Is The American Dream Becoming Too Materialism Summary

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What is the American Dream? The american dream is a goal most americans wish to reach in fortune and riches. Based upon how people were raised or their financial status the dream will differ. In the three articles, Even Americans can’t afford the american dream by Andrew Soergel, Is the American Dream becoming too Materialistic? by Shanzeh Khurram, and The dangerous separation of the American upper middle class by Richard V. Reeves argues the views of if the American Dream is attainable to the majority of people. The American Dream has become more than just hard work making it nearly impossible to grasp based upon its original idea of achieving it on your own, hard work, and being what you want. In the article Even Americans can’t afford …show more content…

Khurram explained,” Unfortunately, the American dream is becoming more and more materialistic. I guess it was always a bit materialistic, but when I look at America today, I see a nation obsessed with shopping and buying unnecessary products. Previously, people aspired to have a nice house in the suburbs with a couple of cars. Now, there is no end to the products that people want: the latest IPhone, expensive cars, designer bags--the list is endless. The American dream revolves around luxury goods for most people. As Ellen Goodman put it, "Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it."’ ( Khurram 1). This is an example of how in order to show your American Dream a person has to have expensive items with fancy name brands. It also shows how the dream has become more materialistic as technology has advanced. One might argue that what good is money if you don’t buy anything to show off what you have. However the American Dream was once about hard work and

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