Beth Part 1

From my perspective, the American dream creates an idealistic way for people to take useless efforts in the stalemate. People involuntarily use the American dream as a kind of placebo which adds unrealistic hope to them when they face impossibilities. They just keep on making efforts that do not work, so that they will look like they are about to close the dream. When I was in primary school in Shanghai (Proudly say, my hometown is the city which contains a lot of famous school), one of my classmate's parents ignore the fact that they could not give their son enough education resources such as the extra-curricular tutoring and they blindly think their son would get a better education just by moving to Shanghai where the daily cost is high for them. Based on the competitive studying environment in China, it is really difficult for students who have less resources get a high rank in the exam. But they could not do nothing, otherwise it is obvious their son will fall behind other students. Therefore, moving to Shanghai gives them an illusion their son could go to the famous school (though it doesn’t work at all). Their attempt works as the placebo that it seems a way to get their dream and also help them not face the unacceptable truth. 

(https://www.bilibili.com/bangumi/play/ep193554?from=search&seid=9357315291487148495 It is on ep6, 10:07) 

“When humans are plunged into the depths of despair, ” This quotation is from a Japanese cartoon called Black Butler. As far as I am concerned, the people who try their best to get out of the stalemate are just like people who are in the hell trying to grab the spider’s thread and the spider’s thread is just like the American dream. It is obvious that spider’s thread is too thin and weak to support human’s weight, so they will never get the chance to leave from the hell. However, they will still try to do it ironically, because the spider’s thread is the only thing they have in the hell. If they don’t try to use the thread, they have nothing to try—which means it is telling them they could never get out of here! Therefore, their efforts on grabbing the thread is just a behavior to numb the nerves so that they could avoid facing that truth.  

From this quotation, we can see that the American Dream makes people chase for the impossible dream blindly and it seems to console them. The society is not easy even impossible for people to achieve their dream, because there are a lot of inequalities from the society, like the upper class always get much more resources than the lower class. This kind of inequality leads people to the stalemate which is hard or improbable to break. This time, the American dream gives people a hope that they would get their goal by working like a horse so that they do not need to accept the truth. Why these people in the hell will try to use the spider’s thread to get out of hell which is obvious it never works? It is because if they do not work hard, the only thing they could do is waiting for death and it is really cruel for them to accept. Therefore, the American dream gives them a chance to avoid facing the truth—working hard without analyzing the situation. So, the American dream is idealistic due to the ignorance of impossibility.