“As the American dream of endless upward economic mobility came to seem increasingly like myth, all sorts of pure myths and fantasies became still more appealing and seemed more real.” Author and journalist Kurt Andersen looked through American history in his book, Fantasyland, to explain the popular acceptance of fantasy and myth.
Andersen writes:
According to psychologists, stress can trigger delusions, and engaging in fantasy can provide relief from stress and loneliness. According to sociologists, religion flourishes more in societies where people frequently feel in economic jeopardy. According to social psychologists, belief in conspiracy theories flourishes among people who feel bad about themselves; they may be powerless to improve their lives, but knowing about all the alleged secret plots gives them a compensatory jolt of what feels like power.
If this feels like a concise analysis of 21st Century America, Andersen has a story to tell. The full title of his book is Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: a 500-Year History, and he reports some of the first European settlers came looking for gold. Published in 2017, the book was touted as indispensable for understanding America in the era of Donald Trump.
From those early settlers, Andersen draws a wavy line connecting “satanic conspiracies of witches and Indians;” wild, emotional evangelical revivals; and “panics about foreign conspiracies – despotically inclined leaders in league with European monarchs.” P.T. Barnum fed a gullible public a sensational mix of real oddities and hoaxes. Medical quackery and snake oil cures appealed widely to a 19th Century public hopeful and desperate for relief.
The 20th Century brought science into court in the Scopes trial, leaving the long-term conviction in place that “Science was untrue when it contradicted the Bible.” The Las Vegas Strip, built in the 1940s around Old West themes, evolved into adult “Get Rich Quick” Resorts in the 1950s and 1960s. For families with children, Disney introduced its fantasy-filled park, Disneyland – a mix of fairy tale castles, wild west saloons, and actors playing the real live inhabitants of small towns U.S.A. Television consumed one-third of our waking hours.
The 1960s and 1970s advances of libertarianism and counterculture gave rise to the “Left” and the “Right.” Anti-communism spawned the John Birch Society. Conspiracy theories explained Kennedy’s assassination, Watergate, UFOs, satanic cults (again!) and government coverups.
And in the 21st Century, new forms of fantasy capture growing audiences: Virtual reality. Augmented reality. Cosplay. Reenactments. Andersen attributes firing guns and driving pickup trucks to fantasizing being cowboys and commandos. He notes wryly that three-quarters of four-wheel drive vehicles never go off-road.
“Dream the impossible dream” transitioned to 1960s’ tipping point away from discipline and austerity, to magic and apocalypse and utopia and 1970s individualism; the changed economic climate and upward mobility seemed a myth.
Fantasy may be a permanent feature of the American psyche. But if, as Andersen says, “economic balminess ended for at least half of America” at the turn of this century, calls for a new economic philosophy are in order.
Creating a new economic philosophy requires confronting the mood of the disillusioned. Sources of despair are not hard to identify: A pandemic that has claimed over three million lives world-wide; the worst recession in close to a century; technological advances that defy comprehension; globalization of markets and workforce; climate change that threatens the sustainability of life on earth.
Nor are the anxieties of the disillusioned unknown: Old immigrants fear new immigrants; rural people resent urbanites; men feel threatened by the hands off, #Me Too movement; racial groups assume one must fall if the other rises; LGBTQ legislation threaten rights previously assigned solely to cisgender or married, heterosexual couples; young criticize the share of resources claimed by elderly. Disillusion, distrust and popular anger demand an economy and society that provide a greater sense of security in the midst of change.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Keith Zeff has been a city planner and a commercial real estate researcher for many years. His education includes undergraduate degrees in architecture and a graduate degree in political science. Fifty Year Perspective is designed to address the longer-term concerns. The perspective of 50 years was chosen to respond to those in business, government, and private life who may have said: "I am doing this for my children and grandchildren." Two generations – fifty years.
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