Defining the new American Dream and Achieving it
A basic question of Imagining Recovery, and one which has already come up in the Policy Forum’s discussion, is “Recovering What?” In the competition’s Call For Ideas the following is written:
The term recovery has been adopted by the Obama administration to define the current moment of economic reform in America, and by extension, much of the world. This competition asks designers to collaborate with policy makers to define and position the term “recovery” itself. Recovery simultaneously looks backward and forward, this competition asks designers: What is it that we hope to recover? Do we aspire to recover a historical moment? Do we wish to recover our recent past? Should we attempt to recover at all, or should we only look forward?
This post will be focused on defining quality of life (The American Dream) and discussing the methods of achieving it.
How can we define (qualitatively and quantitatively) quality of life in America? The old definition of the American Dream is now folklore. We need to know what the contemporary interpretation of the American Dream is. In parallel, a number of questions should be explored: “What is the most expedient means of achieving it?” “How can we sustain it?” “Have we lost the American Dream in the first place?” “Did we ever achieve it? And how do we know?”
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When you catch the flu, it makes sense to recover. It’s all about returning to the original position. When you hit the floor and get acquainted with it, well, then it’s time to reform. Now, the problem is not everybody agrees on which is the floor. Though many would side on the economic patterns as the signpost to evaluate whether the bottom has been reached, it might come as no surprise that others would emphasize cultural aspects. Since it’s a design competition, let’s take a trip down memory lane. For example, what is a glorious past? Let’s take a hypothetical scenario: painting…(what does it have to do with the topics we are discussing!)…Wait, just give me some paragraphs! Let’s determine a dream. Character A considers spiritual thinking is backward, hence pop art should be the determining factor when designing new subway stations, new plazas, new cultural projects. For character A, it’s all about what’s hip and modern. His take is nothing is better than what awaits tomorrow, so he votes for people who situate themselves on the fringe of avant-garde issues, has a penchant for pushing new laws and pretty much assumes no canon should rule society (…though we might agree he does hold one canon: not to have a canon! A psychologist might argue he’s afraid of tradition). Now, character B considers spiritual thinking is what’s missing from the social sphere right now. No, not religious battles about abortion, women as priests, “conservative” values. It just so happens that character B actually disagrees with turning spirituality into a poll contest, into a rock the Church charity ball. For him, spirituality is what led Jean Van Eyck to paint the Annunciation, what Simone Martini understood in the metaphysics of the Virgin Mary, what he can feel when he reads the Zohar or Rûmî’s poems reverberate in his soul. For him, what’s missing is the emergence of education systems that value more the contemplative nature of men, so that the number one goal is not hyperactivity (a.k.a. economic gain), but wisdom, a dream that can last for ages and can’t be consumed because a bank account got churned given the speculative whims of some greedy masters. Now, character B might be sad, for it might be a lot to ask to expect people to actually demand dreams that do not depend entirely on the markets, on buying goods…but he somehow remains intrigued why when someone visits Washington National Gallery of art and stands in front of Jean Van Eyck’s Annunciation, the person, regardless of its culture, does not ask what was Van Eyck’s salary, compensation package, vacation period, political affiliation…might these perennial reactions to beauty be telling us something about the deeper meaning of life…
Since the failure of the modernist ideal, urban planning has retreated from proactive engagement with the city at a macro scale, preferring to focus on local interventions designed to address site specific requirements.
Whilst this approach can lead to positive short term impact, its failure to address the influence of the wider urban context renders even model developments vulnerable to disruption by the evolving demands of the surrounding city.
If the Recovery Act is to achieve its stated aim “to invest in transportation, environmental protection, and other infrastructure that will provide long-term economic benefits” we must first realise a framework for development which is capable of bridging this gap between the local and the citywide; a framework which allows coherent growth to occur without the disruption of established infrastructure and communities.
It is only by supporting designers in the pursuit of such a “game changing” new model of development that the new “New Deal” can hope to get beyond the infrastructural inefficiency, environmental degradation, and social dislocation associated with past, to achieve a sustainable future for humanity.
First we should “recover” the confidence in the others, it is key understand it for design sucesful policies for recovery. The mesaurement of this succes is the correspondence with the ideals of the american dream, but how other abstract cultural conceptions and government objectives, this concept shoul be actualized, the actualization that I propose is not a restrictive conception where look at the actual moment should be sayed to people that is needed have less exigences from life, make more things with less money is a dificult enterprise.Iin contrast I consider that the actualization of american dream is travel up to before conception, is required incorporate good education not only scientific, technic or economic in people how aditional variable, also is important now incorporate ethic, tolerance and ecological concience until spiritual values, it say change the focus of look at man only how an instrument for make money for the real value that every human represents in this world.
Concretly, american dream only can be translated in sucesful policies if in the definition of problem in local, federal and international ambits are considered aditional values to efficiency (reflected cost/benefit in short or long time). Equally each phase in the process of policies should be linked with human devlopment in social ambits. Each dollar invested should be focused in improve the education, health, infraestructure and productive activities for rebuilt not only the economic process if not the confidence of americans not only in the economic system if not in themselves. In this sense, is not for new economic system have fiancial system without regulation. Also It should be understaded of one time for all, that is not healthy for the society that private capitals have the mayor participation in the economie of the countries, should be established an equilibrium between money created for the state without interest rate and the money created by doubt for the banks.
In the new recovered econmie is important give space for mixed econmies with local moneys and interchanges independents of financial fluctuations, give more power to consumers not only for elections in goods if not in the shape of pay for it, interchange of goods, local moneys, genrosity, pay with job, all these are forms taht government should admit for promote a real dynamic of the ecnomie in present times.
We are front a window where is not only a opace cristal how in the past, and now is evident that world out of the window is focused to improve the welfare of people, it is a need inherent not only for alturist people if not for the health of our economie, for the health of our future and for the health of our dreams.
José Iván Ríos