Volume CXXXIII, Number 17 February 22, 2002 f

From Horatio Alger to Enron
GENEVIEVE CREEDON

"What happens to a dream deferred?" Langston Hughes wrote in one of his most famous poems. The question resounds today, though perhaps in a somewhat altered light.

The "American dream" has been one of the greatest and most widely believed myths (or possibilities) of the past century. It brought waves of immigrants into the United States and continues to attract them.

The post-Civil War era was certainly a fertile soil in which that American dream could take root, and since the likes of Horatio Alger stories, there has been no stopping its flourishing. The dream will always hold a strong position in the culture of this country, but the erosion of it is undeniable.
The words of Langston Hughes some forty years ago show us that the dream has changed, and not only for a contingency of the population, but for everyone.

Works by Theodore Drieser and Arthur Miller certainly cast a shadow on the American dream early on in the 20th century. Literary recognition of a changing phenomenon doesn't, however, always resound very strongly until after the fact. Perhaps we've simply been waiting to see the actual fading dream.

And now, we're seeing it. Enron undoubtedly marks the most public undoing of an American dream obtained through deception. Our fascination with the scandal mirrors similar fixations we've had in the past, most notably the romance with Horatio Alger in his time.

The question becomes one of how that dream, so pure and just, has become so distorted and tainted?

The question has many answers, including greed. The media have gained a stronghold in their construction of America, and the American dream has been their hook. The public wanted to hear about success and opportunity once, but now we want soap operas, which the media give us freely.

Enron will provide a whole new wave of information and deception for future strivers after the new American dream, and as long as the media capitalize on such scandals-as long as they plaster every newspaper's front page with this improved version of a dream that seems to be long lost-the thirst for the soap opera will continue, and we'll be facing more than the end of a boom.

Some might argue that the American dream has already died. I would argue that it cannot until our notions of America die. "What happens to a dream deferred?" Is it not the greatest question we face right now?

I don't mean to adhere to a pure and romantic vision of the American dream, which is merely a notion that is widespread enough that most people can understand it. The American dream began as a reflection of positive innovation, desire, persistence-a set of values and an ideology that have soured over the past century.

"Or does it explode?" Hughes concluded. It doesn't even matter how Enron will be resolved, because we don't want to see the resolution. We want to see the chaos, and when Enron is over, there will be others, just as there were other Horatio Algers. There is more reason to believe that the tendency is toward erosion rather than compromise. Between optimism and pessimism lies realism. Even the explosions, however, have not changed our course. Perhaps all we need is to stop seeking images and icons of extremes that history has proven undesirable.