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The myth of agency and the misattribution of blame in collective imaginaries of the future
Author(s) -
Frye Margaret
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the british journal of sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.826
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1468-4446
pISSN - 0007-1315
DOI - 10.1111/1468-4446.12662
Subject(s) - misattribution of memory , blame , agency (philosophy) , mythology , library science , sociology , media studies , history , medicine , psychology , classics , social psychology , computer science , social science , psychiatry , cognition
In her essay entitled ‘From “Having” to “Being”: Self-worth and the Current Crisis of American Society’ (2019), Michèle Lamont presents a galvanizing discussion of possible ways that cultural sociologists might use our expertise to address the existential angst and widespread despair that seem to permeate American society today. The crux of her argument is that the American dream is ineffective as a collective narrative, primarily because it focuses on a single criterion of success – material prosperity – which ‘dominates all other dimensions of human achievement’. We cannot all rise into the middle class, and in fact fewer of today’s young adults can do so than in previous generations, and thus Lamont laments that we are ‘dreaming an impossible dream’ (Lamont 2019). In response, she proposes that we should promote a broader set of cultural models of success, such that people will aspire to achieve not only material wealth (having ) but also social connections and moral convictions (being ). As I read this essay, I found myself nodding in affirmation with Lamont’s diagnosis of the psychological costs of the widespread failure of the American dream, and I heartily agree that these problems are not only the result of structural barriers and material inequities but also stem from cultural processes. Yet, as a scholar who has examined the cultural correlates of education and the theoretical question of how shared ideals and future aspirations impact people’s lives in the present, I would like to propose here a slight modification of Lamont’s call to action. Youth today may be dreaming an impossible dream, but the element of the American dream that is in my view most harmful to our collective well-being is not its optimistic (and to some degree unattainable) imagined destination, but rather its unrealistic account of the means through which people can arrive there. Rather than working to promote a different set of aims, as Lamont suggests here, it may be more helpful to focus on a