Problems of the American Dream in Modern Society

  Now we know that the American Dream was not really equal and democratic to every people; what if there are other problems that were produced as a consequence of practicing it? Unfortunately, there are many other problems that our modern day society face whose root can be found in the American Dream.

  Materialized Society

  Capitalism is functioning as a global economic structure for most countries today. It is no surprise that capital is the very source for economic action— the way of living. Thus, people are starting to think everything around them in a capital value; we calculate the price of products and get paid of our labor in capital. What's more, in order to capitalize all tangible and intangible resources, people start to productize them. We even commercialize ourselves— humans. Consumption-based hobbies are becoming prevalent in our way of life as well. 

  Destruction of the Environment

  The effective use of land was regarded as a favorable act among Americans back then. Cultivation means civilization to intellectuals; more land means affluence to the wealthy. However, the global warming and environmental pollution now became urgent matters in an international scale. 

  Threatening Human Health
  Meanwhile, the productivity of a worker in a workplace would be measured in terms of the quantity of time and labor, resulting in various types of maladies in workers' both physical and mental health. Fast-food industry stemmed from the need to increase workers' productivity to its highest level by reducing even their dining time. This resulted in nutritious imbalance in modern day people, creating various types of adult diseases. People suffering from nervous breakdown by the enormous work pressure is not an extraordinary thing to happen nowadays.

  This shift in way of living and subsequent problems leave us a significant question about what is humanity and what should be regarded as humane act, just like the speaker of Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street exclaims in his last words when he saw Bartleby dead in prison for rejecting the implicit rules in a workplace in Wall-Street: "Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!" (Melville, 29). Under the threat of mankind becoming commercials, residents of a polluted planet and neurasthenics with unhealthy body, now is time to rethink the American Dream and its legacy remaining in our society.

 

Wall-Street in 1890's and in 2010's