The American Dream

I am from Poland. Until my fifteenth year I grew up living one culture, one language, one religion. We lived in an apartment building, had a black and white TV with two channels: Channel One and Channel Two. There were no commercials, no ads in the papers. You went to a grocery store and bought what you needed. You always knew what you needed: bread, butter, fruits, vegetables, meat, candy, clothes, etc. Some things were hard to get like good meat, and often you had to stand in long lines to get it. There was a lack of certain goods, some of them essential, but you lived anyway. There was no poverty, no depression among people. Outside children played everyday, while parents went about their chores at home. There were no kidnappings. There was one religion, and almost everybody went to church on Sunday. Sunday was generally considered a holy day. You didn’t work on Sunday. It was a sin. Families and friends visited each other after church, or stayed home for Sunday dinner in the pleasure of each other’s company. People went for walks. Only a small percentage had cars, but the distances weren’t that great. So people were fit. You could always take the bus or the train if the distance was too great.
And so the life flowed in my town and in my country. Nobody was rich. Nobody was poor. The life revolved around family, friends and holidays. And people didn’t know how good they had it. They didn’t appreciate the common vibe that sounded in every person.
The government wasn’t perfect. There was a lot of controversy about how things should be run. So some “intelligent” people suggested to take a look at the West.
“They have a much better life”, they said.
And so people looked. They saw the western life in American movies. They saw new cars, clean houses, rich neighborhoods, fully stocked shelves at supermarkets. And some started to long and aspire for that life. And on the two channels on TV more and more American movies appeared. The riches were once again on exhibit to show us, and the rest of the world, just how grand and superior America is. Having limited funds, not allowing them to go anywhere, people saw the TV as the window into the wide world. Little by little they got sold on the American Dream. The wanted to live like Americans. So some of the decided:
“Our country is inadequate for us. The store shelves are often empty, hardly any of us have cars. We can’t have what we want! Let’s leave Poland and go where it’s better”.
And so they left. And they loved it, at first. They walked into a store, and everything was there. You want bread? We have 20 kinds of bread. You want meat? We got 40 kinds. You want clothes, alcohol, candy? We got it! The selection was overwhelming, and these emigrants were in paradise.
Just as even the best candy will lose its appeal after you’ve had too much of it, the people that left their fatherland grew accustomed to the material well-being of this new place. Eventually, they started to look beyond the riches, the selections, the ease of acquiring whatever your heart desires. Once they stepped past the material façade, they found mostly emptiness. There were no friends, not much of a family, no common values or beliefs, no common understanding, tradition or religion. They found that all values and beliefs led right back to the material façade they longed for and had previously aspired to. They wanted to move beyond, but there was nowhere to go. Their new house was a mansion on the outside, but a shack inside. It was beyond comprehension. They grew depressed. Most stayed, some of them went back but found their own countries becoming more and more like America. And they didn’t like it, but the voice of America was strong, and it said:
“Look at us! We are rich, powerful and happy. We are beautiful. We are intelligent. We are strong.”
But that was just talk. People that got sold on the Dream, and dared to venture to America to live it, finding out very quickly that for each rich person, there are at least two poor people. In fact, they never saw such poverty back home as they saw in America. They found out that most people work for large corporations and have little to say about their time, hours of work or security of their jobs. They relinquished their power to the corporate giants they worked for. They found that most of Americans are overweight, unhappy and have problems pointing out their own country on the world map. So what were the movies portraying? It seemed like none of this was true. Ironically, America prides itself on its freedom of speech. But where was it? The voice of the common people was strangely absent from the mass communication channels. Sure you could say whatever you wanted, but who would listen to you? And even if someone did, they wouldn’t understand you. They thought they were happy. And if they weren’t, they went out and bought something. And then they were happy.
The people from Poland and other “second class” countries started to notice this dysfunction. Something was definitely lacking in this society. And they seemed to know what it was. It was what these people gave up when they left their own country: community, friends, family, tradition, and common beliefs. What happened here? They couldn’t understand. Conclusions were drawn, that the country was young, the culture hasn’t been fully shaped, that people come here from all over the world with different cultures in the background, and so they don’t understand each other. And this was partly true. What they didn’t realize was that not only their country was sold on the American Dream but people from the whole world came here to pursue it. So it all became just a huge rat race with people hurting other people just so that they could get ahead of them. So there was no community, just competition. People had no friends, so they stayed home. And as they stayed home, they became bored. But there was a solution: television. So they started watching it. And slowly the TV watching became a part of the daily routine. Then it was evident that, through TV, messages can reach millions of minds, and America started selling itself to its own people. Advertisers used brilliant tricks to get people to buy their products, and people bought. And they became happy, because that’s what advertisers promised. The happiness wore off in a few days, so back to the TV they went. Then they got sold on another product, which also made them happy, and the happiness wore off again. Loneliness set in. Then depression. Sometimes suicide. And the people in Poland couldn’t believe it. Why depression? Why suicide? They had everything.
It’s amazing how many things a person takes for granted, especially the non-material things. Friends, family and community all played an integral role in the Polish society, but no one saw it. They thought that the American Dream was all that they had PLUS the material well being. But what Poland had America lacked, and in the end it was evident which was more important.