Starting somewhere in the 70s of the last century, elements of American culture slowly began to seep into the USSR, and this despite the Iron Curtain. Gradually, a kind of bright image of the United States of America was cultivated among young people in the country. Several generations of young Soviet people of the 70s-90s adopted the American way of life, fashion, style, music, ideology. They thought the USA was very cool. Many wanted to go there, because there is freedom, democracy, the possibility of self-expression and other delights of life.
The standard of American lifestyle
What is so special about the USA? Why do so many people around the world still think this country is perfect? The concept of "American way of life" has become an ideological cliche. And for good reason. After all , the media painted a picture of a state of abundance, universal prosperity, freedoms and opportunities. It is believed that the lifestyle of American people is very active and dynamic, they are businesslike and decisive.
Mandatory attributes of any self-respecting American are: a car, loans, a two-story house in the vicinity of the city. Well, of course, how can we do without liberal democracy and religious pluralism ?! Regardless of social status and origin, everyone is equal before the law, at least that's what propaganda of the American way of life sounds like. In general, everything that every self-respecting person should strive for, and in America it is very easy and simple to obtain.
How did the American dream come about?
During the Great Depression in the United States, James Adams wrote a treatise, The Epic of America, where the phrase “American Dream” was first mentioned. He represented the States as a state in which everyone can get what he deserves, and the life of any person will become better, fuller and richer. Since then, the phrase has taken root and began to be used not only in a serious, but also in an ironic sense. At the same time, the very meaning of the American dream is vague and has no clear boundaries. And it is unlikely to ever be clearly defined. After all, everyone puts their own meaning into this concept, and this makes the American dream even more attractive. Also, this concept is very closely associated with immigrants from other countries, where often there is not such an extensive freedom of the individual, as propagated in the States. It is believed that in America it is possible through persistent independent labor to achieve success in life.
What is its essence?
The American dream is a dream about a beautiful life, and first of all about wealth. In Europe, for example, there was a fairly clear class distinction; for many people, achieving prosperity was simply beyond reality. The states were a country where for the first time individual entrepreneurship was so developed that everyone could achieve material well-being. And the dream has become the goal of millions of people in pursuit of quick enrichment.
The colonists of North America in the XVIII century very quickly realized the limitless opportunities that this new continent provides. In their communities, the hard work of man for his own enrichment has become a virtue, while, naturally, it was necessary to sacrifice for the needs of the community itself. On the contrary, poverty was a vice, since only a bankrupt, weak-willed and spineless person could not achieve anything with the unlimited possibilities that the new continent gave. Such people were not respected.
Thus, the formation of a lifestyle based on material wealth took place. It was a new morality, a new religion, where success became a sign of God's love. The 19th century was a milestone in the mass emigration of desperate hunters for luck from the countries of the Old World to a new world, where culture and civilization had not really existed, but unlimited opportunities were provided for obtaining wealth. For these people, the main values of life were material wealth, and not moral, cultural and spiritual development. Accordingly, what other development vector, besides capitalism, could these migrants give to future generations of Americans?
So a new way of human life was created
If in Europe wealth and property were inherited, or the struggle for them was conducted only within the privileged class, in America they became available to absolutely everyone. There was fierce competition, as there were millions of applicants. In turn, such an unlimited passion for wealth accumulation led to the incredible greed that engulfed American society. Due to the fact that it consisted of emigrants from all possible countries, representatives of various nationalities, religions and cultures, it turned out to be an incredible symbiosis.
America provided free access to enrichment for everyone indiscriminately, which gave rise to fierce competition and prudent pragmatism of the population, which was simply necessary for survival. The United States created its traditions from diverse and unusual realities, fusing them into something new.
Incredible combinations
America is a country of incredible contrasts. So, at least as far back as 1890, Bedecker, a famous travel guide from England, commented on her. It not just coexisted, but coexisted with phenomena that were opposite in nature: fierce religiosity and a materialistic worldview, participation and indifference to others, upbringing and aggressiveness, honest work and a passion for manipulation, respect for the law and rampant crime, individualism and conformism. All this bizarrely combined and organically woven into the new American lifestyle.
Actually, conformism has become one of the foundations of this lifestyle. Since America did not yet have a strong state that could, with the help of social structures, social institutions and established traditions, organize and organize the entire motley crowd of migrants, conformism became the only possible form of survival. In the USA, the creation of all public institutions began from scratch, from scratch, and, having no support from the past, citizens took the only convenient course for them - economic. Humanism, culture, religion - everything obeyed the new system of values, where monetary units and stocks played the leading role. Human happiness began to be measured only by the number of banknotes.
Land of idealists and dreamers
At least that's what President Coolidge called America. After all, this is a country where every worker can become a millionaire, because he has a dream. And it doesn’t matter that everyone cannot be millionaires, the main thing is to believe, dream and strive for it. And no one is going to debunk this myth, because the value of an individual in the States was directly proportional to the bank account of its holder. Over time, the upper level limit moved further and further: hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions, billions. Because the achievement of a dream is the collapse of the system, a stop that is not permissible. You just need to move forward. In this, perhaps, the American way of life is similar to the communist one.
USA and USSR: similarities and differences
Despite the fact that the Soviet way of life was radically different from the American, there was still something in two such dissimilar countries. Oddly enough, but the desire to increase wealth was the common goal of both the American and Soviet dreams. The only difference was that for America, the end in itself is an individual enrichment, and for the Union - a collective, universal material well-being. But in both cases, the idea was based on progress - non-stop industrial development, movement for the sake of movement.
To advance progress, living conditions are constantly changing, and a person must constantly adapt to new and new realities. To do this, he must work, and thus, work has become tantamount to freedom. The work even became a semblance of religion, because whoever was nobody could become everything. Such propaganda was carried out both in the Soviet Union and in the United States of America.
If earlier a peasant, cultivating his land, could provide himself with all the necessities, then as a result of industrialization he became completely dependent on the state, and he needed to sell himself on the labor market. Thanks to work, discipline and self-organization were developed, which brought society closer to the absolute order, which was a utopian ideal. Any work was for the benefit of the economy, which has become an instrument of control. On the one-dollar banknote there is a symbolic inscription “New order forever”, which perfectly characterizes the US position in world politics.
Freedom, equality and ...?
At one time, the slogan of the French Revolution was "Freedom, equality, fraternity." That in all ages has been the ultimate dream of any society. In its Declaration of Independence, America puts forward almost the same points, but instead of the fraternity it says "The right to seek happiness." A peculiar and interesting interpretation. But is everything so idealistic and transparent?
If for European states a person with his personal qualities stood in the first place, then here the equality of all people comes to the fore, regardless of cultural and spiritual development. Freedom turns out to be the right to participate in the competition, and equality means equal opportunities for the development of entrepreneurship. But the “right to seek happiness” speaks for itself. Personality, fortitude, cultural development and other virtues in this society are neither needed nor important, there is only one concept of power - this is an economy that subordinates all spheres of human life and the state.
Mass as the basic principle of a new lifestyle
Thanks to individual entrepreneurship, America has turned from an agrarian country into an industrial one. Craftsmanship is a thing of the past, and mass production of consumer goods has begun. The population became part of a huge economic machine. People became consumers, material goods began to come to the fore, of which there were more. But all the actual reins of government fell into the hands of the owners of large concerns and corporations, which dictated the living conditions of the whole country, and not only. They eventually managed to spread their influence over much of the world.
The economic elite began to subjugate and control society. For the most part, people from the bottom of society, far from high culture, from spiritual development and enlightenment, were at the helm. And the American people consisted of ordinary people, so the culture of the United States began its development from market shows. As a result, she conquered the whole world. Its principle was that culture became part of leisure, recreation of a working person who needed to relax after hard working days. So now is the lifestyle of modern man, and not only in America.
High and subtle matters clearly could not contribute to this type of rest. Therefore, US mass culture was consistent with the goals of the American economy. As a result of this, a person’s lifestyle was established in which he lost his spiritual values, completely dissolved in the material world, becoming only a cog of an incredible economic machine.
Typical american family
What in the usual sense is an example of the American family, so zealously imposed by American cinema? This is a business father who works for a reputable company, a housewife mother, having a barbecue for her neighbors on Saturdays and making two of her teenage children sandwiches for school. They have a large and beautiful two-story house, a dog and a pool in the backyard. And also a large garage, because each member of the family has their own car. But this is only a beautiful picture, which is earnestly treated by the gullible spectators of different countries, and indeed the States themselves. Only a small stratum of the population lives like this. A huge part of Americans can not afford to buy healthy food, so they eat low-quality fast food, due to this America takes the first place in the world in the number of people with obesity. This problem also contributes to the fact that the lifestyle of a modern person in America is basically sedentary.
Some have sedentary work, after which they spend time either in the bar or in front of the TV at home on the couch. Others fall into a different extreme - the pursuit of perfect beauty. Therefore, the beauty industry is so developed in America, which promotes the image of an ideal woman from the glossy covers of magazines. All conditions are created so that ladies, young and old, poured enormous funds into the achievement of these standards.
Also, it was the United States that launched the technology race in the entertainment industry. Constantly there are more and more new gadgets that are especially interesting to young people. In pursuit of fashionable novelties in all areas, be it cars, computers, players, smartphones, clothes, shoes, accessories and other attributes of our time, the lifestyle of American teenagers is being formed. The system is designed so that everything becomes outdated very quickly. To be successful, fashionable and popular, you need to constantly acquire everything new. As mentioned earlier, progress never stands still. And now humanity is beginning to see the fruits of its mindless unlimited consumption, but, unfortunately, the system does not care.