A Gatsbean Odyssey: The American Dream (7/7)

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” –F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

 

1925. 1968. 1971. 2014. Here we are 92 years after the publication of The Great Gatsby, 46 after the crest of the 1960s countercultural movement, and 43 after the appearance of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and what of the American Dream now?

If we define the American Dream as the ability of anyone to become anything they want and we measure that dream by upward mobility and a growing middle class, the obvious answer is that it is endangered. Every statistic that hasn’t been cooked by a conservative think tank so it can be pushed by a con-artist politician indicates a now decades-long trend of the vast majority of folk working harder for less. Meanwhile, the upper crust are looking a lot more like their counterparts in Gatsby’s day: beyond reach.

Economists tell us economic collapses are cyclical, so there will be more. As the Great Recession that began in 2008 taught us, the individuals and institutions where wealth has accumulated the most are largely immune. A couple years later, the very designers of the crisis begin posting record profits and raising executive compensation to new levels. This isn’t the old money of the Buchanans in The Great Gatsby, it’s the new money of Wall Street, but in the 21st Century, those with it are much like the Buchanans in that they ruin lives and then withdraw behind their money.

But seeing the American Dream in terms of money and what it can buy, whether goods or good times, is part of the problem. Against it, Fitzgerald offers Gatsby’s incredible self-control and aptitude for self-reinvention, and Thompson offers the liberating movements of the Sixties. Neither seemed to believe the orthodox American Dream--the pursuit of money--had much to offer in the way of personal fulfillment.

What is available to us today as a counter-American Dream? Money and technology dominate our lives more than ever, and ever since the rise of capitalism, increasingly the only means of fighting back are part of the very system that is the problem. Many intellectuals of the left, since at least the Frankfurt School, have been skeptical that any significant revolution, even spiritual, is possible under such conditions, but perhaps social improvement can be made in small increments.

It’s better than nothing. And if I learned anything wrestling with Cornel West’s The American Evasion of Philosophy, it is that progressive change is part of that peculiarly American brand of philosophy known as pragmatism. So perhaps there is hope for us as Americans and we are not doomed, like Gatsby reaching for the green light on Daisy’s pier, to never grasp what we seek.

 

And with that, I return to Ithaca, hopefully having achieved a better understanding of The Great Gatsby. Odysseus had a lot of work to do after his return, and I doubt I am done with The Great Gatsby, but for the present, I’m content to put the book back on the shelf.

 

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