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From its conception, the American dream has been defined for us: And it has been continuously redefined by charlatans. The scammers I am referring to are also known by other dubious monikers: politicians, preachers, promoters, ad executives, CEOs, etc. Each successive generation is full of “vote addicts,” demagogues, and money-grubbers who chase power, influence, and wealth by shoving a vision of the American dream down an eagerly awaiting population’s throats. They view their constituents, congregations, and consumers as a nest of altricial hatchlings in desperate need of allofeeding (the act of birds feeding one another).
The original American dream was simply to be free from taxation without representation. That vision, along with the dream of owning a house and land, remained fairly stable until the late 1940s, when the consumer credit industry was formed. Once the post–World War II credit juggernaut was firmly established in the 1990s, the American dream became a chaotic manic-obsessive endeavor to own this and that and another thing too, and many times owning two or three of the same things. After all, one must color coordinate.
We’ve ended up like lab rats. If we react properly to stimuli, we get rewarded. As in: If we achieve an acceptable credit score, credit cards are dispensed, and these permit purchases that would otherwise not be in the budget. If we react poorly to stimuli, we get punished. As in: If we don’t pay the credit card bill on time, an unacceptable credit score is applied, and this triggers immoral interest rates and prohibits future purchases because the compounding interest maxes out our credit cards. We then do everything in our power to pay the masters of usury on time so we can again finance things that we don’t have the money for.
That’s a real-world example of the current neuroscience protocol “Reward/Punishment-Based Decision Making in Rodents” (Orsini and Simon*).
I’m working on a story about a lab mouse (moi?) that’s stuck on the work, buy, consume, and die American dream apparatus until he momentarily escapes his captors and catches a fleeting glimpse of what the American dream ought to be—but he doesn’t realize it until he looks back on a time in his life that is long gone.
It’ll be coming to a fine brick-and-mortar bookstore near you, and, naturally, it’ll be available in the cyber realm too.
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“I think I’m getting the Fear.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “We came out here to find the American Dream, and now that we’re right in the vortex you want to quit.” I grabbed his bicep and squeezed. “You must realize,” I said, “that we’ve found the main nerve.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s what gives me the Fear.”
