大象传媒

Central to our national mythology in the United States is the belief that hard work and determination will enable anyone to achieve the good life of comfort, pleasure, and financial security.

In two new books, authors Alissa Quart and Rainesford Stauffer argue that constant striving in pursuit of success isn鈥檛 enough to make us healthy, happy, or prosperous. In a conversation with 大象传媒 Books Editor Valerie Schloredt, they explain why it鈥檚 time to rethink our relationship to the toxic American Dream.

Valerie Schloredt: At 大象传媒, we do solutions journalism, and I found both your books chock-full of solutions of different kinds, which was very helpful. Alissa, can you give a bit of background about the title of your book, ?

Alissa Quart: I talked to a kind of NPR person who said, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a dangerous subtitle.鈥� I鈥檝e sometimes thought it should鈥檝e been something a little more like 鈥渞eclaiming the American Dream,鈥� and I was like, 鈥淣ah, because the American Dream I鈥檓 arguing for is partially the old American Dream, which was as something more communitarian and more open to collective possibility.鈥� We need to be thinking: How do we get past this story about doing everything on our own? As I say in my book, if you think you鈥檙e self-made, call your mother. The big point I鈥檓 making is that the American Dream is a lie. Pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps is an impossibility, and it has been since it was . All the early iterations of this idea were satire, and then suddenly someone believed it was real.

The mythology was created by people we respect today, like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and by people we respect less, like Horatio Alger and Laura Ingalls Wilder. I call Wilder鈥檚 book Little House on the Prairie a 鈥渓ittle house of propaganda鈥� because it鈥檚 very much about Pa and Ma doing it themselves. Wilder hated Franklin Delano Roosevelt and you can kind of see that was the point of those books. That thinking has continued in our political life from Herbert Hoover and Ronald Reagan to even the Clintons, the things they鈥檝e said about us having to do everything on our own, that if you depended on any so-called entitlements, you could be considered a welfare queen. I see my book as a critique of that and try to offer ways forward without shame and blame for the ways that we depend on each other and the state.

Schloredt: Shame and blame is a great segue into Rainesford鈥檚 book because it鈥檚 partly about how we internalize so much and shame others. You both write about how the philosophy of bootstrapping, and the American Dream lends itself to blaming anyone who isn鈥檛 really very comfortable in the system, and certainly people in financial distress. Rainesford, you talk a lot about how we shame and blame ourselves because we鈥檝e internalized this philosophy and this dream, which is really a con.

Rainesford Stauffer: It is, and I think that鈥檚 because the definition of ambition or these kinds of offshoots of ambition鈥攂ootstrapping, high achiever, overachiever, or the 鈥済rind life鈥� mentality鈥攁re so narrow and are meant to uplift a certain kind of person and a certain kind of ambition, while holding everyone else to that standard, conveniently forgetting the fact that by design, our version of what it means to achieve has always been impacted by class, by race, by personal preference, by personal circumstance, by things that are so far outside any of our control. Even things like grief, moving, having a family, all of these decisions that we make in our day-to-day lives impact what we strive for, how we strive, as do, of course, the resources we do or do not have to have ambitions at all. One of the things that comes to mind when we talk about shame and blame for me is how early this becomes something that runs through the veins of what it means to be a high achiever.

Young people, children, it鈥檚 enforced so early in school, what it means to be a good student, a good learner, a good listener, and somewhere along the way, we鈥檝e really contorted that to also mean good person. And so of course, if the only solutions given to you are individual ones, you鈥檙e going to internalize those and think, 鈥淲ell, if I had only studied harder, if I had only done a little bit more, if I had pulled that one all-nighter, why can this person next to me manage just fine and I can鈥檛?鈥� It does become very internalized. The true shame is that we have a bunch of people from a very early point in life internalizing blame that really belongs on the institution and the systems.

Schloredt: Rainesford, I really liked the design of the cover of your book, . The gold star stickers have a 3D effect. I found it very powerful, because even at age 63, I still respond positively to a gold star. That鈥檚 how well trained we are to be motivated by the so-called rewards in the game. If you鈥檙e motivated by these kinds of rewards and symbols, then you鈥檝e also internalized the opposite side, which is blaming ourselves and blaming others when we aren鈥檛 lucky, we鈥檙e not privileged, or despite having done everything according to plan, things still don鈥檛 work out because the system is rigged. We can鈥檛 all be winners, right? You both write about the system setting us up to compete with each other.

Quart: I鈥檓 arguing for this thing I call 鈥渢he art of interdependence.鈥� We think of dependence or interdependence as codependency. It has a negative connotation. But I鈥檓 arguing that it takes a lot of skill and craft to be interdependent, to be in a family system, to be a colleague, to get welfare, to get unemployment. I wrote about what鈥檚 called 鈥渢he administrative burden,鈥� or the time tax it takes to get your needs met by your society. To get your medical insurance or send your kid to summer camp, forms and forms and forms. That鈥檚 an art, but so is caring for people, doing work together, doing mutual aid, joining a workers鈥� cooperative. Things like , a relatively new system where people in cities participate in the allocation of sometimes millions of dollars, has taken off in . And to me, that鈥檚 another great example of our art of interdependence. These were people who sometimes knew nothing about politics; they were just like local folks, and they were learning what it takes to create a commonwealth. We need to build this up as a set of skills.

One of the chapters I鈥檓 proudest of is about what I call 鈥渋nequality therapy.鈥� Inequality therapy tries to take individual psychological care out of this individualistic setup as far as I can tell; for a lot of liberals, their version of bootstrapping is sometimes self-actualization. This is what Rainesford talks about with burnout鈥攜ou and I might not believe that we can do everything on our own economically, but we probably believe that we can heal ourselves, right? We can grind through any work assignment, right? It鈥檚 not about making it but it鈥檚 about completion of tasks or self-becoming without the aid of a counselor or therapist. So inequality therapy is like peer-to-peer counseling or even an extreme sliding scale with therapists who are willing to talk about people鈥檚 financial struggles and not just see them as people who have early trauma or something. I talked to a number of people who both participate in these new kinds of therapy or are themselves practitioners. So there鈥檚 so many ways to be gracefully and skillfully dependent on one another, and we should take advantage of them.

Stauffer: That was one of the most illuminating chapters of your book for me. I felt like it finally articulated something that I knew existed. I鈥檇 seen this idea that we鈥檙e going to either hustle or self-esteem our way out of everything show up in my own life. It鈥檚 so detrimental, but it persists because it鈥檚 the law of individualism. It鈥檚 the law that we can do it all on our own and that ambition is enough. When I first started thinking about how I would write about ambition, something that struck me were all of these how-tos on how to make yourself more ambitious, how to speak up more, how to raise your self-esteem, how to be more confident in your workplace or when you鈥檙e applying to jobs. I certainly think there鈥檚 a place for that kind of advice if people have decided to seek it out. But to me, that misses the larger framing of what we鈥檙e supposed to be operating within鈥攙ery narrow confines of ambition and this idea that you鈥檙e still supposed to fix the problem yourself. It鈥檚 not fixing a problem with your workplace or with the fact that you aren鈥檛 paid a living wage. Hustle is presented as an opportunity. That makes it doubly insidious because we have to live with the knowledge that we know we鈥檙e not going to get there alone. None of our lives are constructed that way. And yet, that鈥檚 what鈥檚 pushed time and time again. The solution is more work, work a little harder. If you do a little more, you鈥檒l be in a better place.

Quart: I noted this when I was reading your book too, because 鈥渢he con of the side hustle鈥� is what I call it, and it was interesting. We talked to mothers and [the writer on motherhood] Angela Garbes on a podcast. When you鈥檙e parenting, that is already a side hustle. So beyond side hustle, it鈥檚 often the central hustle. Parenting makes a lot of these storylines impossible and that鈥檚 why they鈥檙e masculinist, because there鈥檚 a denial of parenthood, of origins, and then the denial of the burden and the dependence of having a child. You have to do that to think that you can hustle and self-esteem your way into, as you put it, success.

My favorite part of my research was finding out all the hypocrisy of some of the wealthiest people today. provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in startup funds. Some people were saying that , but we just know that he . According to Subsidy Tracker, in federal grants and tax credits. Yet, Musk continues to reject social programs for other people. So one of the solutions is calling people to account who deny the needs of others when taking and taking for themselves. It鈥檚 often people at the very top of the power structure who do that.

Schloredt: That鈥檚 one of the many solutions you recommend in the book, which is so helpful. Another thing you recommended is being honest about our own dependence, our own vulnerabilities, and giving credit to the things and people that have helped us. There needs to be a greater honesty about where we come from, who we owe, and what we need.

Quart: Bob McKinnon, who does a show called , got me thinking. He interviewed me and he was like, 鈥淥K, tell me the people who inspired you or supported you when you were young.鈥� I just quickly had this thought. I went to Stuyvesant High School, which is a public magnet school in Manhattan, in the late 鈥�80s. I thought of the novelist Frank McCourt because he had been an English teacher there, and he himself is a great example of somebody who didn鈥檛 get all the gold stars until he was 60. He was a high school teacher reciting the story of the tales of his youth in Ireland. But he told me I was a born writer and I was like 13 years old. I think of him often. It was good to be able to say that out loud. I鈥檓 working on these kinds of gratitude mantras, but I don鈥檛 know if I can ever comfortably say I鈥檓 grateful in a general sense. But I feel like saying thanks for different people and being really specific is a lot easier. My book is a form of self-help. Rainesford, I don鈥檛 know if you consider your book that too, but speaking your dependence is a form of self-help, because you realize that you have a community with you and you鈥檙e less alone. That itself is nurturing.

Stauffer: Absolutely. That鈥檚 one of the most insidious things about this idea that we earn everything we get, that we earned it by ourselves, and thus owing something or someone giving us something must automatically be a negative thing. That misses so much. It鈥檚 the greatest honor of my life to owe people, to have people in the boat with me, to have a community that keeps me in check, that helps me, that makes me think about things differently. They鈥檙e there when I have completely fallen apart, which is something I talked about fairly extensively in the book. When I was going through a very hard time, the thing I had reached for in the past鈥攁mbition鈥攔eally did not save me. What did save me were other people and this idea of interdependence. I just love how the idea that interdependence is the thing that can carry us came through every line of your book.

Quart: Yeah it is. It鈥檚 interesting, when the girlboss thing was running rampant, I was screaming in the wilderness. Now everybody knows. My particular hatred is for , but it widens out to another set of these girlbosses. I saw it as a betrayal of parts of the feminist movement. Instead of thinking about having the collective consciousness, we鈥檙e thinking about how to succeed, how to get individuals, who were probably going to lose their jobs for doing this, to aggressively ask for raises when the labor market wasn鈥檛 hot. I just think that鈥檚 depressing, that kind of self-help is depressing. Whereas this kind of interdependent, radical self-help is, to me at least, a lot less depressing. I think of my dear colleague, , who just passed away. Her book [] was really incredible and way before its time. Almost 20 years ago, she was offering a takedown of this kind of self-help. The fact that it still lingers means people have not been as critical of it as they should. But I think they鈥檙e starting to learn. The pandemic showed that you can鈥檛 self-esteem your way out of this stuff. It鈥檚 not enough.

Schloredt: Barbara Ehrenreich also wrote a book about the positive thinking industry around cancer. I hope we understand now that we can鈥檛 cure COVID through positive thinking. Both your books argue for a change in the way that we think in the United States about our system and about each other. Rainesford, your book addresses your generation鈥檚 situation. You鈥檝e also done that in your other writing, which is very relevant. I鈥檓 a parent of a daughter who鈥檚 about your age, and while reading both books, I thought a lot about the relative privilege of white middle-class people 30 years ago and how that compares with where we are now. It seems harder now to crack the American system.

Stauffer: There鈥檚 a very unique amount of pressure on young people today. I鈥檓 a millennial. I鈥檓 29. My younger sister鈥檚 generation has a whole other set of expectations that, to me, seem completely unfathomable and unrealistic. What began as pressure to have your life figured out at college graduation is now you need to have it all figured out by 16. We have future planned America鈥檚 youth out of a childhood and a young adulthood. Part of the reason that happens is because we still feed the [bootstrapping] myth in school. If you work as hard as you can, there鈥檚 going to be a good result at the end.

I think that does immeasurable amounts of harm, especially when we zoom back and look at where we are as a country right now. Even just if we isolate the past couple of years alone, what young people have been expected to come of age in, and largely do that without any acknowledgement that they are first and foremost human beings who are impacted by all this trauma, who are impacted by lost jobs鈥攖heir own or their parents鈥欌�攂eing paid below a minimum wage, not being able to pay rent, all of these things impact how someone makes the way their way through the world. For us to act like that鈥檚 somehow separate from how they feel about themselves as they鈥檙e being expected to do all of these things just really misses the mark. I think all the time about a young person I spoke to who was talking about very well-meaning people giving her advice when she was in college, 鈥淚f you fail, what鈥檚 the worst that could happen? It鈥檚 an F, it鈥檚 OK.鈥� She told me very clearly and very candidly that the worst thing that could happen if she fails is that she drops out and she can no longer afford to retake the class that she needs to graduate, because she doesn鈥檛 make enough at her job to put herself through that class again. As long as we ignore the systemic and structural stakes young people are up against, we鈥檙e really letting them down.

Schloredt: Alissa, you鈥檙e a parent.

Quart: Yeah, I鈥檓 listening to this. I鈥檓 not gonna lie, . I know President Joe Biden just , but that鈥檚 . Fewer than half of American adults say they have enough emergency funds to , according to a recent survey. This is not even the America I grew up in 30鈥�40 years ago. Part of this is making these structural shifts, but also acknowledging that to ourselves and each other. Having a kid made this really important. To talk about where you鈥檙e at financially with your kid or with other parents if you need to, to explain why you can鈥檛 do pick up because you don鈥檛 have a babysitter鈥攁nd this comes up鈥攁nd maybe you could pull carpool. You have to work, maybe some other parents don鈥檛, but to be really explicit. This is not an easy America right now. My last book was called , and it was about a lot of middle-class families and the secrecy that鈥檚 circled around their feelings of precarity. There鈥檚 the same advice here. In some ways, it鈥檚 just explaining and being honest. My daughter would be like, 鈥淲hy is there that homeless person?鈥� And also, 鈥淲hy can鈥檛 we live in that giant house?鈥� I鈥檇 have to explain, 鈥淲ell, that鈥檚 somebody who鈥檚 experiencing homelessness, and maybe they didn鈥檛 have family support at some point or other. And that giant house, they definitely did have family support.鈥� This is how inherited wealth works.

Again, this is part of the radical self-help. Living in truth is really important, especially around financial matters. People are more secretive about that than they are about sex. If you were born in 1940, your chance of was 92%. The chance of somebody born in the 鈥�80s reproducing it was less than 50%. I hope showing the lived reality on the ground and some of those numbers make people feel common cause like, 鈥淥K, I have those feelings.鈥�

[That鈥檚] part of why in Bootstrapped I interviewed people who depend on GoFundMe for their medical bills, but I also interviewed a former girlboss鈥攗p and down the gradient a little to show that this ideology hurts people at different ends of the monetary spectrum. It even hurts the wealthy because it keeps them in an empty and disassociated place as citizens, which is part of why there鈥檚 movements now toward , a different kind of transparency about your wealth. I talked to people who posted their tax returns online, who were very wealthy, and that was an effort to show how much they benefited from the tax system. And I thought, well, that鈥檚 really brilliant.

Schloredt: Everything in these books connects the personal, the political, and the structural very well. That takes me back to our discussion about acknowledging the help you get, the privileges you might have. Having read both books, I was thinking about the structural things that were an advantage to me. made a huge difference in my family. There was an entirely different trajectory for us because of that one thing; it changed our class status. When I was born, my parents were suddenly middle class after having been born into the Depression. I would love to see that sort of awareness spreading in the United States, where we understand when we have advantages and privileges and where they came from.

Quart: One of the reasons I wrote this book was I get this hate mail sometimes from running the , which is this journalism nonprofit, either directed at our organization or directed in the comments section to our writers. They鈥檙e always like, 鈥淲hy did she have two kids? Why did she have three kids?鈥� either about the subjects of articles or about the writers themselves. 鈥淲hy did they go to college? Why didn鈥檛 they go to college? Why did they own their house? Why didn鈥檛 they?鈥� It鈥檚 constant whataboutism about other people鈥檚 lives. I feel like sometimes the way we stigmatize people who are ill, it鈥檚 like they must have done something. And that鈥檚 a way of protecting ourselves and throwing our fellow citizens under the bus, saying, like, there鈥檚 no such thing as student debt and there鈥檚 no such thing as toxic masculinity that might lead to having multiple partners. It鈥檚 always somebody鈥檚 will that to suffer is due to their success or their failure. Those notes and those comments really riled me up and got me started on this project because I鈥檝e got to connect the dots around this and show that a lot of the attacks were being done unfairly.

Schloredt: That really resonated with me too. A huge national issue, but a big local issue in Seattle, is housing and homelessness. I monitor my mother鈥檚 Nextdoor. The magical thinking there is that somehow by shaming and blaming people, you can make economic conditions go away. I don鈥檛 know how that works, but it鈥檚 a very widespread activity and belief.

Quart: Yeah, but it鈥檚 also that people have done something right, so they feel superior. I would often get these notes that were like, 鈥淲e scrimped and saved,鈥� like these totally pleasureless anhedonic lives of these people. 鈥淲e never went out to dinner. We had a falling-down truck. Why is this writer insisting on going to college?鈥�

Schloredt: Rainesford, you have quite a lot of discussion in your book about having fun, connecting with people, and designing your life so that you have ordinary human pleasures. It鈥檚 actually one of the solutions to this insidious kind of psychological bind that ambition gets us in.

Stauffer: I think it says so much about the bind that ambition gets us in that we have to name something as simple as that you deserve to have fun. Not you deserve to have fun if your grades are perfect, once you鈥檝e logged this many hours at work, once you鈥檝e done XYZ, check off whatever achievement you want from that list, then you鈥檝e earned rest or pleasure or joy or human connection. I think that takes so many things to the darkest possible place. Because it renders all of those things completely transactional, that joy, and play, that connection, all of these things that we know are foundational to how we make our way through the world as people, it kind of makes them prizes to be won at the end of this hustle. That鈥檚 really demoralizing for people. That鈥檚 a sad way to think about enjoying yourself or connecting with another human being. It also makes it incredibly isolating that we have these things as tokens of achievement rather than things that we all deserve. Your ability to experience pleasure and comfort and connection should not be tied to your ambition, your economic standing, your job title. These are things we are all deserving of.

That鈥檚 one of the things I think about all the time when I hear comments about 鈥淣o one canceled my student debt, I had to work really hard to pay it off.鈥� The thing I think of when I hear those comments is, 鈥淗ave you ever thought that you shouldn鈥檛 have had to work that hard, either, that the system was broken all along?鈥� And now we have an opportunity to do something about it, we have an opportunity to do something about so many things. But just because something was broken in the past and impacted us negatively, that鈥檚 not a reason to criticize attempts to solve it or to make it better. That鈥檚 getting out of that individual mindset of everything good in my life I have, I鈥檝e earned all by myself. No, we didn鈥檛. And thank goodness we didn鈥檛. Because what a lonely, miserable existence that would be! I think the interdependence that Alissa鈥檚 book explores so beautifully is at the heart of all of it. It鈥檚 a better way to live with one another.

Quart: Eviction moratoriums are a similar thing, right? Why should these people get their rent paid? It鈥檚 like this constant societal tit for tat that we need to get out of. Rainesford, what is the best way that you detox yourself from ambition? What did you do?

Stauffer: That鈥檚 a great question. One of the interesting things about my own relationship to ambition is that for a lot of my life, I wanted to be a 鈥渉igh achiever鈥� very badly. And for most of my life, I really missed the mark on that. I tried to be very transparent about the fact that I was not a star student, I dropped out of college after my freshman year and took a couple years off and then went back online. It was a little bit more convoluted than at the time I wanted it to be. And speaking of shame, I felt so much shame around that. I was like, I can鈥檛 even鈥攖ake the achievements out鈥攇et the striving right. That was a little bit disorienting. I think the later I got into my 20s, I went through a phase where I was already reading and thinking and having conversations with people that were shifting the way I thought about myself in relation to the world. One of the things that is so dark about this kind of individualistic ambition is that you find yourself holding yourself to standards that you would never popularly ascribe to the large swath of people. But I had somehow really compartmentalized myself [personally] in that way of thought.

It wasn鈥檛 until I had a total breakdown of my physical and mental health all at once that I began rethinking work and going, 鈥淲hat on earth is all of this for at the end of the day? What is the purpose of all of this?鈥� I was so privileged to even be in a position to reconsider what ambition looked like for me. In the aftermath of all of those things, what came through loud and clear, what saved me, was not taking on one more project. It was not striving, it was not working a little harder. Honestly, it wasn鈥檛 even doing work that felt personally fulfilling. It was other people. It was other people who thought that I was enough as I was and was a good friend, sister, community member, regardless of any kind of output, and from there it led me into conversations with those people about how they were approaching things like ambition or dreams or what they were working toward. On the other side of that, I found a collective idea of what it means to strive for one another for our best interests, to be about each other. That re-clarified how I think about my own ambition and how I think about all the things that ambition can mean.

Alissa, I also have a question for you. At the end of your book, in one of my favorite parts, you talk about the need to rewrite our own narratives, which has been so much of what our conversation is about today鈥攔ewriting our own narratives about achievement and attainment. How have you rewritten yours over the course of your life and career?

Quart: Oh, God, it鈥檚 so funny. I鈥檓 not going to get into the whole 鈥淚鈥檓 not being communitarian properly鈥� bit. I had a specific kind of bootstrapping. I was like, 鈥淚 was a good student.鈥� I wrote a book about this called Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child that was about prodigies and giftedness. I did feel like I had to sing for my supper on some level as a person, a human being. I won all these writing prizes when I was a kid. And so that was a lot around this disassociation from the thing I love most. It had to be always about some kind of glory. It wasn鈥檛 unto itself. I do feel like the process of writing has become more unto itself. I鈥檓 not sure the process of living has. I feel like I need to work on that more. All kinds of things like parenting can be a very confusing thing, like, how to model ambition for your kids, how to parent properly around that. I鈥檝e just had an epic battle last night around homework that had some of those elements to it. I should probably just be like, 鈥淵ou do you鈥� to my 11-year-old, but instead, I鈥檓 like, 鈥淲here鈥檚 your math homework? This problem? No, you haven鈥檛 gotten the mode right!鈥�

So how do we rewrite the narrative of our lives? I think, for me, running my organization has been very powerful, because it is really about community. I did also have this incredible relationship with Barbara Ehrenreich that was almost like a shadow, familial kind of relationship. She was a pretty ambitious person, too, in her own way. But having that collective consciousness, she was definitely a 鈥渨e鈥� kind of person. She collaborated with other women, she collaborated with me, and then collaborated with people I work with, and then with all the different writers and filmmakers and photographers we work with. That鈥檚 really been pretty transformative. I can honestly say that I feel like I鈥檓 part of a movement, which is not something that I ever felt when I was just an author. Even when I was out reporting, I never felt like, 鈥淥h, yes, I鈥檓 part of a kind of moment in history.鈥� So that鈥檚 one of the ways I鈥檝e re-narrativized, I guess.

Schloredt: You both give the reader a lot of inspiration. You provide a lot of ideas and hope and direction in how we think about the insidiousness of the [capitalist] philosophy in the United States, how we go forward with other people, and a long list of recommendations. We鈥檝e talked about some personal things, but there鈥檚 all sorts of prompts for organizing, supporting people paying their fair share in all sorts of different ways, like their fair share of taxes. There鈥檚 mutual aid, workers鈥� co-ops, supporting activists. It鈥檚 a very long list. Readers have to go to the books, and I鈥檓 really looking forward to hearing more public reaction to your ideas. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.