>>In another thread John Ryan referred several times to the American Dream.
>>So, what is (was) the American Dream, and has it disappeared?
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream

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"In the 19th century, many well-educated Germans fled the failed 1848 revolution. They welcomed the political freedoms in the New World, and the lack of a hierarchical or aristocratic society that determined the ceiling for individual aspirations. One of them explained:

"The German emigrant comes into a country free from the despotism, privileged orders and monopolies, intolerable taxes, and constraints in matters of belief and conscience. Everyone can travel and settle wherever he pleases. No passport is demanded, no police mingles in his affairs or hinders his movements ... Fidelity and merit are the only sources of honor here. The rich stand on the same footing as the poor; the scholar is not a mug above the most humble mechanics; no German ought to be ashamed to pursue any occupation ... [In America] wealth and possession of real estate confer not the least political right on its owner above what the poorest citizen has. Nor are there nobility, privileged orders, or standing armies to weaken the physical and moral power of the people, nor are there swarms of public functionaries to devour in idleness credit for. Above all, there are no princes and corrupt courts representing the so-called divine 'right of birth.' In such a country the talents, energy and perseverance of a person ... have far greater opportunity to display than in monarchies.""
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I think the most powerful phrase in there is:

"no German ought to be ashamed to pursue any occupation"

In the world of today's hipsters, we're all trying to be Beatniks or a rockstar like the Beatles, that the idea of being shameful about an occupation has no meaning.

The princes and powers that be, scholars a mug above mechanics, ect. That's what the New World absolved. Here and beyond.

Almost to the point where it might be worth pointing out, that the American dream is so prevalent and so widespread that its profound significance might have very little meaning left.

The idea that we are free to shoot for the farthest stars and fail or succeed is all we know. We aren't pawns of the monarchs. (Unless as a British Columbian you dreamed of being Prince of Wales someday.. that's probably impossible) nor do we understand (first hand) how much better our position is than that.