American vs Slacker Dream

I found the discussion in class about the American Dream vs. the Slacker Dream to be quite interesting today. Growing up in a small suburban town, I was always accustomed to being around families where the father went to work everyday and the mother stayed home to take care of the children. People were happy and one might say that these families were living the “American Dream.” There were always families with two working parents or a singe working parent, but the common theme was to work hard and make money. As children and even adolescents, you come to realize that it that not everyone has a steady job and family to tend to. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but until today I had never really considered that someone might aspire to do nothing, have no responsibilities and be a “slacker.” The Dude is a perfect example of a person who is content with this type of lifestyle. The “Slacker” Dream to avoid work and adulthood all together is a somewhat foreign concept to me. It does remind me of the few lazy teenagers in high school who knew they had potential but really just didn’t feel like doing work. This, however, seems to go further than that, implying that a person (The Dude) may actually have no desires or goals in life but to evade any type of jobs or tasks. I was surprised to hear of Fiedler finding this connection and viewing it as the typical masculine American. I understand that this may be a theme with different characters in stories and books, however I do not think that it emulates the “American Dream” in any way. In my opinion, if you ask most Americans to describe the classic American male, you will not get responses that illustrate The Dude or any of his personality traits.