American Dream

Just go read The Great Gatsby...Don't worry. We'll wait.

Tragic right? It doesn't always end like that, though.

As we hinted at, defining the American Dream can potentially require a bookshelf (or hard drive) full of thoughtful novels (Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a fun one; Norman Mailer has one literally called An American Dream.)

Most of the novels take a pretty dim view of the concept, though, or at least take a dim view of its ability to turn into anything more than an aspiration. (Gatsby might argue that the aspiration is harmful on its own, but let’s not get too bummed out.)

The general idea is that in democratic, free-market America, every person has the opportunity to find both material and spiritual success, no matter what his or her origins or background. Manifest Destiny made personal. Number-three on that core three-item list of self-evident, unalienable American rights: the pursuit of happiness. Of course, as they always say, only the pursuit is guaranteed.

Just as an aside: you don't hear much about the Canadian dream. We suppose it involves drinking Molson, lightly defending quasi-Socialism, and watching hockey.