Horatio Alger is an essay by Harlon L. Dalton offers a critical debate on Alger’s perceptions of what the American dream entails. Dalton uses this article to expose the difference between idealism and reality as presented by Horatio Alger’s story. The story captures the wrong understanding of the path to success specifically class, race, background, and other variables that beyond ones control. Alger according to Dalton believes that commercial success can only be attained through initiative, persistence, and hard work. Putting into consideration the three basics: that individuals are judged on their worth, everyone has the power to create his own opportunities and standards for measuring a person’s worth are equal (Dalton, 261). All these messages by Alger according to Dalton are mythical and socially destructive. Dalton focuses his text on the social realities that Alger fails to employ in his story.
Dalton as an author is well equipped to analyze Horatio Alger. Dalton is an Emeritus Professor at the Yale Law School. He has particularly specialized in critical race theory and the relationship of law to theology and psychology. He has also has verse experience on race issue by the virtue he has served on the board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union (Miller & Mike, 27). Dalton as an author understands the impact of variables such as race, class, and background on the end success or the level of struggle one has to endure before attaining success.
The message that anyone can be his or her best is illustrated as acceptable by the author. The tapping of the full potential is only possible if certain variables can be held constant (Subotnik, 124). Social class for instance is an impediment to many who want to achieve the American dream in the Alger context. The individuals that fall in the lower class might have the burning desire to do better for themselves but will have low paying jobs as their first platforms for success. In short, these lowly classed individuals have unequal and limited opportunities. Dalton uses this case scenario of the low-class individuals to show the disparities faced in the path to success. The economic circumstances make the upward mobility practically impossible according to Dalton’s analysis.
Harlon L. Dalton uses his essay to communicate to the American citizenry that rare to dream and achieve the American dream. The message in his essay is aimed at pointing out the social destruction brought about by the Horatio Alger myth. The author packs the message in a revealing that ensures the idealism as presented by the Alger myth by injecting reality in all the premises that this myth is founded on. The myth may seem undesirable but it has a profound impact on the common Americans that are trying to make it in life (Dalton, 266). The author appreciates the appeal that this myth has centers on the exaggeration of self-attributes, unrealistic optimism and distorted imagination that one can control factors around him or her. The article hopes to educate the masses on the dangers that lay in idealistic thinking, which is very different to the reality on the ground.
Horatio Alger myth as analyzed by Harlon Dalton seems hell-bent to maintain the racial pecking order. The myth does so by trivialize the social meaning of race by bypassing its role in the American society. It turns a blind eye to the historical, institutional, and structural barriers to social and racial equality. The myth also for better part of its existence promoted the notion that America is a land of unlimited potential, which in reality is not. The fallacy blinds the Americans raring to achieve the American dream presently (Miller & Mike, 35). In the past, it was right to cite America as a land of opportunities but currently the story is different. We are in an era of diminished possibilities. The myth only serves to make this reality hard to sink in.
Works Cited
Dalton, Harlon L. Racial Healing: Confronting the Fear between Blacks and Whites. New York: Anchor Books, 1996. Print.
Miller, Brian, and Mike Lapham. The Self-Made Myth: And the Truth About How Government Helps Individuals and Businesses Succeed. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2012. Print.
Subotnik, Dan. Toxic Diversity: Race, Gender, and Law Talk in America. New York: New York Universitry Press, 2005. Print.
