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bao3bei4 · 4 years ago

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fan language: the victorian imaginary and cnovel fandom

there’s this pinterest image i’ve seen circulating a lot in the past year i’ve been on fandom social media. it’s a drawn infographic of a, i guess, asian-looking woman holding a fan in different places relative to her face to show what the graphic helpfully calls “the language of the fan.”

people like sharing it. they like thinking about what nefarious ancient chinese hanky code shenanigans their favorite fan-toting character might get up to⁠—accidentally or on purpose. and what’s the problem with that?

the problem is that fan language isn’t chinese. it’s victorian. and even then, it’s not really quite victorian at all.

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fans served a primarily utilitarian purpose throughout chinese history. of course, most of the surviving fans we see⁠—and the types of fans we tend to care about⁠—are closer to art pieces. but realistically speaking, the majority of fans were made of cheaper material for more mundane purposes. in china, just like all around the world, people fanned themselves. it got hot!

so here’s a big tipoff. it would be very difficult to use a fan if you had an elaborate language centered around fanning yourself.

you might argue that fine, everyday working people didn’t have a fan language. but wealthy people might have had one. the problem we encounter here is that fans weren’t really gendered. (caveat here that certain types of fans were more popular with women. however, those tended to be the round silk fans, ones that bear no resemblance to the folding fans in the graphic). no disrespect to the gnc old man fuckers in the crowd, but this language isn’t quite masc enough for a tool that someone’s dad might regularly use.

folding fans, we know, reached europe in the 17th century and gained immense popularity in the 18th. it was there that fans began to take on a gendered quality. ariel beaujot describes in their 2012 victorian fashion accessories how middle class women, in the midst of a top shortage, found themselves clutching fans in hopes of securing a husband.

she quotes an article from the illustrated london news, suggesting “women ‘not only’ used fans to ‘move the air and cool themselves but also to express their sentiments.’” general wisdom was that the movement of the fan was sufficiently expressive that it augmented a woman’s displays of emotion. and of course, the more english audiences became aware that it might do so, the more they might use their fans purposefully in that way.

notice, however, that this is no more codified than body language in general is. it turns out that “the language of the fan” was actually created by fan manufacturers at the turn of the 20th century⁠—hundreds of years after their arrival⁠ in europe—to sell more fans. i’m not even kidding right now. the story goes that it was louis duvelleroy of the maison duvelleroy who decided to include pamphlets on the language with each fan sold.

interestingly enough, beaujot suggests that it didn’t really matter what each particular fan sign meant. gentlemen could tell when they were being flirted with. as it happens, meaningful eye contact and a light flutter near the face may be a lingua franca.

so it seems then, the language of the fan is merely part of this victorian imaginary we collectively have today, which in turn itself was itself captivated by china.

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victorian references come up perhaps unexpectedly often in cnovel fandom, most often with regards to modesty.

it’s a bit of an awkward reference considering that chinese traditional fashion⁠—and the ambiguous time periods in which these novels are set⁠—far predate victorian england. it is even more awkward considering that victoria and her covered ankles did um. imperialize china.

but nonetheless, it is common. and to make a point about how ubiquitous it is, here is a link to the twitter search for “sqq victorian.” sqq is the fandom abbreviation for shen qingqiu, the main character of the scum villain’s self-saving system, by the way.

this is an awful lot of results for a search involving a chinese man who spends the entire novel in either real modern-day china or fantasy ancient china. that’s all i’m going to say on the matter, without referencing any specific tweet.

i think people are aware of the anachronism. and i think they don’t mind. even the most cursory research reveals that fan language is european and a revisionist fantasy. wikipedia can tell us this⁠—i checked!

but it doesn’t matter to me whether people are trying to make an internally consistent canon compliant claim, or whether they’re just free associating between fan facts they know. it is, instead, more interesting to me that people consistently refer to this particular bit of history. and that’s what i want to talk about today⁠—the relationship of fandom today to this two hundred odd year span of time in england (roughly stuart to victorian times) and england in that time period to its contemporaneous china.

things will slip a little here. victorian has expanded in timeframe, if only because random guys posting online do not care overly much for respect for the intricacies of british history. china has expanded in geographic location, if only because the english of the time themselves conflated china with all of asia.

in addition, note that i am critiquing a certain perspective on the topic. this is why i write about fan as white here⁠—not because all fans are white⁠—but because the tendencies i’m examining have a clear historical antecedent in whiteness that shapes how white fans encounter these novels.

i’m sure some fans of color participate in these practices. however i don’t really care about that. they are not its main perpetrators nor its main beneficiaries. so personally i am minding my own business on that front.

it’s instead important to me to illuminate the linkage between white as subject and chinese as object in history and in the present that i do argue that fannish products today are built upon.

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it’s not radical, or even new at all, for white audiences to consume⁠—or create their own versions of⁠—chinese art en masse. in many ways the white creators who appear to owe their whole style and aesthetic to their asian peers in turn are just the new chinoiserie.

this is not to say that white people can’t create asian-inspired art. but rather, i am asking you to sit with the discomfort that you may not like the artistic company you keep in the broader view of history, and to consider together what is to be done about that.

now, when i say the new chinoiserie, i first want to establish what the original one is. chinoiserie was a european artistic movement that appeared coincident with the rise in popularity of folding fans that i described above. this is not by coincidence; the european demand for asian imports and the eventual production of lookalikes is the movement itself. so: when we talk about fans, when we talk about china (porcelain), when we talk about tea in england⁠—we are talking about the legacy of chinoiserie.

there are a couple things i want to note here. while english people as a whole had a very tenuous knowledge of what china might be, their appetites for chinoiserie were roughly coincident with national relations with china. as the relationship between england and china moved from trade to out-and-out wars, chinoiserie declined in popularity until china had been safely subjugated once more by the end of the 19th century.

the second thing i want to note on the subject that contrary to what one might think at first, the appeal of chinoiserie was not that it was foreign. eugenia zuroski’s 2013 taste for china examines 18th century english literature and its descriptions of the according material culture with the lens that chinese imports might be formative to english identity, rather than antithetical to it.

beyond that bare thesis, i think it’s also worthwhile to extend her insight that material objects become animated by the literary viewpoints on them. this is true, both in a limited general sense as well as in the sense that english thinkers of the time self-consciously articulated this viewpoint. consider the quote from the illustrated london news above⁠—your fan, that object, says something about you. and not only that, but the objects you surround yourself with ought to.

it’s a bit circular, the idea that written material says that you should allow written material to shape your understanding of physical objects. but it’s both 1) what happened, and 2) integral, i think, to integrating a fannish perspective into the topic.

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japanning is the name for the popular imitative lacquering that english craftspeople developed in domestic response to the demand for lacquerware imports. in the eighteenth century, japanning became an artform especially suited for young women. manuals were published on the subject, urging young women to learn how to paint furniture and other surfaces, encouraging them to rework the designs provided in the text.

it was considered a beneficial activity for them; zuroski describes how it was “associated with commerce and connoisseurship, practical skill and aesthetic judgment.” a skillful japanner, rather than simply obscuring what lay underneath the lacquer, displayed their superior judgment in how they chose to arrange these new canonical figures and effects in a tasteful way to bring out the best qualities of them.

zuroski quotes the first english-language manual on the subject, written in 1688, which explains how japanning allows one to:

alter and correct, take out a piece from one, add a fragment to the next, and make an entire garment compleat in all its parts, though tis wrought out of never so many disagreeing patterns.

this language evokes a very different, very modern practice. it is this english reworking of an asian artform that i think the parallels are most obvious.

white people, through their artistic investment in chinese material objects and aesthetics, integrated them into their own subjectivity. these practices came to say something about the people who participated in them, in a way that had little to do with the country itself. their relationship changed from being a “consumer” of chinese objects to becoming the proprietor of these new aesthetic signifiers.

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i want to talk about this through a few pairs of tensions on the subject that i think characterize common attitudes then and now.

first, consider the relationship between the self and the other: the chinese object as something that is very familiar to you, speaking to something about your own self vs. the chinese object as something that is fundamentally different from you and unknowable to you.

consider: [insert character name] is just like me. he would no doubt like the same things i like, consume the same cultural products. we are the same in some meaningful way vs. the fast standard fic disclaimer that “i tried my best when writing this fic, but i’m a english-speaking westerner, and i’m just writing this for fun so...... [excuses and alterations the person has chosen to make in this light],” going hand-in-hand with a preoccupation with authenticity or even overreliance on the unpaid labor of chinese friends and acquaintances.

consider: hugh honour when he quotes a man from the 1640s claiming “chinoiserie of this even more hybrid kind had become so far removed from genuine Chinese tradition that it was exported from India to China as a novelty to the Chinese themselves”

these tensions coexist, and look how they have been resolved.

second, consider what we vest in objects themselves: beaujot explains how the fan became a sexualized, coquettish object in the hands of a british woman, but was used to great effect in gilbert and sullivan’s 1885 mikado to demonstrate the docility of asian women.

consider: these characters became expressions of your sexual desires and fetishes, even as their 5’10 actors themselves are emasculated.

what is liberating for one necessitates the subjugation and fetishization of the other.

third, consider reactions to the practice: enjoyment of chinese objects as a sign of your cosmopolitan palate vs “so what’s the hype about those ancient chinese gays” pop culture explainers that addressed the unconvinced mainstream.

consider: zuroski describes how both english consumers purchased china in droves, and contemporary publications reported on them. how:

It was in the pages of these papers that the growing popularity of Chinese things in the early eighteenth century acquired the reputation of a “craze”; they portrayed china fanatics as flawed, fragile, and unreliable characters, and frequently cast chinoiserie itself in the same light.

referenda on fannish behavior serve as referenda on the objects of their devotion, and vice versa. as the difference between identity and fetish collapses, they come to be treated as one and the same by not just participants but their observers.

at what point does mxtx fic cease to be chinese?

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finally, it seems readily apparent that attitudes towards chinese objects may in fact have something to do with attitudes about china as a country. i do not want to suggest that these literary concerns are primarily motivated and begot by forces entirely divorced from the real mechanics of power.

here, i want to bring in edward said, and his 1993 culture and imperialism. there, he explains how power and legitimacy go hand in hand. one is direct, and one is purely cultural. he originally wrote this in response to the outsize impact that british novelists have had in the maintenance of empire and throughout decolonization. literature, he argues, gives rise to powerful narratives that constrain our ability to think outside of them.

there’s a little bit of an inversion at play here. these are chinese novels, actually. but they’re being transformed by white narratives and artists. and just as i think the form of the novel is important to said’s critique, i think there’s something to be said about the form that fic takes and how it legitimates itself.

bound up in fandom is the idea that you have a right to create and transform as you please. it is a nice idea, but it is one that is directed towards a certain kind of asymmetry. that is, one where the author has all the power. this is the narrative we hear a lot in the history of fandom⁠—litigious authors and plucky fans, fanspaces always under attack from corporate sanitization.

meanwhile, said builds upon raymond schwab’s narrative of cultural exchange between european writers and cultural products outside the imperial core. said explains that fundamental to these two great borrowings (from greek classics and, in the so-called “oriental renaissance” of the late 18th, early 19th centuries from “india, china, japan, persia, and islam”) is asymmetry.

he had argued prior, in orientalism, that any “cultural exchange” between “partners conscious of inequality” always results in the suffering of the people. and here, he describes how “texts by dead people were read, appreciated, and appropriated” without the presence of any actual living people in that tradition.

i will not understate that there is a certain economic dynamic complicating this particular fannish asymmetry. mxtx has profited materially from the success of her works, most fans will not. also secondly, mxtx is um. not dead. LMAO.

but first, the international dynamic of extraction that said described is still present. i do not want to get overly into white attitudes towards china in this post, because i am already thoroughly derailed, but i do believe that they structure how white cnovel fandom encounters this texts.

at any rate, any profit she receives is overwhelmingly due to her domestic popularity, not her international popularity. (i say this because many of her international fans have never given her a cent. in fact, most of them have no real way to.) and moreover, as we talk about the structure of english-language fandom, what does it mean to create chinese cultural products without chinese people?

as white people take ownership over their versions of stories, do we lose something? what narratives about engagement with cnovels might exist outside of the form of classic fandom?

i think a lot of people get the relationship between ideas (the superstructure) and production (the base) confused. oftentimes they will lob in response to criticism, that look! this fic, this fandom, these people are so niche, and so underrepresented in mainstream culture, that their effects are marginal. i am not arguing that anyone’s cql fic causes imperialism. (unless you’re really annoying. then it’s anyone’s game)

i’m instead arguing something a little bit different. i think, given similar inputs, you tend to get similar outputs. i think we live in the world that imperialism built, and we have clear historical predecessors in terms of white appetites for creating, consuming, and transforming chinese objects.

we have already seen, in the case of the fan language meme that began this post, that sometimes we even prefer this white chinoiserie. after all, isn’t it beautiful, too?

i want to bring discomfort to this topic. i want to reject the paradigm of white subject and chinese object; in fact, here in this essay, i have tried to reverse it.

if you are taken aback by the comparisons i make here, how can you make meaningful changes to your fannish practice to address it?

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some concluding thoughts on the matter, because i don’t like being misunderstood!

i am not claiming white fans cannot create fanworks of cnovels or be inspired by asian art or artists. this essay is meant to elaborate on the historical connection between victorian england and cnovel characters and fandom that others have already popularized.

i don’t think people who make victorian jokes are inherently bad or racist. i am encouraging people to think about why we might make them and/or share them

the connections here are meant to be more provocative than strictly literal. (e.g. i don’t literally think writing fanfic is a 1-1 descendant of japanning). these connections are instead meant to 1) make visible the baggage that fans of color often approach fandom with and 2) recontextualize and defamiliarize fannish practice for the purposes of honest critique

please don’t turn this post into being about other different kinds of discourse, or into something that only one “kind” of fan does. please take my words at face value and consider them in good faith. i would really appreciate that.

please feel free to ask me to clarify any statements or supply more in-depth sources :)

#x #-__- another fandom essay sorry

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first-year-writing-blog · 6 years ago

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The American Dream

Marshall

FYW 1000C

Fall 2018

Inga Oladottir

10 Ways of Looking at The American Dream, a Numbered Multimodal Multi-Genre Research Composition

STORY

My best friend is from Bel Air, Maryland and her name is Annie. Me and Annie both go to St. Johns University in New York city and she used to always tell me how different New York is from her hometown. I never really understood what she meant by that because in my mind it was all America, how different could it be? But boyyy, I definitely saw the difference Annie always talked about as soon as I was in my friend’s town. The first time I went home with Annie, I was a couple months into freshman year and New York was the only place I had ever been to in America. I had no idea that there were places in America so different from New York that it almost felt like stepping into a new country. When I saw the town that she is from, and the neighborhood she grew up in, I just thought: That is the epitome of the American dream. She lives in a big, white house with a big front lawn. The house is surrounded by a white picking fence, and then when I looked around, so did all the other houses in her neighborhood. There was a yard sale going on in front of one of the houses so I got to see a couple of her neighbors, and they were all so friendly and happy looking. When we went back to New York a couple days later, my opinion about what the American dream is had certainly changed. I actually have two best friends and both of them are from America, but now when I look at them, I would only think that one of them has lived the American dream.

FACTS, STATISTICS, MEDIA

1. The ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. (googled the American dream definition)

http://www.generations.com/2015/09/21/the-evolution-of-the-american-dream/

http://scpaworks.org/2018/05/workforce-chartoftheweek-the-fading-american-dream/

4. The road to success is not easy to navigate, but with hard work, drive and passion, it’s possible to achieve the American dream – Tommy Hilfiger. https://people.com/celebrity/hilfiger-launching-fashion-reality-show/

5. Less than 20% of Americans say they’re living the American dream https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/19/less-than-20-percent-of-americans-say-theyre-living-the-american-dream.html

https://www.pri.org/stories/2011-11-21/souring-american-dream

7. What’s killing the American dream? Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1nXxPMsOIs

8. Myths and realities of the American dream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQvAsXfMkiw

9. Myth: If you have money, you will find happiness. Truth: Money isn’t everything.

http://www.paleobosslady.com/blog/the-american-dream-is-a-lie

10. The American dream on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream

11. An article on what the American dream is today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream

12. 36% of people that think their family has achieved the American dream.http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/31/most-think-the-american-dream-is-within-reach-for-them/

13. Fact: If your parents are on the bottom rung of the economic ladder, there’s a good chance you’ll end up there too.http://stateofopportunity.michiganradio.org/post/five-facts-about-achieving-american-dream

14.Cartoon on the American dream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L4YIkYP5uU

15.We need to remain a nation that doesn't just welcome but celebrates legal immigrants who come here seeking to pursue the american dream. - Ted Cruz

https://www.thedailybeast.com/is-ted-cruz-post-hispanic

TEXUAL ANALYSIS

The article “The Transformation of the American Dream” by Robert J. Shiller was published in The New York Times on August 4th, 2017. The article explains how the American dream has transformed over the years and how it shifts from being an idea about social justice and equal opportunity, to the idea of wealth and homeownership. It also deals with how American’s associate having a home and a business with living up to the standards of the American dream. The text shows us how the idea of the American dream has changed over the years, depending on what was happening in the country at the time. The text talks about different perspectives that different leaders have of the American dream, and how that influences how the public views it. The author uses facts and statements to support what he is discussing in the text and he uses it to make his own statements clearer. Using other people’s words to support your own is a powerful way to get people to listen because it proves that you are not the only one thinking that way. Another way to say this is that the author uses logos to appeal to the audience, he presents plausible arguments on logical or apparent logical terms to support his text. I think that the text provides us with a good example of what the American dream should be, but at the same time it also shows us what it is in reality. Today, the American dream is just about being rich and having a big, fancy house but that is not what it is supposed to be. In my opinion it should be hope, it should be a way for people to know that they are worthy and that they deserve to be treated like everyone else. The last passage of the text struck me the most because it stated what I have been thinking all along about the American dream concept. Shiller said in the passage that “we need to bring back the American dream of social justice” and for me, he last passage is the beauty of the whole text because it puts the American dream into perspective and I think that it is the central idea of what the dream is about. On the contrary, even if humans want the American dream to be about social justice, we get caught up in our greed for material things and forget the true idea of the American dream. We get stuck on this idea that we have to have money to live up to it and that ruins the clear concept of what the American dream is really about. This text is very important to my research paper because it deals exactly with my question, what is the American dream? The text shows us what it is supposed to be but it also shows us what many American people perceive it to be and that is why this text is so important to my research topic.

VISUAL ANALYSIS

List of things:

· Many doctors trying to save the man

· The man is old àThe American Dream is an old concept

· The man has a hole in his chest

o Maybe he was shot

o It could be a hidden connection to the gun violence happening in the US.

1. Whose message is this? Who created or paid for it and why? Where was it originally published?

This is a message from a girl named Karly Tinervia. She is writing on her blog about the book The Working Poor Invisible in America by David K. Shipler, where the picture was originally published. Karly talks about how the American dream is dying and how it is hard for people in poverty to get out of it.

2. Who is the “target audience”? What is their age, ethnicity, class, profession, interests, etc.? What words images or sounds suggest this?

The target audience is everyone that wants to listen to her message. She wants people to understand what Shipler is talking about in his book and be influenced by it. Karly is talking about a subject that relates to everyone that lives in America because the idea of the American dream relates to everyone and the man in the image is dressed in the colors of the American flag which suggest that it relates to Americans.

3. What is the “text” of the message? (What we actually see and/or hear: written or spoken words, photos, drawings, logos, design, music, sounds, etc.)

We see an old man that is lying on a table with a shotgun wound on his chest. The man is surrounded by several doctors but by the look of it, he has passed away. The man is dressed in the colors of the American flag.

4. What is the “subtext” of the message? (What do you think is the hidden or unstated meaning?)

The subtext of the message is that the American dream is dying right in front of us and it is too late to prevent it from happening. More and more people are not able to make enough money to live a good life and so many people never reach their goals of fulfilling the American dream.

5. What kind of lifestyle is presented or what kind of injustice does the image seek to address?

The image seeks to address the issue of poverty and how unfair the system in America works. There is only a certain number of people that can live the American dream and those people are often those that are born into rich families, so everything is handed to them from the day they are born. People that don’t have that advantage have a hard time of reaching that same level of success and most of them never do.

6. What values are expressed?

Social justice and equal right (or more precisely, the lack of it) are the values that come to my head when I look at the picture

7. What positive messages are presented? What negative messages are presented?

The positive message presented is that there will always be people that are willing to help others, no matter if they don’t benefit from it. The negative message is that there are also people that will not do anything, they stay away and watch everything happening from a far.

8. What groups of people does this message empower? What groups does it disempower? How does this serve the media maker’s interests?

I think that this message should empower every American to be a better version of himself and maybe help the less fortunate.

9. What part of the story is not being told? How and where could you get more information about the untold stories?

The part that is not being told is how we got to this point. Why is the American dream slowly dying? Who is responsible for it and who is responsible for saving it?

10. What conclusions can you make about this image?

This image illustrates what is happening to the American dream and that if we don’t start doing anything about it now, soon it will be too late.

Analysis

This image was originally posted in the book “The Working Poor Invisible in America” by David K. Shipler. The book along with the image was first published on January 4th2004 but I discovered it on a personal blog. The owner of the blog is Karly Tinervia and in the blog that the image appears in, Karly is talking about the context of the book. The image displays an old man that is lying flat on a table with a shotgun wound on his chest. The man is surrounded by several doctors but by the look of it, he has just passed away. The man is dressed in the colors of the American flag but despite what we might think we see, the image has a hidden message. It symbolized how the American dream is dying right in front of our eyes, and that most people just stand by and watch it happen. In the image, there is one doctor that is still actively trying to save the life of the old man while the others just watch him and that is supposed to symbolize the reason for why the American dream is dying. Most people think that there is nothing they can do, or that the power is not in their hands, but, most people don’t realize that you don’t have to do anything significant to make a change. You can start by doing something small, such as helping the less fortunate in this country with small acts of kindness. Those little things, might just be the start for some people on the road to a better life that perhaps, makes them a little closer to achieving the American dream.

SURVEY

Do you consider you family to be a part of the middle class?

Are you an American citizen?

What do you consider to be the American dream?

Do you think that your family lived out the American dream? Why or why not?

Analysis of survey results

Most people that took the survey considered their family to be of the middle class and most of them were American citizens. When it came to provide an explanation of what people considered to be the American dream, I noticed that all the answers had something to do with having money and being able to provide for themselves. Some answers involved having a house, usually a big house with a family. Most people thought that their families had lived out the American dream, but there were couple participants that did not think so. You can see a couple of examples in the picture above, but the reason those people didn’t consider their families to have lived it out the dream was because of a financial crisis. When I look at the last two questions and compare the two, I see a clear link between them, due to the fact that people measure their success based on how much money they have. The people that think they are living the American dream are those who have money, and the people who don’t think they are living it, are the people with little or no money.

One answer in the survey really caught my attention. It was an answer to the question about what the American dream is and that person said “I think the American dream is that everyone has an equal opportunity to be successful if they put all their hard work into it.” I feel like that statement sums up the original idea of the American dream and the reason that people from all over the world come to live in America. Somehow, over time, the idea has shifted over to being a dream about wealth and power, and I think that my results show that.

EXPERT OPINION

The article “Envy and the American Dream” by Nitin Nohria discussed the issue of how jealousy can shift people´s focus away from their own goals and over to other people´s success. It is an interesting aprroach as to why the American dream has been deteriorating over the past years and because of that, I think it will take a lot of work to re-establish what the American dream used to be. “In the meantime, instead of envying the good fortune of others, let’s focus on what we can do to stoke and further individual ambition,” (Nohria).That is a part of why the American dream is becoming a very distant for some people is because they envy other people’s success and that prevents them from working on their own goals and having success in what they are doing. If those people would just shift their focus back on what they are doing and stop comparing themselves to others, they would get closer to their own goals, and even better, they would get closer to the American dream. I think that Nohria also provides me with a different perspective on my research topic because he is not originally from America. His views of the dream might be different from other Americans since he came to the country with his own ideas about the dream and what he thought represented America.

RESEARCH QUESTION DIALOGUE

Research question: “What is the American dream?”

Me: “Where is the American Dream?”

Source:““The American Dream is back.” President Trump made that claim in a speech in January” (Shiller).

Me: “What is the American dream about?”

Source: “Mr. Trump and Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, have suggested it involves owning a beautiful home and a roaring business, but it wasn’t always so. Instead, in the 1930s, it meant freedom, mutual respect and equality of opportunity” (Shiller).

Me: “What is the difference between the American dream then and now?”

Source: “It had more to do with morality than material success” (Shiller).

Me: “Why is the dream slowly dying?”

Source: “One reason Shipler believes the American Dream is dead is because hard work does not pay off” (Shipler).

Me: “Does hard work not pay off any more?”

Source: “This results in these people being trapped working a few low paying jobs with no advancement opportunities. America was built on the notion of hard work that will then lead to opportunity and success, but Shipler shows that this is not the case anymore” (Shipler).

Me: “Do you even stand a chance if your parents are poor?”

Source: “If your parents are on the bottom rung of the economic ladder, there’s a good chance you’ll end up there too” (Dwyer).

Me: “In our modern society, do you even stand a chance then if you want to start your own business?”

Source: “We are going to create an environment for small business like we haven’t seen in many many decades,” (Shiller).

Me: “What about the dream of owning a house, or a home of some kind?”

Source: “Mr. Carson has explicitly said that homeownership is a central part of the Dream. In a speech at the National Housing Conference on June 9, he said, “I worry that millennials may become a lost generation for homeownership, excluded from the American Dream”” (Shiller).

Me: “But is homeownership a part of the American dream?”

Source: “Mr. Adams emphasized ideals rather than material goods, a “dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” And he clarified, “It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages...” (Shiller).

Me: “Does everyone have an equal opportunity to live the American dream in our society?”

Source: “If you want to achieve the American dream, the color of your skin matters” (Dwyer).

Me: “That needs to change, right?”

Source: “we need to remain a nation that doesn’t just welcome but that celebrates legal immigrants who come here seeking to pursue the American dream” (Cruiz).

Me: “The fact that immigrants want to come to America to pursue the American dream, does that make it a rather important concept?”

Source: “The American Dream is the country’s most important asset—more valuable than its extraordinary natural resources, deep financial capacity, or unparalleled workforce. It’s so valuable because it is a narrative that continues to draw people here from other countries, and it inspires those of us who are already here to work hard every day to better ourselves and our children” (Nohria).

Me: “What can help us save it?”

Source: “I agree with him that restoring confidence in the link between business success and social prosperity will be vital to sustaining the American Dream” (Nohria).

Me: “So what is keeping people from business success?”

Source: “Lately there are signs that America is shifting from an orientation of ambition toward one of envy. Whether it is the 99% who envy the 1% or the 53% who resent the 47% who are receiving government distributions, we are beginning to show signs of focusing more on others than on ourselves” (Nohria).

Me: “How does envy affect the American dream?”

Source: “It shifts people’s gaze toward others in a negative way and takes their focus off their own goals” (Nohria).

Me: “How can we change that and save the American dream?”

Source: “Fixing the problems that imperil this status will require difficult collective action. In the meantime, instead of envying the good fortune of others, let’s focus on what we can do to stoke and further individual ambition” (Nohria).

Me: “How do we want the American dream to look like when we save it?”

Source: “Instead, we need to bring back the American Dream of a just society, where everyone has an opportunity to reach “the fullest stature of which they are innately capable”” (Shiller).

Me: “But despite all the work that is before us, what do you think about America?”

Source: “Thirty years after my arrival as an immigrant, and despite the current hard times, I still see America as the best place to live and work and dream. Fixing the problems that imperil this status will require difficult collective action” (Nohria).

WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED TO KNOW, OR WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT TO SAY?

The American dream has always been about freedom. People came to America to pursue the dream of freedom and happiness, being their own master and making money only for themselves. The American dream protects anyone that wants to pursue their dream and reach their potential to the fullest, (The Balance). The original idea about the American dream was that America should be the best country and that other countries would strive to be like it. “The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement,” (The Balance). Over the years, the idea about the American dream has been criticized due to the fact that the poverty rate in this country is increases and there are very limited options to help the people that fall into poverty. Homeownership has always been a big part of the American dream and president Roosevelt created a system that insured mortgages to help more people be able to afford a home. President Roosevelt said that everyone has the right to own a decent home, have a job that supports one’s family, and that everyone should have the opportunity to get an education and receive health care, but to this day, many families still don’t have enough money to afford health care. president Obama made it his mission to try and change that, and furthered the FDR’s idea that affordable health care is a fundamental need in every country. Today, there are many disagreements over the definition of the American dream and some people even say that it does not exist anymore, (The Balance). There is a need in this country to do something, it does not matter if people think the American dream exists or not. Income inequality, which is the gap between rich and poor, has been growing in America for approximately 30 years and Americas top 10% makes about 9 times as much as the bottom 90%, (Income Inequality). The wages in America have also been stagnating for over 30 years so the average American worker and the country’s lowest wage workers see no growth in their weekly wages, (Income Inequality). That means that even if you work and work, you always stay in the same place. You can’t climb up the income ladder because you are stuck with the same wages every week and that money goes to bills and things that are necessary for living. People have a hard time getting themselves out of that circle and therefore most people get stuck there, (Income Inequality).

CONCLUSION

The American dream is a concept created a very long time ago that, since then, has shaped American society and how we think about America. By definition the American dream is idea that every American citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success through hard work, determination, and initiative, (American Dream). The concept about the American dream has always been the same but over time, people have changed it’s meaning into something else. The American dream has been turned into a competition between people, to become more successful than others and have a bigger house, better car and, overall, a better life. As stated before, the American dream is in essence about achieving success and being successful but it was never about being more successful than others. Everyone has their own ideas about what success is and in addition to that, everyone has their own goals and ideas about what kind of success they want to achieve. Fulfilling the American dream should not be about fulfilling the same dream, but instead, it should be based on what each individual desires. People need to stop comparing themselves to others because we all have our own journeys and we never know the motives behind each individual’s actions are. The original idea of what the American dream stands for has to be brought back. The idea that everyone is equal and should have an equal opportunity to reach their goals and be successful. For that to happen, there has to be a change in the American society, so we can be able to say that everyone has equal opportunities. The American economy has to change from being an “envy economy” back into what it was before, which is an “ambitious economy,” (Nohria), meaning that people have to shift their focus away from other people, over to themselves if success is what they are looking for, because that is how you achieve your own dreams.

Works Cited

Amadeo, Kimberly. “5 Ways Our Founding Fathers Protect The American Dream.” The Balance Small Business, The Balance, www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-american-dream-quotes-and-history-3306009.

“The American Dream Is a Fu*King Lie.” PaleoBOSS Lady, www.paleobosslady.com/blog/the-american-dream-is-a-lie.

“American Dream.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Nov. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream.

BridgeWorks. “The Evolution of the American Dream.” BridgeWorks, 24 July 2017, www.generations.com/2015/09/21/the-evolution-of-the-american-dream/.

Carter, Shawn M. “Less than 20% of Americans Say They're Living the American Dream-Here's Why.” CNBC, CNBC, 19 Sept. 2017, www.cnbc.com/2017/09/19/less-than-20-percent-of-americans-say-theyre-living-the-american-dream.html.

Dwyer, Dustin. “Five Facts about Achieving the American Dream.” State of Opportunity, stateofopportunity.michiganradio.org/post/five-facts-about-achieving-american-dream.

“Income Inequality.” Inequality.org, inequality.org/facts/income-inequality/.

“Hilfiger Launching Fashion Reality Show.” PEOPLE.com, Time Inc, people.com/celebrity/hilfiger-launching-fashion-reality-show/.

Jr., Ruben Navarrette. “Is Ted Cruz 'Post-Hispanic'?” The Daily Beast, The Daily Beast Company, 22 Jan. 2015, www.thedailybeast.com/is-ted-cruz-post-hispanic.

Nohria, Nitin. “Envy and the American Dream.” Harvard Business Review, 1 Aug. 2014, hbr.org/2013/01/envy-and-the-american-dream.

PragerU. “What's Killing the American Dream?” YouTube, YouTube, 26 Sept. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1nXxPMsOIs.

Productions, WorldBeat. “The Myth and Realities of the American Dream.” YouTube, YouTube, 22 Mar. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQvAsXfMkiw.

Shiller, Robert J. “The Transformation of the 'American Dream'.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 Aug. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/upshot/the-transformation-of-the-american-dream.html.

Smith, Samantha. “Most Say American Dream Is within Reach for Them.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 31 Oct. 2017, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/31/most-think-the-american-dream-is-within-reach-for-them/.

“The Souring of the American Dream.” Public Radio International, PRI, www.pri.org/stories/2011-11-21/souring-american-dream.

Star, Clovis. “The Collapse of The American Dream Explained Cartoon.” YouTube, YouTube, 9 Apr. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L4YIkYP5uU.

Tinervia, Karly. “Karly Tinervia.” Karly Tinervia, 1 Jan. 1970, karlytinervia15.blogspot.com/.

“Workforce #ChartOfTheWeek | The Fading American Dream?” SCPa Works, 7 May 2018, scpaworks.org/2018/05/workforce-chartoftheweek-the-fading-american-dream/.

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toddlazarski · 4 years ago

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Last Suppers Vol. 3

Shepherd Express

“I see that the world is upside down,

seems that my pockets were filled up with gold.”

— Tom Waits

My grandmother never allowed pizza delivery. Pizza—yes, most definitely, frequently, likely for a medically inadvisable percentage of grandma-house meals, but only if you took her keys, locked the door behind you, drove the Malibu—tape deck stacked with “Electric Ladyland,” for just such necessary excursions—across town and schlepped the steaming box back yourself, again locking the door behind you. I’m not sure if it was an abject fear of delivery personnel, something nefarious laying in an unknown driver lurking, even if said lurking was only out of pepperoni remittance and tip hope. Maybe it was the tip itself, an avoidance of sorts. Or it could have been the disclosing of her address. Maybe she was in trouble with the law. Maybe all, or a combination, or something else, all rolled together into one of those nebulous anxiety yarn balls one comes to know and generally acknowledge and accept when hungry and negotiating with a late-80’s grandmother. So I’d never really ask, would shrug with mild annoyance, take the keys, and let her pay with a crisp twenty-dollar-bill, because in hindsight, I’m not nearly as thoughtful as I’d like to believe.

Similarly, this is probably how I don’t know much, anything really, about the Great Depression. Grandma was born in 1925, which, according to Wikipedia, means she spent much of her childhood in said epoch of forlorn-toned black-and-white photos of destitute pea pickers in California. She would have been a good source, I suppose, for all the wonder I’ve put on, of late, the d-word, in both proper noun form and the more loose, casual way it’s been thrown about. “I think he’s depressed” has become a standard line. Friends talking about other friends, co-workers talking about spouses, somebody talking about me, maybe. But over the past eight weeks I’ve heard it at least a handful of times, accepted it, took it with brow-furrowed, middling resiliency, as if it were part of a bad but expected forecast. As if, yes, “might have to shovel tomorrow.” Or like a thing meant for small-talk chewing and grumbling, as in, “I’m not sure about that first round pick.” When Kai Ryssdal comes floating in on the kitchen radio I switch the channel before the capital form of the word comes up. I usually have to hurry.

I should have asked her, I suppose, in hindsight, it being one of those many things we all only now realize we should have always asked, said, paid attention to, thought about, considered. Before the world turned sideways, began coughing, lost sense of taste and smell, and we all woke up with our furniture seemingly turned to face the wall. Before she died. It might have been especially helpful since of late I’ve found the same pizza delivery paranoia creeping in. Though of all the faults I blame on genetics, this is hardly one—it can’t be Adult Onset Delivery Dread, it came far too fast. And I still don’t understand it fully: do I fear the boxes, or the bringer? Or do I fear the bringer's perception of me, sitting in my ivory tower, looking down on the help, or not looking at all, just expecting them to, yes, drop the sustenance on my luxuriant, sanitary doorstep? And then be gone, faceless servant. Or is it maybe that I don’t want to infect them? Did he or she think of that? Should I go out and tell them? Or maybe just put up a sign on the closed door: It’s Not You, It’s Me. Should I try at some levity, one of these days, maybe attempt a recreation of the “keep the change you filthy animal” scene from “Home Alone”? But, of course, nobody takes cash anymore, so it wouldn’t work.

Whatever the approach, the newfound anxiety has been robbing a righteous, innocent joy of late. The sweet echo of a doorbell, startling, even as you sit with perked ear and open Ring app, leaning a bit with anticipation. It might be right now, this second, or in 35 minutes. Or, what if they never show? You make the call and are transported to Dr. Seuss’ Waiting Place. Patience and perspective needing to be fought for amidst the mad sea of slack-jawed seekers. A 90’s Civic with bad brakes and problematic bumper stickers, a goateed driver with questionable politics often the only thing to bring you back to the moment, offering deliverance, unveiling the places you will go, the tastes you will have, the boom bands you will hear and the balloon-high heights you will see. “Should you turn left or right, or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?” At this point of rescue, like no other in life, it matters only that you know how to find your way to the door, can manage not to trip carrying a box back to the coffee table.

Whether or not grandma was right, or had a reason, or had an outstanding warrant, and whether or not we’ll all get over our cardboard fear and food conveyance dread and Clorox addiction and the balance of common sense versus Medium articles versus FDA guidelines versus something somebody in the office Slack channel said, it still has to be done. And at the very least she was right, like all grandmas seem right, about the most important thing being the bringing of comfort. Or the going and getting of comfort. So, my car or there’s, these are the best current bets for said pizza procuring solace.

5. Ned’s

Through the years, through my decade-and-a-half of Milwaukee life, through an adulthood of being judge and jury and general jerk about pizza, I’ve never really cared much for Ned’s, or the “Milwaukee-style” pie it so well seems to epitomize. I’ve always found the crust too thin, crackly, unfilling, the special’s seem over-topped, the entire thing often feels a bit under-cooked, the cheese a tad too slidey, the sauce slightly over sweet. Quarantine week two though was weekend-ed with my wife and her friends sharing Ned’s, collectively, each with their own pie, over a happy hour Zoom meeting. It was such an innovative act of community, togetherness, pizzaing, that I was softened toward epiphany. And then later, as I greedily, guiltily, drunkenly mawed microwaved leftover squares after she had gone to bed, I finally disabused myself of all lofty notions as if I were a Dickens character. Ned’s is old-school, since ‘69, simple comfort of hometown iconicism. The pizza itself too has an undeniable tang, a distinct crumbly soul, a sausage-y quotidian satisfaction level akin to a High Life bottle and the Brewers on a daytime bar corner TV. At a time the Brewers are good. Most importantly: it is the pizza of my wife’s youth. There are few things tastier than nostalgia, and nothing more comforting. And so Ned’s always has a place in the heart, in our home, in our refrigerator, especially when she orders too much and goes to bed too early.

4. Rosati’s

The five years I spent in suburban Chicago, coming of age and hitting my pizza peak, happened to coincide with adolescence and the accompanying boundless, obscene appetites. A standard chicken or egg scenario. This is maybe why I keep coming to defend Rosati’s, our locally-owned franchise location’s sometime inconsistency, and why I keep going back, here, and to all Chicago-bred ilk. There is the personal sway of the one that got away, the one that taught me to be a man, of the person you’d go out of town to a 10-year-reunion just to get a glimpse of and awkward drink with. But there is also no objective argument to the fact Rosati’s aspires to, and often achieves, the ideal of Chicago tavern-style: rolled dough, thin, square cut wedges of well-cooked crunch, trademarked by a cornmeal dust bottom and oregano and fennel-y finish. The cheese often looks like the color of approaching-autumn, the crust like it was two minutes from being burnt. Equally crispy and chewy, the toppings are half-buried under a winter blanket of mozz like endless hidden prizes. But maybe it’s just personal. And really a takeout here is akin to reliving high school’s zenith. If I really want to go down that Springsteen route, like the part in the song where he sees his ol’ baseball playing bud, and they go back in and have a few drinks, I get a pie and an Italian beef. Glory Days.

3. Transfer

Of the 30 or so times I’ve eaten at Transfer, I’d say 29 of them I’ve eschewed all normal pies, disregarded all pasta or apps, ignored the menu or anything the waiter was saying or what anyone else at the table might want, really, in tunnel-vision favor of the simply named, boldly furnished Garlic Lovers. It is a special of aromatic, crushed bulb bombardment, almost stunt-like in essence, that somehow holds together. Sturdy enough to steer with one hand, the pleasantly dusty and charred bottom still has a doughy, Southern Italian-leaning chewiness. The decadent top is garlic sauce svelty, with pepperoni and sausage and cheese chunkily clattering together, as delightful black air bubbles adorn the edges, indicating artisanal-ness, craft pizza lineage, a really hot oven. But you don’t need to read too deep, or too far past the pizza’s name—overall this is an oily, pungent affront to subtlety and fresh breath. But garlic, they say—-and what are we but the collection of what they’s we believe?—is a natural antimicrobial agent. And we’re all six feet apart anyways. Actually, after four slices, I’m wondering if Fauci and the lot of health-advising acronyms are really right: is six enough?

2. Tenuta’s

A recent takeout phone call to Tenuta’s, where I ordered my usual—Diavola, no pineapple—was met with this:

“You can’t do that, the pineapple makes the diavola.”

“Oh. I, uh, disagree.”

“You know what, let’s not do this right now.”

Tenuta’s is that kind of place. The shaded Clement Ave brick corner spot of pasta and pizza and cozy classiness and classy coziness is the type of place Tony might take a goomah one night and Carmela the next. Tenuta’s To Go continues the tradition from a Howard Avenue counter-only outpost, more conducive to our house-car-back-to-bottle-of-sanitizer cycle of now. But from either there is a standard gamut of specials and absurd glut of crust offerings: thin, virgin, deep, stuffed, some house pies come in triangles, some in imperfect squares. It’s like one of those Strengths Finder personality tests of endless combinations new employers make you take to find out precisely which type of pot-stirrer you will become. I always default to a pepperoni and giardiniera and cream cheese thin, a square-cut beaut, indicating the recessive gassy guy-from-Chicago trait. Balanced, zesty, spicy, creamy, it is everything I hope for on the precious, too few pizza nights of existence. But there are similar satisfaction points up and down the board: the basil-y freshness of a margherita, an olive oil sauce holding ham and pepperoni and garlic on the house special, a mis-order even found me enjoying the pleasant carb overload of a “virgin” crust, redolent of pan pizza or something from Detroit. You’d think they might specialize, defer somehow to the simpler ways of the old country. It’s almost too much, like life—the options, the anxieties, the distractions, the food narcotics necessary for real world-dimming, dulling. But you settle in, eventually, you know your order, come to know yourself and the shape of your DIY haircut-framed mug in the mirror, the spirit within said order. And, soon, with time and gut-work, then you know the voice on the other end of the line, and, even in quarantine, the gravy of a Sunday gathering can be part and parcel and pepperoni with a little good natured jabbing, some convivial ball-busting that hides, that hints at, care and love.

1. Fixture

Even if you believe, rightly, that there are no guilty pleasures in life, there can still often be times of feeling like you are cheating a bit, calorically. Like, say, when enjoying Taco Bell sober, or scarfing Totino’s pizza rolls well into your 30’s, or driving through a Wendy’s and eating in your car, by yourself, removed from any identifiable meal time, just doing it because dammit and because you can. Sometimes you might know that notion, back behind the base lizard brain, of just feeling bad about existing as a stereotypical fat American. Ordering cream cheese—so rich, so creamy—atop a well made pizza feels this way, and yet, the “Great Lakes Distillery”—extra sauce, pepperoni, cream cheese wedges—keeps calling me back. Or at least keeps picking up when I call.

And there they are: creamy black-speckled corpuscles of gooey cheese comfort, squishing softly, almost a bit curdy, marshmallow-y, stretching, existing in that perfect cheese nirvana state of half-melt. They are model contrasts to the salty oven char on the liberal toss of near-burnt pepperoni. Beneath a vibrant, herbaceous marinara mixes with well-ratioed mozz, the kind of top where you can’t fully tell if the sauce or cheese were put on first, as they gel together, taking turns, like pass-first teammates that make deep championship runs, that reign supreme on a top-five pizza list. The crust seemingly has an application of anti-flop finish, good hold that is toothy and strong without getting in the way. So it’s a bit Chicago, afterall, and also a bit that they just seem to use higher quality ingredients than so many old school joints, the places phoning it in, doing it the way it’s always been done, forgetting what we all too prominently remember now: that tomorrow is no guarantee. But they are also big on the homemade hot honey siding offer, a move straight out of Greenpoint, or whatever is the new Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Honey should have no place on pizza. Or so I think, for ⅞’s of every first piece. But, actually, wait another bite—sure it does. Let’s all not think about it right now. It is honey, it has creeping zing finish, and that different flavor profile quality that makes life and another endless day of dread, a day no different than yesterday, worth it. So, for now, anyways, let’s dip our crusts bits endlessly until we’re beyond stuffed.

When they throw open the French takeout windows, even despite the masks, despite the fact my paranoia makes me insist on paying ahead of time over the phone to limit contact, despite the fact that this makes me need to call back and get their Venmo so I can send more money to fix my non-existent tip, Fixture’s pickup window really has been a lifeline of sorts since mid-March. Whether it’s the pizza or the wings or the chicken parm sandwich, it’s a satisfying reminder that there is some delicious humanity still pulsing on quiet 2nd Street. On all of our graveyard-quiet streets. And next week, maybe, for sure, pizza delivery, like normal, can return to our house. “Be brave,” all the books I read to my daughter seem to teach, implicitly or otherwise, they echo back at me in the sound of my own voice. And one day we will. Or else, we won’t. And maybe, years from now, when she’s old enough to grown-up talk and have thoughts and observations and real life queries, when she’s old enough for these loathsome days to be the old days, she’ll ask why we always have to go pick up the pizza. And I’ll just gaze distantly out the window like grandma might have, had I wondered, or like a character in a Tom Waits or John Prine song. Or, better, she won’t ask, will just chalk it up to the personality scars of an old, damaged man, and then we’ll be able to focus only on the pizza.

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jansegers · 7 years ago

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China, March and May made this list because china, march and may are on it and I didn't want to decide in favor of the common noun or the proper noun; all other proper nouns have been omitted (even the ten other months that met the criterium of appearing more then 6 times). #SimpleWikipedia #SimpleEnglish #wordlist #English #words #level1540 #Inli #nimi #selo1540

#SimpleWikipedia SimpleEnglish wordlist English words level1540 Inli nimi selo1540

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