p Any student who has decided to trace the main stages in the emergence of the Utopian tradition in the United States inevitably runs into the question of the so-called American Dream and its relation to Utopia.

p The American Dream is widely regarded to be Utopian in nature. Moreover, some authors see it as all but the epitome of all the Utopian ideals the United States has ever produced.  [46•1  Now, is this indeed the case? Is the American Dream synonymous with American Utopia?

p Practically every student of the phenomenon has complained about the difficulties involved in defining its essence and scope. "It should be noted at the outset," V. P. Shestakov, a Soviet author, writes, "that the ’ American Dream’ is a concept very difficult to define. Some U.S. researchers believe that its precise meaning simply cannot be formulated; they claim that it is not a notion of logic but an irrational collective hope.”  [46•2  To support his view, Shestakov quotes the American literary critic Frederic Carpenter: ’"The American Dream’ has never been defined exactly, and probably never can be. It is both too various and too vague: many men have meant many different things by it.”  [46•3 

p True, although, as is generally recognized, the American Dream has always been an important factor in the emergence of national social consciousness and a specific form in 47 which it has been expressing itself, and although it embodies the belief in the opportunity of "climbing to the top", of realizing one’s innermost hopes, its interpretation in specific terms invariably gives rise to difficulties and debate. One can endlessly list the attributes of the American Dream, examine its countless interpretations, and still fail to clearly define the scope of its content. Just as it is easy to define its essence—a happy person in a happy world (more precisely, the person in question is an American and the world, America)-it is difficult to divide this intellectual construct into autonomous, rationally substantiated elements which could be described as parts of a definite whole. This is not accidental: although the American Dream does contain Utopian ideals, it cannot be reduced to them; a careful analysis will identify typical elements of a different phenomenon-the social myth in its modern version. But what is the social myth, how does it differ from and relate to Utopia?

p The French anarcho-syndicalist Georges Sorel was among the first to raise and try to solve this theoretical question. Popular in the West, his concept, together with the ideas of Karl Mannheim who studied the relationship between ideology and Utopia, formed the theoretical basis used to this day by many Western philosophers and sociologists studying the so-called transformed forms of consciousness, including utopia and the myth.

p As a politician and social practitioner, Sorel was interested in contemporary manifestations of mythological consciousness-and in real life, in politics, not in literature. For this reason he dealt not with the myth in general but with the social myth, seeing a classic example of the latter in the "idea of the general strike". "The general strike," he wrote, "is exactly what I refer to: a myth which embodies socialism, an organization of images capable of evoking instinctively all sentiments corresponding to the various manifestations of the war socialism is waging against modern society.... We thus acquire an intuitive understanding of socialism which the language cannot give us with perfect clarity.”  [47•1 

p As a theoretician and practitioner of anarcho- 48 syndicalism inspired by his desire to find an effective method of revolutionary mobilization of the masses, Sorel opposes the myth-a direct, unreflected upon and therefore inherently indivisible expression by the masses of their innermost wishes and interests—to Utopia which, in Sorel’s view, differs radically from the myth. "Utopia," he wrote in a letter to Daniel Haldvy, "is the product of an intellectual labor; it is the work of theoreticians who, after observing and discussing the facts, strive to construct a model against which one could compare the existing societies in order to measure the good or evil they embody (1); this is a totality of imaginary institutions which, however, represent a sufficient analogy with the real institutions for the jurist to be able to contemplate them.... A myth cannot be refuted because, essentially, it is identical with the convictions of a group, because it expresses these convictions in the language of movement and for this reason cannot be broken into parts to be tackled on the plane of historical descriptions. On the contrary, Utopia can be discussed as any social construct... it can be refuted by demonstrating that the economy on which it is based is incompatible with the necessities of actual production.”  [48•1 

p No doubt, the French anarcho-syndicalist had good reason to speak about the impressive role the myth played in mass sociopolitical movements and popular revolutions, especially those that developed on a nonproletarian basis, and about the mobilizing functions of the myth in historical processes involving the masses. However, Sorel obviously overrated this role, especially in relation to the socialist revolution which he arbitrarily interpreted as an anarchic revolt occurring and developing on an irrational basis. At the same time, he clearly underestimated the role of the social Utopia in mass movements and claimed, without proper justification, that it was elitist and conformist.

p There indeed are substantial differences between utopia and the myth, and Sorel does grasp some of them. The myth, which expresses, in its images and overall emotional and psychological makeup, a view of an integral, indivisible cosmos, is itself integral and indivisible. It springs from an intuitive feeling that there is unity and indissoluble interrelationship between man and man, man and society, 49 man and nature. Besides, mythological consciousness holds that this unity is blessed by some sort of a supreme and suprahuman force. As to utopia, it is generated by the collapse of mythological consciousness, by the disintegration of the view of the cosmos as something indivisible. Fred Polak is essentially right when he notes that "the utopia may in fact be considered as ^ne of the oldest and purest examples of de-mythologizing-"  [49•1  Utopian thinking is a type of consciousness which has perceived the contradictory nature of society, the alienation of people from one another and from nature, and the inner conflict of man. It is a consciousness which strives to bridge this gap and put the cosmos, falling apart in the imagination, together again.

p The myth is a product and embodiment of rigid determinism which rules out any arbitrary or violent action in relation to the predetermined order of things. On the contrary, utopia stems from a desire to break away from determinism and advocates arbitrary and violent action aimed at the laws of social development.

p Mythological consciousness is preanalytical and irrational. As the embodiment of the consciousness of an unestranged subject, it lacks a critical dimension, recording a conformist (if not fatalistic) attitude of man (not the individual but the species, for it does not recognize the individual as an autonomous subject of activity) to the social cosmos. It is entirely a mass, “collective” consciousness. By contrast, Utopian consciousness is an expression of man’s confidence in his own abilities and intellect, multiplied by his desire to apply these abilities to tasks of practical transformation. Any utopia is essentially a rejection, a rebellion, a heresy—even if it is merely a heresy of consciousness in self-imposed exile.

p But, while recording substantial differences between Utopia and the myth, Sorel ignores the important fact that in the actual sociohistorical process, in the political creative effort utopia and the myth are closely intertwined, that they interact with and complement each other, that the first impression of their polarity is by no means completely true.

p It is difficult to accept the argument that unlike the 50 myth, Utopia is elitist, that it is the product of “ philosophizing” ideologists who are above the masses—compared to the myth, which is born spontaneously in their midst. Both the myth and Utopia have common, popular roots. They are the products of collective creative efforts; they are the basis for structures arranged by ideologists and professional mythmakers.

p Neither can we agree that, unlike the myth, Utopia is incapable of discharging a socially mobilizing function since it allegedly appeals not so much to the emotions as to reason and therefore cannot fire the masses. History offers a wealth of cases when it was precisely the image of a desired world and not an intuitively grasped idea that motivated popular movements.

p In the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries, having been subjected to a disintegrating influence on the part of Utopia, the myth incorporated in itself certain Utopian elements and even assumed, at least in part, the form of Utopia. In turn, Utopia may assume certain mythological characteristics and even transform itself into a myth should the Utopian project lose its erstwhile functions, become petrified and simply express an abstract idea used by one of the rival classes in its own political interests. In short, Utopia and the myth do not simply coexist; they need each other, they are mutually complementary, and each expresses itself through the other. Taking into account the turbulent history of the first half of the 20th century, one cannot agree that "where the myth dominates, Utopia has no chance".  [50•1 

p This mutual need and interrelationship are evident in the American Dream. The latter includes a social ideal, the image of a desired society. But it “includes” and is not "reduced to"; therefore, it cannot be regarded as a synonym of Utopia, as a type of Utopian thinking. American Utopia and the American Dream are concepts of a different scope: as a myth, the Dream is not fully integrated in Utopia; Utopia covers it only in part because the Dream comprises values, orientations and attitudes completely devoid of Utopian content.

Had there existed an archeology of consciousness, it could have demonstrated that the building blocks of the 51 American Dream, which began to take shape as early as the colonial period and which is still being built and rebuilt in the course of the spontaneous collective creative effort (but aided, of course, by the mass media and the sociocultural and political forces behind them), include whole monoliths and debris of social Utopias. Some of these were brought to America by the first settlers from the Old World, others were conceived on American soil. For its part, like the myth which needs no proof or rational substantiation and exists as a fact of mass consciousness, the American Dream serves as an incentive to and basis for a social Utopia which, proceeding from logical, rational precepts, proves, justifies and develops the postulates of the Dream, embodies them in specific images tied to the historical situation and the requirements of the times, links them to the activities of social, political and cultural institutions and transforms them into specific items in programs of action.