The American Dream Isn't A Lie

Many a misanthropic edgy white person who’s read a synopsis of Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” once have said “the American dream is lie, maaaan”.

But the sad fact is that the American dream isn’t a lie - it’s a grim, horrifying and inhumane reality. The “American Dream is a Lie” sentiment assumes that the American dream is good, were it a reality. 

The American dreams says that any poor, marginalized individual in society faces obstacles, and that he can become great by overcoming these obstacles. The underdog wins against the odds. 

This idea presumes the obstacles, but doesn't tell us were these obstacles come from. While some people would say capitalism, racism, sexism, ableism and LGBTQ-oppression is somehow or other natural, we know this is false. These structures and prejudices have taken centuries of violent repression, conscious political action and mass manipulation of social attitudes to develop. They are obstacles that the American system actively put there.

The American system quite literally puts society in a giant prison cell, and then praises those who manage to escape it’s strict confinement as national heroes. It says every nobody can become a somebody, which becomes a useful distraction from the fact that it has artificially made almost everybody into a nobody. It’s the most vile normalization and legitimization of economic and social oppression that any society has ever produced.