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

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  1. 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
  2. video for you let's jump right [Music] in i divided this video into several sections let me show them to you before
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. country like the usa is very important the african-american experience and why that matters
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. pretty complex philosophical ideas religious ideas etc and the common references that we will hear in everyday speech when people talk
  11. 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
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. if you compare it to let's say france france is a country that grew traditionally and organically and the usa is more an
  15. idea people argue because it was founded by people who came there in order to set up a new and better country
  16. the foundation are some documents an important one is of course the declaration of independence independence from the british
  17. 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
  18. 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
  19. 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
  20. 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
  21. 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
  22. on nicely there should be freedom for everybody and equal rights there's a constant debate as i said
  23. 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
  24. 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
  25. that there will be technological progress and things will get better then the idea of manifest destiny this
  26. 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
  27. that really the only form of government that goes works with the american dream as a democratic government
  28. one other idea is the melting pot the idea represented in this cartoon up there that people come together from different
  29. backgrounds and they're sort of melted together into one identity also important is the concept of frontiers so having somewhere to go
  30. where the land is apparently uninhabited of course people lived there but they just pretended they didn't and this is expressed nicely in
  31. 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
  32. 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
  33. 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
  34. etc the idea of success also is important represented up there by that house so having a nice house with a picket fence
  35. having a car having two children and a dog etc and you could argue that all these points that sound pretty positive are
  36. 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
  37. 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
  38. 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
  39. 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
  40. frontiers you could say well this is an imperialist idea that i'm going to other people's countries and claiming it as mine
  41. 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
  42. spiritual well-being etc let's move on to a pretty different um aspect to the culture wars and the photos here
  43. represent the people arguing for different positions and um we have of course two important
  44. 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
  45. 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
  46. lifestyle sort of also move into these camps and for example it matters whether you are religious or what kind of church you go
  47. to all that often has to do with a political position as well one of these positions is often called progressive and liberal
  48. 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
  49. 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
  50. change so they need a strong state to do all of these things and that includes being willing to pay higher taxes as well
  51. 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
  52. the symbol for this party then the other group are the conservatives you could call them they are usually against immigration they are
  53. 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
  54. 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
  55. 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
  56. 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
  57. vote republican i am simplifying here of course matters are much more complicated but to break it down to these two positions makes it
  58. 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
  59. 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
  60. 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
  61. 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
  62. 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
  63. 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
  64. 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
  65. 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
  66. 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
  67. 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
  68. 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
  69. can write about it many people differentiate rightly between legal and illegal immigration and make a difference between the two of
  70. them so it should be something you can integrate in an argumentation as well let's talk about the african-american experience
  71. 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
  72. 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
  73. of course and everything was fine but we had segregation so that means people had different schools different seats on buses
  74. different restrooms washrooms etc and these laws are called jim crow laws and there was lynching that means people
  75. 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
  76. 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
  77. did some of these things and especially in the south this situation was bad like that then we had the civil rights movement in
  78. 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
  79. for black people that there's no formal segregation anymore etc and this movement had lots of successes it didn't of course completely
  80. 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
  81. 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
  82. elected in 2009 this was a significant step for african americans because he was of course the first african-american president
  83. today we have the black lives matter campaign which focuses on black people who were killed for minor offenses by police officers
  84. 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
  85. 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
  86. etc the material aspect of the americans dream so the idea that you should have or people can have a house in the
  87. 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
  88. 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
  89. 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
  90. where immigrants can go to this is not really true or hasn't become better the situation of
  91. 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
  92. 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
  93. 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
  94. 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
  95. functioning democracy very difficult so this is under threat as well still however the american dream is a very important concept
  96. 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
  97. people want to work towards and this is still important if it's going on in people's heads and people consider this idea
  98. 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
  99. countries around the world and of course this is because when compared with other countries the usa is still a very very uh
  100. 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
  101. 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
  102. 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
  103. 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
  104. 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
  105. 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
  106. [Music]

Zum Nachlesen

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