10/7/08
History
The American way of life is something, which has been more of a cultural phenomenon than anything else since the creation of America. It has not however been defined and no real commonly accepted articulation of the AWOL has been made. In order to find out what it was, or if one even existed, I interviewed an array of people living in America. The views expressed by people who were interviewed on America, and the American way of life (AWOL), varied. For the most part, it seemed that Americans were indecisive about where America is right now. This made it so people were saying that, America is a failing nation, but also in other ways is still the country it used to be. An explanation for these responses is that America right now is in uncertain times and in turn the people are uncertain on what will be the end result of the economic, foreign policy, social, and political conflict.
My mom, who I interviewed on the AWOL chose to focus her answers on how the American family. “In the past,” she said “it used to be that the mother would stay home and do house work, while the father would go out and earn the money. Now the economy is simply not strong enough in America for that to be the standard.” My mom works 2 jobs and used her own life as proof of how the American standard (or AWOL) has changed. In terms of family life, and economics the American way of life has changed, the economics of the times have impacted the family life and changed how we live in America. My dad, whom I also interviewed, expressed the idea that the American way of life really is just a modern lifestyle shared by various peoples other than Americans. “Due to industrialization of the majority of the world, virtually every major culture that once was traditionally definable has become a commercialized nation and like America.” He did say that the American way of life is unique in one respect above all others. “America is at its core a country founded on ideals which culminate to create an ideal environment for creativity and entrepreneurship.” Creativity thrives when it is allowed to and tends to result in advances in the sciences and technology. America has indeed been the place for innovation of the majority of technology in the last century since the technical revolution, than again the Japanese, and other nations have also been innovators.
In class we interviewed a college graduate student named Tim, who grew up in long island, and is self-described as coming from a privileged background. Tim said that he believed money to be the biggest determining factor in how people live and what dictates how people get to live their “American way of life”. Tim did not define what he believed the AWOL to be, but what he said fell under the common idea that it is about having the freedom and ability to rise through a class system created to allow people to rise from what they do, and how hard they work to get their. When asked in class by Sandy, what he thought positive and negative aspects of the AWOL were, Tim said, “A positive aspect is that the system is set up for people to be able to change their socioeconomic class with hard work. The negative aspect is that people can change their position but it is so much harder to do so when coming from poverty.” What Tim said points out a very large part of America, it has great poverty as well as great wealth, but unlike other countries, we have a middle class which is unlike the upper class and much closer to the lower class because of how wealthy the few people who make up the real (not just well off, the CEO’s) upper class are. Kevin during class made an important distinction between the wealthy and the rich. “Shaq, is rich. He gets paid millions to play basketball, but the person who signs the check and pays him millions to play is wealthy”.
When I interviewed people in the street about the AWOL, I never was able to get a definitive answer. When talking to a 20- something year old, white, middle class woman, I asked her about what she thought largest problem in America was that could the AWOL, her response was that “the economy is the problem and is going to warrant changes from the American people”. I asked her to clarify that. “The economy is in bad shape right now and if we change how we live, who knows what might happen, the American people wont change how they live, and they shouldn’t.” When Mr. Fanning came into class to talk to us about the AWOL, he said, “The AWOL is having the freedom to fulfill ones dreams, to seek out and attain that goal.” To try and put the AWOL on a personal level, I asked him where he thought his job fit into the AWOL, and what he thought his role was in how it all played out. “My job as a principal, and overall as an educator is to provide the skills you all need to ensure a future where you can achieve the American dream and your goals in your own AWOL.” The definition of the AWOL was not something that he thought up himself or fully agreed with. He felt that the AWOL was an ideal that had been manufactured by the media, and not a real life ideal that is commonly seen or reached.
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