So, Emily's sociology class required her to interview someone outside of the class about 'the american dream' economic-stratification and so forth. To her professor's consternation she chose me for a subject. The result is fairly amusing I think (which isn't to say that it's entirely tongueincheek) . Maybe some of you (does anyone besides Andrew and Emily still read this?) will enjoy it also.

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Sociologist: How do you define the “American Dream”? Do you feel that it is something which you can personally realize?

W: Before I answer these questions I would like to comment on the questions themselves, which are interesting to me for two reasons. First, the questions are interesting to me because they have already created a certain position for the addressee. They are sociological in form, insofar as they demand of the subject that he speak of an ideological unit as such, rather than herself trying to flush out or distill such substances that were held in solution in his discourse.

Sociologist: Held in solution huh?

W: [smiles] If one were trying to uncover the basic ideological units of a given society, presumably she would ask subjects how they measure success, and from the responses she would derive what she believed to be the basic images at play. When she asks about the American Dream instead she is asking the subject to himself play the role of sociologist, to treat an object that is already presumed to be recognized as ideological by himself. This amounts to an assumption that the subject is alienated from the ideology of his society.

One cannot simply ask a person to describe his ideology, because ideology is at bottom, not some idea or other, but a particular way of structuring experience. Now then, if the question is too direct to have sociological aims, as sociological research is necessarily carried out more obliquely, then it must serve other purposes. It would seem likely that the aim of questions such as these is simply to effect the positioning of the addressee I mentioned earlier, to get him to see an ideological unit as such, as a particular probably dubious socially determined mechanism.

But, and this brings me to the second point of interest, questions such as these are common in mainstream political discourse, and this fact suggests that it is highly unlikely that their function is to subvert the conventional ideology. More likely they support it, and in fact we can identify two closely related mechanisms by which they do this. First, by assuming a meta-ideological mode, they give the illusion of being outside of ideology, they create the impression of society as post-ideological – they show that we, as individuals, are to a high degree cynical about our own ideological positions – and this amounts to naturalizing the ruling ideology. Second, by attributing a basically naïve position to the masses they elevate the individual over the collective (this is just another example of the stupidity of the masses myth).

So then, to return to your question, What is the American Dream? Of course the thing everyone thinks of when they hear about the American Dream is a house that has a garage with two cars in it. The American Dream is taken to represent the possibility for anyone to enter the Bourgeois class, but it is well understood that this notion functions as a legitimizing agent for the actual stratification of social classes. That is, it is commonly experienced as a Bourgeois myth, and as such is an ideological unit that is no longer functioning, or it functions only in the ways adumbrated above: to naturalize ideological structures that are still invisible.

Sociologist: Adumbrated?

W: In the sense of sketched, or outlined.

Sociologist: Oh, thanks. Go on.

W: If I am right that the ideological image that once functioned to identify the masses to the bourgeoisie, as that toward which they aspire, is perceived by the people of current American society as merely an ideological construct of the masses, then an interesting question to ask is, what are the images that do legitimize high capitalist society? With what do the politically/economically disenfranchised people of high capitalist societies identify if they do not identify with the Bourgeoisie? The answer, I think, is that they identify with the commodity. They aspire to occupy the space of commodity, as that which is coveted and adored, and the loci of this symbolic identification is the celebrity. The paradigm instance of this symbolic identification with the commodity through the mediation of the celebrity is the television advertisement. What I’m suggesting here is that the conventional understanding of advertisements should be turned on its head.

Usually we think that the product in question is given its semiological importance through its coupling with the celebrity spokesperson. I propose however that the more subtle aim of such a coupling is to put a person in the space of product, thus allowing identification with the commodity itself. As the growth and perpetuation of high capitalist society clearly relies on the continual development of new products, with relatively little regard for the needs and desires of those to whom it will be sold (after all these can be manufactured like anything else), the consumers of society’s fruits – not just its producers – are evermore becoming alienated from those fruits. Thus the ideology appropriate to high capitalism is no doubt one which measures success not by the acquisition of wealth – since, as we have see, wealth is alienated from its possessor – but by marketability.

Sociologist: So, how do you define social class? How do you measure it?

W: This is rather difficult because the ruling ideology in our society to a very great extent is able to suppress class identity, and this is another reason why the old conception of the so called “American Dream” is out of date. One is not supposed to feel that one is part of a social class at all – unless of course it is the middle class, which has become a completely meaningless category.

Furthermore, there has been a great deal of seismic activity in the past one hundred years or so, so that while in some ways the lines of class demarcation have grown more ridged than ever (the proletariat has largely be relegated to other countries), within the first world countries things have gotten rather tricky. Various corporate entities are obviously possessive of a great deal of power and resources, but their internal structures have grown increasingly complex – with technocrats of various levels of power, the highest level of which may hold equal power to the largest shareholders.

Increasingly even companies that are notoriously exploitive of their menial laborers provide stock options for them, thus giving them the illusion of partial ownership. Unionization has often elevated manual labor to economic positions roughly commensurate with many of the petite bourgeoisie. At the same time, what we call the service sector has opened up and is now employing a huge number of the working poor. So, clearly this is a major difficulty facing radical politics, to foster some concrete feelings of class identity.

Sociologist: What do you suppose are the causes of poverty in our society?

W: One could, I think, demonstrate the structural necessity of classes of people who have little access to the products of their labor in capitalist society. Fortunately (or unfortunately) such a demonstration is not really necessary. Simple arithmetic will do just fine. The earth’s resources are simply not great enough for everyone to consume at the levels the top 10 percent do now. It may very well be that the growth of the global market will eventually close the chasm that now divides rich from poor. If it does it will be a matter of running the planet into resource exhaustion, however.

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