Shibboleth

I stumbled upon a "tear in the fabric" while eating lunch with some American friends the other day. The topic was “the American Dream”. In fairness, I’m the foreigner, but I think I discovered a dividing line between the forces of good and evil. Now, I don’t mean evil in the absolute sense, but in the “trans-fat, feels so good right now, but will give you a coronary at age 45” kind of evil. A surprisingly large number of my Yankee pals defined the American Dream in terms of realizing material aspirations – owning a large house; having a two car garage, filled with two cars, or finally getting that 50-inch plasma TV imported from a factory in China. Equally strangely, a large number of the immigrant Americans at the table defined the American Dream in terms of ideals. For them, the American Dream was about a meritocracy, about freedom of speech, about the right to worship the god of their choice or no god at all. But perhaps, that’s what my native-born American friends were telling me. Perhaps the “born and bred” were telling me that they were exercising their freedom of Religion. They had discovered Mammon.