USA, myths and realities, American Dream - an overview - Englisch Abitur, Oberstufe - Abiturthemen

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Transcripts

hi you're studying for the german abbey

2 and you'd like to remember the most

important points about the usa and the

american dream then this is the right

video for you let's jump right

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in i divided this video into several

sections let me show them to you before

i go into detail on each one of them so

we have first the concept of the

american dream what is it what do people

mean when they say that what are some of

the backgrounds of this concept

then the culture wars what does that

term mean what ideas does it stand for

and immigration which of course for a

country like the usa is very important

the

african-american experience and why that

matters

and where does the american dream stand

today a topic that is often discussed in

the habitual tasks so it's good to know

a little bit about it let's go

so the american dream this is actually a

term that somebody really came up with

and invented and james trusslo adams

wrote a book and it's really not one

dream one idea but it's a set of

expectations and beliefs so ideas that

made people want to come to the usa and

that for the people

there who were living there and sort of

shape what they thought about their own

country and it's not really again one

idea but it's a set of different and

pretty complex

philosophical ideas religious ideas etc

and the common references that we will

hear in everyday speech when people talk

about it are usually things like

that america is the land of opportunity

and you can get from rags to riches and

if you work hard you'll make it and

you'll be rich etc and what all of these

common references focus on is the idea

that you as an individual as a person

can work hard and will make it but this

is only a small aspect of the bigger

idea of the american dream

many people say that the usa is not a

traditional country and if that's true

if you compare it to let's say france

france is a country that grew

traditionally

and organically and the usa is more an

idea people argue because

it was founded by people who came there

in order to set up a new and better

country

the foundation are some documents an

important one is of course the

declaration of independence independence

from the british

all men are created equal is one of the

important terms or slogans in there and

the right to life liberty and the

pursuit of happiness

the constitution of course it's also

important it starts where with the

preamble and you see it up here it

starts with the expression we the people

of the united states so it clearly shows

this is a government that is by the

people for the people of the people it's

not a king who comes there and says this

is how i'm going to rule my country but

everything depends on the people and

they make up this government

this concept of the american dream

should lead to prosperity for people so

it's sort of um

some wealth so not necessarily riches

but enough money and resources to live

on nicely

there should be freedom for everybody

and equal rights

there's a constant debate as i said

before about is this american dream

attainable is it still true does it work

and i'll go into more detail on that at

the end of this presentation

the american dream as an idea as a

concept really consists of different

points and i'll show you some of them

here and the first idea is progress so

that

there will be technological progress and

things will get better

then the idea of manifest destiny this

is the sort of religious idea that god

has chosen the usa as his country for

people to go there and set up a better

country the other idea is democracy so

that really the only

form of government that goes works with

the american dream as a democratic

government

one other idea is the melting pot the

idea represented in this cartoon up

there that

people come together from different

backgrounds and they're sort of melted

together into one identity

also important is the concept of

frontiers so having somewhere to go

where the land is

apparently uninhabited of course people

lived there but they just pretended they

didn't and this is expressed nicely in

this painting up there progress it's

called where you can see this sort of

big angel moving west and people moving

west and setting up railroads also has

to do with the concept of progress

because that's the name of the painting

but it also shows the idea of how

frontiers are approached and how people

move beyond the frontiers to set up

civilization and this is of course still

true today you could argue where people

of course are trying to explore space

etc

the idea of success also is important

represented up there by that house so

having a nice house with a picket fence

having a car having two children and a

dog etc

and you could argue that all these

points that sound pretty positive are

also go along with negative aspects and

i'll wrote them down here so progress

they believe that things get better

could be argued that

it's a point of decadence now where

things are really not getting better any

longer manifest destiny could be argued

is sort of arrogant why is america the

chosen country and not any of the other

many countries on earth

democracy has many problems in the usa

today which we'll go into more detail

later

for the melting point you could say this

is not really true there are the races

are separated and there's racism for the

frontiers you could say well this is an

imperialist idea that i'm going to other

people's countries and claiming it as

mine

and the idea of success of course could

be countered by materialism so you're

just looking at kind of what materials

you have not at least let's say

spiritual well-being etc

let's move on to a pretty different um

aspect

to the culture wars and the photos here

represent

the people arguing for different

positions

and um we have of course two important

parties two main parties only in the usa

and these are the democrats and the

republicans in the existence of these

two parties has sort of led to a culture

where we have two very different

positions that people have but they're

not only political people also in their

culture so what they they do in their

lifestyle sort of

also move into these camps and

for example it matters whether you are

religious or what kind of church you go

to all that often has to do with a

political position as well

one of these positions is often called

progressive and liberal

it means these people support minorities

and be it a minorities in terms of

sexual orientation be it minorities in

terms of race these people are for

immigration they are against guns so

think there should be gun laws to

restrict access to guns they are for the

environment they want to fight climate

change

so they need a strong state to do all of

these things and that includes being

willing to pay higher taxes as well

often these people live in cities or

bigger towns and often they vote

democrat democrat the color for this

party is blue and the donkey up there is

the symbol for this party

then the other group are the

conservatives you could call them they

are usually against immigration they are

against active support for a minority so

they're not

racist as such but they're saying well

these people just need to work hard and

accept that life is not fair always they

don't say you should really actively do

something to help these people often

they are often for guns and they say

there should be access to guns they are

for businesses say that businesses

should succeed and not pay many taxes

in general these people think often that

the state should not interfere much with

people's life only as much as necessary

and not more at all often they live in

rural areas and often of course they

vote republican

i am simplifying here of course matters

are much more complicated but to break

it down to these two positions makes it

easier and there's a lot of truth to it

let's talk a little bit about

immigration because it's so important

for the usa as a country because the

identity of the usa

again in contrast to other countries is

based on the idea that people came from

somewhere to live there and not really

many people can claim to have lived in

the united states for forever and for

many generations

the idea of the melting pot is connected

to that now the

immigrants often came from europe or in

the beginning of this time this period

of immigration they came from europe and

this has sort of served to

sort of establish the country as a more

or less european country at first to

show this in numbers let's take a look

at this graph here and you can see that

for uh from 1820 to 1920 there was

pretty much

to a large large extent immigration only

from europe and just from some other um

continents and places

and this changed after the second world

war where we have more immigration from

the other um americas so from um

from south america etc we have more

immigration from asia we have more

immigration from africa so it gets much

more diverse but these people of course

arrived later and you can see this

dynamic that this pattern has created

today and you can see the effect it has

on racial groups and how racial groups

feel what position they have in society

or should have in society

there are of course arguments for and

against additional immigration that i

won't go into detail here for time

reasons but it's good to look them up to

remember that if this topic comes up you

can write about it

many people differentiate rightly

between legal and illegal immigration

and make a difference between the two of

them so it should be something you can

integrate in an argumentation as well

let's talk about the

african-american experience

and sadly of course we have the history

of slavery where slaves were brought

from africa to america to work there

they were only freed or the civil war

only ended this practice of slavery the

civil war was about slavery in fact to a

large extent

but after that they weren't simply free

of course and everything was fine but we

had segregation so that means people had

different schools different seats on

buses

different

restrooms washrooms etc and these laws

are called jim crow laws

and there was lynching that means people

were killed when people thought they had

committed a crime so white people

usually would kill a black person simply

because they thought this person had

committed a serious crime so the person

wasn't brought to the police or to a

court there was no lawsuit it was simply

killed and we have the ku klux klan who

did some of these things and especially

in the south this situation was bad like

that

then we had the civil rights movement in

the 1950s and 60s but this is hundred

years later only um where people

protested against lots of these problems

and tried to at least have voting rights

for black people that there's no formal

segregation anymore etc and this

movement had lots of successes it didn't

of course completely

improve the situation of black people

overnight but that made some significant

advancements and of course martin luther

king is very important in this context

he gave the famous i have a dream speech

where um he which was part of the civil

rights movement

then many people say when obama was

elected in 2009 this was a significant

step for african americans because he

was of course the first african-american

president

today we have the black lives matter

campaign which focuses on black people

who were killed for minor offenses by

police officers

and so there's growing awareness around

this topic

what can we say then about the american

dream today what shape is it in there

are of course many many things to say on

that let me limit it down to a couple of

points that you could mention in an

essay in an argumentation in a comment

etc

the material aspect of the americans

dream so the idea that you should have

or people can have a house in the

suburbs and can have a nice car

and can have two children etc this is

increasingly difficult for many people

to get simply because house prices have

risen a lot in comparison to income over

the last say 50 years

and you need very good education to get

a good job that will pay a lot which

also wasn't always the case

and then the ideals that the american

dream includes equality equal chances

and that the usa is an open country

where immigrants can

go to

this is not really true

or hasn't become better the situation of

these ideals people are still not

completely equal it depends a lot on how

much money they grew up with what race

they are etc the usa is not an extremely

open country so there is immigration of

course but it's not huge it's not like

everybody has a chance to um immigrate

to the usa

we have the culture wars that i spoke

about before and this idea of the two

parties um means that people

really assign their lives to one or

other parties more or less and this

partisanship the idea that your party

and your group is very important to you

of course sort of makes a working

functioning democracy very difficult so

this is under threat as well

still however the american dream is a

very important concept

it's more like a reference for people

it's an ideal that people strive towards

it's not necessarily something that

exists in reality but something that

people want to work towards and this is

still important if it's going on in

people's heads and people consider this

idea

we should also not forget that the usa

is still an extremely attractive place

for many people many people if they had

a choice would move to america and many

countries around the world and of course

this is because

when compared with other countries the

usa is still a very very uh

well-functioning country we need to

compare it to countries in south america

we need to compare two countries in

africa and asia and if we look at that

then we can see yes there is a very high

standard of living there are high wages

there is a lot of

justice is still working etc education

system works to a large extent nothing

is perfect here but of course many

things still work very well so we

shouldn't easily dismiss the usa and say

nothing's working out nicely there we

are criticizing the usa on a very high

level we should keep that in mind when

we talk about the american dream i hope

i was able to help you a little bit

with studying for your english abitua

about the american dream or the usa in

general and take a look on my channel

there are a number of videos about the

abi tula and about many many other

things as well i hope i'll see you back

again soon goodbye

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