Monday, February 23, 2015
The American Dream?
Both these articles share that people are trying to achieve change. In the first article it is centered on money, school systems, war, etc. The second article is about achieving the American Dream and how it has to do with relying on government, and certain expectations. But the second article was written much more optimistically. Bob Herbert uses phrases like "The human suffering in the years required to recover from the recession will continue to be immense." while Cal Thomas talks about why the American Dream has been so hard to reach and less about why everything is terrible. They both asses America's trouble financially and socially but Cal Thomas talks more about the culture and generations and less of "the hole we are in". I agree with both but I would take Cal Thomas' side more securely.
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After reading these passages and your summary, it is clear that both these writers focus on America’s troubles and how they affect the American population’s financial troubles. I also saw Herbert’s side in Hiding in Reality, take a more negative approach then Cal Thomas and his more positive approach in Is the American Dream Over. It’s clear that Herbert sees to blame the government for our disintegrating hopes to accomplish the American dream due to our lack of budget the economy has. He also criticizes that people of power, like politicians, are going into office and creating a bigger strain on the government. Thomas, who is slightly more positive, takes on the approach that the American dream is dead because of the ideals that we are entitled to things living throughout society. He does agree with Herbert that are government is out of control, but then returns back to the fact that we must not rely on them. He then offers a clear solution that if we understand how we got detoured away from the American dream, then we can clearly get back to that pathway. I agree with you on taking Cal Thomas’s side because his views show us that we as a society can help fix our downfalls, as long as we don’t try to rely on the government as much.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading, your summary and the two articles with the different point of view of each author on the concept of the American dream, I have realize that America does have problems. I like how Herbert and Thomas have different perspective of the American dream. One of the common things they both agree is that America is suffering a financial problem. In Hiding in Reality Herbert has a big problem about how he thinks that the government has made the financial budget suffer. He blames the government for mostly of the financial problems and the suffering of the people. Herbert said, “We’ve become a hapless, can’t-do society, and it’s frankly embarrassing.” He believes that there is an economy problem because of the wealthy people too. In the other hand, Thomas does have a better reasonable argument that it is not all the governments fault to blame. In the American Dream is over article, it talks more about how we as the people and society rely on the government a lot. In addition, how society is also to blame for the change of the American dream. The problem is that the country is in bad shape and the actual problem is the economy and cultural insolvency. Herbert also thinks that people that want to rely on the Politian’s and government are in the wrong options because to be able fix the problem we as individual have to depend on our self. Even though that Thomas makes a great point on persuading citizen to not rely a lot on the government. I would be more on Herbert point of view because I do believe the government has a lot to blame for our downfall.
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