...The American dream It is very different how people see things, but to many people it is very clear what the topic, The American Dream contains. Life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness are the three first words appearing in my head, when the topic, The American Dream, is discussed. As an ordinary person I believe, that The American Dream is overrated. Too many people want to fulfill this dream and they see it as something incredible that they have to experience. The American Dream is about coming to America, working at your dream job, getting rich, living in freedom and of course being happy. These dreams have been a subject many times, and also around famous people, where it has been discussed and the values have been thought through. Senator, Barack Obama delivered a speech in 2008 where he ”addressed the subjects of racial tensions, white privilege, and race and inequality in the United States, discussing black "anger," white "resentment," and other issues as he sought to explain and contextualize Wright's controversial comments.” The speech was viewed more than 1.2 million times on youtube, and described as "arguably the biggest political event of the campaign so far" by the Pew Research Center. Obama starts with telling how everything started, how democracy was build and who made it possible. People were brought together and promised that citizens should be equal. “A Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should...
Words: 673 - Pages: 3
...Is the American Dream misinterpreted? Contrary to popular belief, the main focus in relation to the American Dream is all material. Frequently Americans have a dream based off of gaining material items rather than freedom and opportunity. People no longer have hopes and dreams but the desire to impress others. The American dream is not obtainable because people cannot make dreams into reality, individuals are greedy, and humans view material items too highly. Materialism is the main prevention as to why the American dream has changed, and is taking a toll for the worse. Information specialist, Lorie Johnson stated, “in order to be truly happy, Americans need to reject the false American dream and create their own version of happiness.”(Johnson,5)...
Words: 920 - Pages: 4
...The Unachievable American Dream One of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, and one of the most iconic civil rights activists in our countries history, Martin Luther King Jr., both believed in equality for all. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” ( 327). Since then, America has become the number one country for achieving life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Today, we know this better as the American Dream. The American Dream is something that every American strives for. Immigrants from other countries come here and become American citizens with the hope of someday achieving their ideal American Dream. We all design and carry this image in our heads of our own American Dream. The job we hope to have and the pleasant family we hope to build and raise in our perfect ideal homes, are all images that come to mind when thinking of the American Dream. Most of us, every day of our lives, are doing the best we can. We try to make this dream become a reality, but the reality of this dream is that it’s getting harder and harder to reach; due to unemployment, poverty, and our countries overall economic state. Over the past few years the country’s economy has been in a downward spiral and we’ve reached an economic recession. Poverty and unemployment rates amongst United States citizens have...
Words: 1281 - Pages: 6
...Elements of Religious Traditions REL/133 August 6, 2012 The Beginning of Religion How old is religion? When did man first stop and think about how the stars got up in the sky, or the sun or the moon? When did a mother first think what has happened to her dead son? “Where is he now? Why do I see him when I sleep, but not when I’m awake?” The time may never be known when the concept of religion was introduced into a man’s mind, but it has certainly grown to be a core fundamental of the human existence. The first man who sat and wondered about the reasons for a death or what would happen after he himself died, may have been a leader of a clan or group. Others in the group may have looked to him for answers to their everyday problems, and he was there for them. He may have been the one initially to console a mother who lost a child because he was aware that she felt a loss. Therefore, the roots of something deeper and more meaningful than this present-day life came to grow. The Spread of Religion After centuries or possibly thousands of years, groups of different people were populating the earth. Although they had different characteristics, they had a common goal of survival. They looked upon this particular man with a position of importance. He was one who could help the hunters bring home game. He could help heal those who were sick. He had an air about him that made him special and set him apart from the others...
Words: 942 - Pages: 4
...F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, demonstrates that Jay Gatsby lives a life of the American Dream gone wrong by lowering his morals with the corrupt nature of greed, Jay only focuses on the past to move forward in his own grand dream for himself, and how Fitzgerald’s use of symbolism during the Roaring Twenties exemplifies theme areas in the novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald's, The Great Gatsby, the cars represent a form of status. Nick takes taxis while Gatsby drives his custom made, cream-yellow car. According to Dan Seiters, “It is a rich cream color, a combination of the white of the dream and the yellow of money, of reality in a narrow sense,” (1). After Daisy kills Myrtle a bystander talks about the car and says, “It was a yellow car....
Words: 1645 - Pages: 7
...was 1925; my future friend was just making his entrance in a world fill with pain and hatred. His name is Malcolm Little, he father was a preacher and it is said that he was killed by racist white supremacists. His mother was placed in a mental institution. He was cared for by state during this time of his life. Malcolm was a great student in middle school, he was very bright and had vision of becoming a lawyer. This dream was vanquish when his favorite teacher told him that he could not become a lawyer due to fact that he was a Negro. Malcolm became very angry and he left school and moved to Boston to live with his half sister. The year of 1946, Malcolm was sent to prison for breaking and entering with some friends he met in Boston. While serving his time in prison, Malcolm was introduced to the Nation of Islam. When he was release from prison, he followed the teaching of Elijah Muhammad once he was release in 1952. Malcolm no longer wanted to be called Malcolm Little, he went by the unknown name, so he changed his last name to X. Malcolm X was reborn again with another mind set, and religion. Under the teaching of Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm became one of the Nation of Islam favorite son. His belief was that blacks were far more superior to whites. The Negro must protect themselves by “any means necessary”. Of course this way of thinking did not set well in the white community or the racist supremacists. Not only did Malcolm anger the whites, he also made enemies in...
Words: 824 - Pages: 4
...Inside I was terrified, I could feel my stomach quiver and my mind went blank. But I refused to show my fear. Once I put on that uniform I was superman reborn. February 12, I arrived in Afghanistan. A total culture shock. No functional electricity, no running water, no restrooms, no stone built houses. How did these people live? Seeing children playing in contaminated water for fun, men struggle to find work while their wives struggle to find food to eat, families freezing at night due to not having heat inside of their mud huts. My heart ached. I had found a new love and more appreciation for the American culture. The American population sometimes takes their glamorous lives for granted. They do not understand how great it is to live within the US and not in a 3rd world country. You have people complaining about the economy, the cost of living, etc., when there’s people fighting to survive to the next day. But this is not the only pain I felt while serving my country. I also endured the pain of being humiliated and having racial slurs thrown at me. There were several times where African American soldiers were forced to clean buildings, mow lawns, and take out the trash while other soldiers were dismissed from work. I’ve been called a house slave on multiple occasions due to my skin complexion and many more. The best memory I have of being racial discriminated...
Words: 1148 - Pages: 5
...Progressive Era through the Great Depression For this assignment I will discuss the major turning points in American history between the Progressive Era and the Great Depression. Analyze how some historical events shape America’s current society, economy, politics, and culture. Describe ways that women and minorities have responded to challenges and made contributions to American culture. Recognize and discuss the ways that formal policies of government have influenced the direction of historical and social development in the United States. Analyze the rise of the United States to a world “super-power” and how that status has shaped its internal developments in recent decades. Identify how changes in social and economic conditions and technology can cause corresponding changes in the attitudes of the people and policies of the government. Identify at least (2) two major historical turning points in the period under discussion. The first major historical turning point was the changing roles of women. Women won the right to vote with the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, one of the final great reforms of the Progressive era. A group of congressmen proposed an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution in 1923. It states: “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction” (Schultz, 2012 p.379). The amendment’s objective was to eliminate all legal distinctions between the sexes, such as those who permitted different...
Words: 1284 - Pages: 6
...Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela Non-violence is a concept that people participate in social and political change without violence. It is a form of social and political change between passive acceptances and armed struggle. Non-violence way to participate in the social and political change is including nonviolent civil disobedience against, acts of civil disobedience or other powerful influence uncooperative antagonistic form; it is similar with pacifism, but it is not pacifism. Since the mid-20th century, nonviolence and civil disobedience become the main form of social change, and it also is respected political and social philosophy. As the practice of social and political change, non-violent has the essence difference with pacifism, it is contrary to the wishes of the oppressed, and it struggle with any injustice and power political. In my final paper, I will instruction three famous Non-violence movement leader: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela; and also I will compare the similar and difference between them. Mahatma Gandhi was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in Britishruled India. Employing non-violent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for non-violence, civil rights and freedom across the world. A very important turning point in Gandhi’s life is he arrived in South Africa to work as a legal representative for the Muslim Indian traders based in the city of Pretoria...
Words: 1504 - Pages: 7
...Disney characters : the reflect of women's place in the society Walt Disney, under his real name Walt Elias Disney was born in 1901 in Chicago. He founded in 1923 the famous Walt Disney Company with his brother Roy as the Disney Brothers Studios. After three years, the studios take the name Walt Disney Company. Their first animated film came out in 1937 "Snow White" inspired by a famous children's story by the Brothers Grimm. Thereafter follow many animated films like Cinderella, Mulan, or Rebel. One of the most important question in recent years is : What image Disney returns with respect to the role of women and the role that women play in society in the twenty-first century? In fact, Disney is primarily a media and integrate media stereotypes and habits of society to which they belong in their history or animated movie. Disney is the reflects of the habit of society to which they belong in their history or their short films. Thus heroines like Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora are submitted to wish than others, especially men, have chosen for her. They are docile women who spend their time dreaming. They are always save by men from a evil spell and are submit to the will of men. Instead, the heroines of the late twentieth century are beginning to take their lives and rebel against the male authority . In the twenty-first century heroines are increasingly rebelling and advocate of feminist principles : women are the equals of men. This analysis allows us to see a marked increase...
Words: 3196 - Pages: 13
...Death in Paganism Pagans believe that death is such an important process in nature that, without it, life could not exist. From the moment of birth the cells in the body are endlessly dying and being replaced. They believe that the body that dies is not the body that was born. we continuously shed and rework our appearance, our attitudes and our habits as we change from one stage of life to the next. The person that dies is only one of the many people we became throughout our lives. Many Pagan’s believe that if they are to be able to think beyond the conventional view of death, they need to ask themselves if the fear of death is rooted in an earlier, version of themselves that should have been let go. It is understood that each person needs to seek other ways in which to view both life and death; There are a few different ways for Pagans to see life and death, all of them are cyclical patterns, involving that same necessary change. The Wheel of Life The first way to see life and death is called The Wheel of Life. The Wheel of Life tells us that our existence is a constant pattern of cyclical change. Life is constantly changing into death and each moment of death is a moment of rebirth. They acknowledge beginnings and endings within this wheel, but the flow of existence is never-ending. The Wheel of Life is not only a figurative notion but a physical tool as well. The tool itself is a sacred tool often passed down through the family and is unique to each family. That...
Words: 2980 - Pages: 12
...fabric of society to affect most every segment. This paper will look at this fear and determine the affects it has had on present day America’s behaviors toward and beliefs about the aging population and correlate it to the society’s fear of death. Everyone has heard the expression that “time flies by like the blink of an eye.” Humans have been attempting for centuries to make sense of and accept the concept of time. The great Albert Einstein, the most prolific physicist of the 20th century, in his Theory of Relativity proved that time was relative. In other words, time and it’s accepted concept of constant, continual progression at a fixed rate was incorrect or not an absolute. Einstein convinced himself and many others that the past, present, and future were only an illusion (Schwartz, 2003). However, to the majority of the world’s population, time is not a theory. It is something that propels us into old age and beyond. The subject of time has inspired many artists to attempt stopping it, or at least slowing it down, with many varied perceptions utilizing their gifted crafts. Using Albert Einstein’s relativity theory, Salvador Dali’s emotions were roused enough for him to paint one of the most famous paintings in history. His Persistence of Memory depicts a grim, dreary coastline cluttered with melting clocks (Descharnes, 2006). It’s hard to imagine anyone who has not...
Words: 2112 - Pages: 9
...ESSAY; Science and Religion: Bridging the Great Divide EVER since science began drifting away from religion, centuries ago, each has dreamed of subsuming the other. Scientists, in their boldest moments, speak of explaining away all the mysteries by empirical inquiry, leaving no need for ancient wisdom. And the faithful, fervently believing in spiritual forces unmeasurable by any meter, find it absurd that God's children would aspire to heaven solely by building telescopes and computers -- scientific Towers of Babel. They have longed for a reality beyond the shadowplay of the material realm. Left between these extremes are many people who are both scientific and religious, and confused about whether a bridge can ever cross the divide. Every few decades, this hope for reconciliation, or ''dialogue,'' experiences a revival. The most recent may be the biggest, with books, conferences and television shows trying to find a common ground between two fundamentally different ways of thinking about the world. In the 1970's scholars tried to merge science with Eastern religion; the emphasis now is on rejoining science with monotheistic, usually Christian, faith. Not all the work is motivated by religious passion. In his new best-selling book, ''Consilience'' (Knopf), the Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson tries to revive the Enlightenment dream of a unified system of knowledge that would embrace not only the sciences but also morality and ethics, removing them from the uncertainties...
Words: 2455 - Pages: 10
...Coraline, RealD and the Reemergence of 3-D: Technological Obsession and a Reassurance of Identity Throughout history the cinema has attempted to employ new and captivating technologies to curb the success of varying competing mediums. At this present moment in new media history we find ourselves amongst a reemergence of 3-D technology in commercial cinema. It is possible that since we are seeing a rise in popularity of on-demand services and streaming forms of media entertainment available to consumers, that Hollywood is once again employing unique technical gimmicks to increase theater attendance. Yet, with such 3-D breakthroughs as Henry Selick’s Coraline (2009), it seems that certain artists in Hollywood have instead begun to embrace 3-D beyond just a technical gimmick and harness its true cinematic potential. If one thing is for sure, the 3-D technology used today compared that of the 1950s is vastly different in terms of its technological development; thanks innovative 3-D projection company RealD. It is the goal of this essay to examine how RealD’s 3-D projection technology helps...
Words: 3226 - Pages: 13
...and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise with four business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment and consumer products. This executive summary summarizes the issues surrounding The Walt Disney Company based on its globalization efforts into a multinational corporation, its business power related to the exportation of “American imperialism”, its business ethics related to its theme parks and resorts, and its corporate governance problems under former CEO Michael Eisner. Many blame these kinds of changes in company values and mission to Michael Eisner. Globalization efforts made by The Walt Disney Company would prove costly when it made bad decisions based on naïve assumptions of the cultural acceptance of Mickey Mouse into Japan and France. Tokyo Disneyland emerged as the most profitable theme park, but with TWDC having no stake in the company; and Disneyland Paris, backed heavily by TWDC, had to be restructured only after two years of opening. Domestically, theme park safety had been compromised, all in the name of profit. An embittered declaration for Eisner’s resignation came in 2003 by ousted board member Roy E. Disney, nephew of Walt and last remaining active family member at TWDC, and his trusted friend, Stanley Gold, who resigned the board. Ultimately, Roy Disney helped lead a Disney shareholder revolt that arguably contributed to Eisner’s departure from the company with nearly...
Words: 3475 - Pages: 14
