I absolutely hate this quote; it gets parroted all the time as a smug and flippant criticism of the American Dream.
Isn't it a good thing that people see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires? How is that any different than seeing yourself as a temporarily embarrassed rock star, or astronaut, or breakthrough scientist, or famous artist, or successful entrepreneur? Is it such a bad thing that we're a nation of dreamers? Go ahead and tell a child that they shouldn't have big dreams because it's silly to believe they might come true, because that's essentially what Steinbeck is doing to the poor in this quote. See how smug you feel then.
Or should we do like the Europeans do and set low expectations rather than suffer the pain of not meeting higher ones? They say that the Danes are the happiest people in the world because they nave notoriously low expectations. I'll take naive optimism over pragmatic pessimism any day of the week.
Isn't it a good thing that people see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires? How is that any different than seeing yourself as a temporarily embarrassed rock star, or astronaut, or breakthrough scientist, or famous artist, or successful entrepreneur? Is it such a bad thing that we're a nation of dreamers? Go ahead and tell a child that they shouldn't have big dreams because it's silly to believe they might come true, because that's essentially what Steinbeck is doing to the poor in this quote. See how smug you feel then.
Or should we do like the Europeans do and set low expectations rather than suffer the pain of not meeting higher ones? They say that the Danes are the happiest people in the world because they nave notoriously low expectations. I'll take naive optimism over pragmatic pessimism any day of the week.