While it may be difficult to craft an inclusive and accurate definition of what it means to be American, we can get closer to an understanding by looking at our cultural mythology. The concept at its center is the American Dream. Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary, published in 1984, defines the American Dream as “an American ideal of social equality and especially material success.” Basically, that means that we all have an equal chance at wealth and, in turn, the goods that can be purchased with it. The implication is not only that we should all want this, but that we should want it so badly that we dream of it.

The danger in this long and fitful dream is that there is no end, no limit to it.  We have a dream of consuming and wanting more, but no understanding of what would be enough or at what point we should stop.  I read somewhere that if everyone on the planet started to live as we do in the U.S., it would take five earth-like planets to sustain us.

© Salahub 2003