AWOL - Andy's Evolving Model Paper - Intro

United States soldiers have told me they will kill and die to protect "our way of life". President George Bush I insisted that "the American way of life is not negotiable" (Vig 262). And President Obama has emphasized that "We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense" (Inaugural). Is there such a thing as a coherent and widely shared American Way of Life? What is the American way of life? How did this way of life develop and where is it headed? Does the American way of life offer a joyful, meaningful, and/or stable framework to our individual lives? Is our culture's way of life worth defending?

Important differences exist in how people live in the United States. There are regional variations (Key West, FL versus Detroit, MI), class contrasts (McCain's uncountable houses versus a homeless person), and ethnic heteogeneities (Africans, Europeans, Asians, Latin Americans, and indigenous living in the same country). However, an underlying matrix of a basic life style and culture is dominant and obvious in the U.S. Defining and analyzing that dominant life style is the focus of the first chapter of this text.

To discern and analyze the underlying "way of a life" of a culture proves difficult - particularly when one is a lifelong inhabitant of that culture. As the proverb goes, "A fish in the water doesn't know that it's wet" and a person who grew up "American" just thinks of the surrounding culture as "normal". I began my investigations with interviews of people I live with and with street interviews to get the perspective of some regular people outside my own personal sphere. Afterwards I focused on two of the themes most emphasized in these interviews - a free and democratic government and a prosperous economy - through explorations of the Constitution and of capitalism. Through these investigations and explorations it is possible to show that "the American way of life", as understood in the U.S., is fundamentally a lie. The widely accepted claims about our way of life - that we enjoy freedom under a democratic government, that our economic system provides freedom and widespread opportunity and prosperity through hard work, and that our way of life serves as a model for how others should live - are all false.

Defining the American Way of Life - Semester 1
Interviews with Family
Interviews on the Street
Dominant Economics
Constitution
Critique of Constitution and Founders
Marxist Analysis and Critique of Capitalism
Miscellania - Holidays, Wal-Mart, MLK Jr., Inauguration

The Past and Future Development of the AWOL - Semester 2
Babies
Food
War
The Spectacle