Culture: Putting the American Dream on the Psychologist's Couch

I suppose every culture has a heroic narrative of itself. It can be reflected in their national anthems or in their unofficial anthems.

For the British, it probably would be "Jerusalem."

For Americans, it can be any number of songs like "God Bless America," "America, the Beautiful," Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA," or Neil Diamond's "Coming to America."

Conversations about the merits of the American Dream and the idea of American Exceptionalism have been made difficult by binary thinking: America is the Great Satan or America is a Christian Nation.

Like most things in the world, America is a mix of good and bad.

But having said that, America is pretty unique as a beacon of liberty (economic and religious) such that people for centuries have taken great efforts to immigrate here.

Also unique is the melting pot of America where in many parts of the world such a mix of ethnic groups and religious ideas would lead to outright fighting in the streets.

And finally, the notion that humans have rights given by a Creator has propelled America forward in advancing freedoms here in the USA and the nation's willingness to support freedom in other parts of the world.

Here below is a video describing the above three ideas of "liberty," "e pluribus unum" and "in God we trust."



Happy Birthday America!