The American Dream in What’s So Great About America and Stupid White Men

The American Dream is so many different things to so many different people. While other countries around the World would like to argue that Americans’ only aspiration is to become infinitely wealthy, Dinesh D’Souza claims that it is not wealth that Americans want. He believes that it is simply a better life. Michael Moore too acknowledges Americans’ ambition, especially his own, to create a better life for themselves. These two views of the American Dream come from very opposite Americans, but it is their differences that make their ideals so beautifully unique.

To begin the comparison between these two authors, I will first examine Moore’s ideology. As it is obviously stated in the title of his book, Moore is not exactly subtle person. He voices his contempt of what has become the American Dream through his own story of an underpaid and underappreciated pilot. Moore disgust for the pilot’s situation when he crudely utters, “Never, ever let someone fly you up in the air who’s making less than the kid at Taco Bell.” (Moore, 48) Moore, of self-admitted wealth, sympathizes with men that collect food stamps. These pilots, as well as the rest of Americans, are being robbed of our American Dreams by corporate minions that have been stockpiling income for the last, “two decades.” (Moore, 50) These same CEO’s and other suits are the greed at the tops of huge corporations that, with the absence of Clinton, have had a field day with ripping off Americans by and large through tax shelters, off-shore subsidies, and other means of defrauding the American Public. Moore drives this point home when he attacks Mercedes Benz tax dodging of emissions fines as a blatant tactic, “so that rich people could drive around big, fancy cars and ruin people lungs.” (Moore, 53) Although he admits to living among the rich people, Moore points out that the government too is among those that are flushing away the American Dream, because tax audits have increased among the less paid in American society. Moore reveals that his true vision of the American Dream is the success of people who have, “played by the rules, gave their heart and sole and first marriage to their company.” (Moore, 55) Certainly success is anything but guaranteed in any competitive Capitalistic society. This competition is what makes America thrive. However, Moore feels that it is not Capitalism fault, as much as it is...

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...ti-patriotism. I see his aggressive style as his way of embracing our democracy and forcing it to make our country better in any way it can. What he is saying is to refuse mediocrity in our own government. I too believe we should always be striving to make our country better. It is this reason that I call D’Souza naïve. Our government did not become what it is over night. It has been hundreds of years of fight and struggle from people like Moore that pushed America through her weaknesses, like segregation, racism, injustice, etc.. D’Souza touches on this idea somewhat when he quotes V.S. Naipaul’s notion that Americans believe in an individual’s potential for, “perfectibility.” (D’Souza, 85) Because of our government, more directly its rule by the people, this perfectibility should also be extended to our every political ideal. Even though I admire D’Souza and his blind love for America, I agree that Moore’s head is in the right direction.

Works Cited

D’Souza, Dinesh., What’s So Great About America (Washington, Regnery Publishing, 2002).

Moore, Michael. Stupid White Men and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation. New York: Regan/

HarperCollins, 2001.