ethic that Weber spoke of, whether you completely buy into all his conclusions – and I admit he does not explain all the inherent problems that exist – or not, has been primarily responsible for fostering a system that holds at its core a belief that success was evidence of God’s blessing, and there was something evil or contemptuous about those who could not fend for themselves or who needed assistance. Such people were to be scorned and those who “enabled” them shunned. Words like Socialist are code for non-conformists to an ideology that needs to reinforce a nation’s belief in its hegemony as evidence of God’s pre-determined favor, just as its peoples’ success within its borders were predicated squarely on how well they strived for it. It is an ethic that is self-fulfilling in its totality.
The truth is that for all the rhetoric that gets tossed about in this country, most of the “real” Americans that the Right seems to want to champion, would do well to wake up and smell the caffeine. Far from helping them realize their dreams, the Right has made their lives a living nightmare, a nightmare from which they are reluctant to wake up from. This Joe the Plumber guy is a case in point. Like so many other gullible individuals this “unlicensed” plumber, who can’t even pay his taxes, and is nowhere near being able to afford to buy his boss’s company, if he stopped and gave it some thought, would actually come to the realization that he would come out ahead under an Obama Administration. But John McCain whispers in his ear what he has always wanted to hear: that one day he will be rich enough to buy that business, and that when that happens he will be penalized for being prosperous. McCain has told him what he wanted to hear; Obama told him the truth. In politics the truth is mocked; in real life, however, the truth hurts.
The nation is hurting, more now than at any time since The Great Depression. Maybe now some of this painful truth will seep into the fabric of our society and we will finally be able to emerge if not totally from the nightmarish existence which is our history, then at least partially from it. Self-reliance, along with the arrogance that runs parallel to it, will never be completely exorcized from our collective conscious – they are too deeply embedded for that. But, maybe, we can all come to a fuller understanding that while there is nothing wrong with a little hard work and breaking a sweat for one’s wages, not everyone can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. As Children of God, we are called to help those less fortunate than ourselves, not from a posture of pride and self-righteousness, but from the humility of knowing that while we were still lost in sin, Jesus gave up His own life to save us. He fed the hungry, healed the sick and tended to those less fortunate. As His Disciples, we are no less obligated to return the favor in His name.
1 comment:
Right on as usual, Pete. Check out my latest blog, too.
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