By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
America needs a new dream. The old one, based on ownership and standard of living, is more elusive than ever these days, perhaps even obsolete. Learning to live without our cornerstone mythology — that each succeeding generation does better than the last — is taking its toll on our mental and emotional health. I think of it as necessary growth, and yes, it’s painful. The isolation most people feel, trying to balance their obligations against their dwindling paycheck, is a heavy burden. If we had invested more in community, we might have somewhere to turn now that ‘stuff’ is going by the wayside and safety nets are failing. If we felt as if we were a big American neighborhood, all pulling together, perhaps we’d be less cynical about topics like health care reform and reasonable taxation, less preoccupied with notions of debt and deficit in the face of so much public loss and suffering.
I don’t think this nation set out to institutionalize greed, but it’s a human failing to fall into the “gimme” trap. We had already lost our way when we enshrined the notion that the one with the most toys wins and we embraced the Gordon Gekko mantra, “Greed is good.” Balance is required between wanting and having, between taking and giving. Those born to wealth are surrounded by the ambitious who are looking to become the next founder of a financial dynasty, but only some of us are prepared to swim with the sharks on Wall Street and compete for the golden rings of financial excess. Not all of us want to live like royalty, even though we have a romanticized relationship with the possibility. Unfortunately, those who do are willing to sacrifice anything or anyone upon that altar. Look around you and you’ll find the ramifications of that kind of thinking. All around us are reflections of plenty gone amok.
Then there’s the other end of the spectrum. Although we’re being told that the Great Recession is over, there are 14.5 million unemployed men and women in this nation. That doesn’t count the under-employed, those working several jobs to equal the decent job that disappeared earlier in the decade, or the “missing workers” — some 4.4 million who don’t show up in the statistics, unable to qualify for help or find work. I count friends and family in this last demographic and I can testify that their dilemma keeps me awake at night. None of us, no matter how personally secure, exists in a vacuum.