“It’s deep in the race for a man to want his own roof and walls and fireplace.”
That line from the classic Frank Capra film It’s a Wonderful Life was the pervading sentiment regarding the American Dream in 1946—a year after World War II had ended. Capra, an Italian immigrant, much like my Italian grandmother, made passage to America with his family at the age of five via the steerage compartment of a steamship, the cheapest and arguably most miserable way to travel. Pulling into New York Harbor, Capra remembered his father pointing toward the Statue of Liberty and exclaiming “Look at that! That’s the greatest light since the star of Bethlehem! That’s the light of freedom! Remember that.”
Capra grew up in what he described as “the Italian Ghetto” of Los Angeles. He fought in World War I, hopped freight trains across the Western frontier in his twenties, and became one of the most influential media minds of twentieth-century American cinema. It’s fair to say Frank Capra felt a kinship with the American Dream.
Perhaps it takes an immigrant mindset, one well acquainted with memories of true scarcity and voyages across violent shores, to help the rest of us understand just how indefensible and destructive Potterism is.
It’s a Wonderful Life is full of “Caprisms” like the line about roofs and walls and fireplaces. I’m not saying they’re not idealistic; they were, even for their time. But to Capra, ideals were everything. And it’s worth focusing on what ideals he considered American and what weren’t—the latter being manifested in the film’s villain, Mr. Potter, the ruthless real-estate banker. Potter, admittedly without much character development or backstory, represents an unchecked overreach of a certain kind of capitalism responsible for the destruction of that American Dream. To Capra, the unrelenting capitalist who put profit over people wasn’t widely regarded as something to be achieved or attained and certainly not something to be rewarded. (Side note: the FBI did circulate a memo claiming the film attempted to discredit bankers by casting one as a villain, claiming it “maligned the upper class,” a tactic they believe smelled like Communist propaganda. In reality, Capra, a card-carrying Republican, created an archetype in Potter that represented an ever-lurking lust and avarice for excess and control that has always threatened the common good. Potterism has always been with us, predating the character himself. Capra even contrasts his villain’s character with that of the generous capitalist Sam Wainwright, who, due to his industrious investment in converting soybeans into plastic, is ultimately able to wire George the money he needs at the end of the film.
Perhaps it takes an immigrant mindset, one well acquainted with memories of true scarcity and voyages across violent shores, to help the rest of us understand just how indefensible and destructive Potterism is.
Instead of a more content culture, the result is a culture that simply produces more content.
Compare that sentiment with that of today’s industrial icons like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk, an immigrant privileged from birth. There is an overarching belief that these entrepreneurs have successfully achieved the twenty-first century version of the American Dream, becoming the new gold standard in what it means to have accomplished greatness. Somewhere in between black-and-white and ultra-high-definition TV, the American idea of happiness has managed to shift drastically from attaining a roof, some walls, and a fireplace to owning a private jet, multiple homes, a billion-dollar bank account, and a sense that those things should be achieved at all costs, without a guiding spirit of balance or consideration for the means by which they are achieved.
The alternative available to all of us is to behold with reverence all that we’ve been given, to comprehend the touchable grace that heaves in the marriage of molecules every single day without us sanctioning them, to see the “enoughness” of every thing.
Enoughness, the antithesis of Potterism, is at odds with many of our current cultural obsessions. The allure of offloading everything to artificial intelligence, placing our trust in metaverses, and automating without contemplating has never been more seductive . Rather than regard and nurture the earth’s finite resources, we find it easier than ever to turn our attention to building infinite imaginary worlds. When reality feels painfully inadequate, we can instead nurse that pain by simulating the ideal. Online, a healthy sense of ambition is easily replaced by mimetic desire. If we can’t have what Bezos has, the right curation tools and filters can at least make it seem like we do. Our FOMO is quickly patched with faux-mo. Instead of a more content culture, the result is a culture that simply produces more content.
The problem of most people no longer being able to achieve the American Dream—evolving as it has to include owning a super-yacht or jetpack—can’t be fixed by simply allowing them to own digital versions of those things. Similarly, the solution to pricing the masses out of a trip to Disney World can’t be to offer them a streaming service. We cannot keep sticking screens in front of people as the primary solution to the growing chasm of inequality they face. That’s a recipe for a unique kind of uprising: not a traditional one full of violence and action, but a passive revolt, one of satiated apathy and petrified will. People will destroy by refusing to create, spread chaos by refusing to get their fingers dirty.
The original American Dream wasn’t simply concerned with one’s fireplace; it was also concerned with one’s neighbor’s.
How can we redefine happiness in an age where the temptation is to simply simulate it? The answer hasn’t been lacking, only hidden.
To America’s founders, the pursuit of “happiness” was squarely unambiguous. It meant striving toward a feeling of self-worth and dignity that one could access freely by contributing to their community and civic life. It wasn’t about personal status, positioning, or idol worship. It was a beatitude, concerned mainly with one’s ability to invest in the common good of those whose hands are covered with the same soil.
The original American Dream wasn’t simply concerned with one’s fireplace; it was also concerned with one’s neighbor’s. That’s a definition broad and bright enough to spark across multiple centuries and multiverses.
Left solely to our devices and the ones who control them, it’s more than possible we’ll see an uprising transpire at some point in the twenty-first century. It will either be one of aggression or, worse, a revolution of apathy. To prevent both, the American Dream must take off its jetpack and return to its roots. Once on the ground, we’ll remember such a dream can only be effective insofar as it is achievable by its huddled masses. The hope of America is at once a commandment that our fire bear witness to another, a turning inward to see our shared ordinariness as sanctuary.