The American Dream

I continue to be haunted by this Schiavo thing, Bush. As you well know, I've never spent so many days devoting my weblog to any other single topic, so there's certainly something deep and disturbing about it that simply won't let go. I'm wondering now, after the US Court of Appeals in Atlanta turned them down, what it is about the parents that they refuse to accept the cold dose of reality they have been offered at every turn along the way. Now, I read, they have taken the matter up to the US Supreme Court. Oh, and your brother Jeb is busy trying to activate his legislature.

In a way, there's something undeniably admirable about the Schindlers' tenacity. Their love for their daughter is so powerful, runs so deep, that they persist against all odds in this losing battle with their son-in-law, the medical profession, and the justice system. And yet--I almost hate to say this, Bush, about people who are in such evident pain--there's something perverse about it, too. It's an inability to come to terms with reality.

I've begun to wonder whether this is a peculiarly American malady. I have noticed it in you, too, the country's chosen leader, and have not hesitated to point it out to you on every possible occasion--most recently in our last entry in this diary, with respect to your apparent disregard for science. And again, in some ways this obstinate belief in infinite possibility is wholly admirable. One of its manifestations is the American Dream. We are encouraged to believe that even the impossible is possible if we fight long and hard enough, and with enough belief in ourselves. At the center of this dream, of course, is the Rugged Individual, who conquers all odds and achieves his goal, whatever that might be. It usually has to do with fame, or fortune, or both combined.

But there's a dark side to this dream: the risk is that it can get mistaken for reality, and in this way become the expectation rather than the dream. The desires it awakens in us translates into "rights", and then turn sour when those rights are not fulfilled. This where I see the Schindlers falling into painful error: neither the medical nor the legal system can manage to fulfill what it is they so desperately desire, and their response is indignation that their rights are being violated. The reality they refuse to see is their daughter's medical condition. No parent could ever fail to feel sorry for their dreadful predicament, but comes a time when their attachment to their suffering transcends the bounds of reason.

There's also an extension, in our society, of this dark side of the American Dream, and it has to do with the stark reality that there are many among us so impoverished, so undereducated, so deprived of opportunity that they lack even the capacity to formulate a dream, let alone the energy and the persistence to reach for it. Or, if they do, are forced into essentially antisocial paths. The prevalence of street gangs and the drugs they deal in, the shootings, the territorial wars, for example--are these not the symptoms of the disempowered striving to achieve their dream? I suspect they might be. There's little opportunity for urban kids to set foot on the corporate ladder to power and wealth. It's hardly surprising that they choose this ready alternative to go about the fulfillment of their American Dream. Our society purveys the concept primarily through TV--from commercials, to sitcoms, to "reality" shows and drama. It does not, however, make a point of marketing the means.

Here's my worry about you, Bush: in a sense, you could be seen as having achieved your American Dream. By your own admission, you've gone from being a drunken layabout to President of the United States. But I believe you might be blinded by your own good fortune to the realities that an awful lot of ordinary people face in their daily lives. Like your Dad at the market check-out line, not too many years ago, you might be surprised at the real cost of things down here. Things like war, and poverty, and disease--both physical and mental--and desperation. I believe you have your head in the clouds of privilege and religious fervor, and that both of these combine to isolate you from the uncomfortable world of difficult reality.

There are dreams, as the Schindlers are discovering to their infinite pain, that are simply impossible to achieve in this real world. There are times when our challenge is not to resist, but to accept.