scholarly journals A Tale of Two Americas: The American Dream in Cobra Kai

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 219-235
Author(s):  
Ilias Ben Mna
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Dream ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Blue Collar ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Nurturant Parent ◽  
Reagan Era ◽  
Shed Light

Which different conceptions of the so-called “American Dream” are still alive or gaining ground in the increasingly polarized social climate of the United States during the Trump era? I intend to shed light on this question by analyzing the different types of success ethics presented in the highly popular Netflix series Cobra Kai (2018 - present). This will include an investigation into notions of merit and masculinity and how they are intertwined in the principal conflict between the two main characters: the blue-collar Johnny Lawrence and the affluent Daniel LaRusso – both of whom operate their own respective karate schools. I will embed this conflict within a theoretical framework undergirded by Michael Sandel’s observations on contemporary definitions of “meritocracy” and the associated “rhetoric of rising.” In addition, I will lean on George Lakoff’s linguistic concepts of the “strict vs nurturant parent,” and Lauren Berlant’s notion of “cruel optimism.” In doing so, I hope to illuminate the deep-seated workings of competing philosophies on what “it takes to get ahead” in today’s United States. One of my main findings is that Lawrence’s brand of hard-bodied, Reagan-era masculinity is mutually reinforced with LaRusso’s incremental and cosmopolitan approach, thereby perpetuating polarization and antagonism. The fact that both karate teachers are keen to impart their vision on a younger generation is also indicative of how this enmity represents a battle for the “soul of America.” Given ongoing trends toward increasing social, economic, and cultural divides within the U.S., it is of great importance to examine how these developments are negotiated in popular culture. Cobra Kai offers fertile ground for addressing this question.

Fragments of the American Dream: Immigration, Race, and Medical Care in the Segregated South, 1929

Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
John R Phillips
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Dream ◽  
Black Population ◽  
The United States ◽  
Single Woman ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sunflower County

The cover photograph for this issue of Public Voices was taken sometime in the summer of 1929 (probably June) somewhere in Sunflower County, Mississippi. Very probably the photo was taken in Indianola but, perhaps, it was Ruleville. It is one of three such photos, one of which does have the annotation on the reverse “Ruleville Midwives Club 1929.” The young woman wearing a tie in this and in one of the other photos was Ann Reid Brown, R.N., then a single woman having only arrived in the United States from Scotland a few years before, in 1923. Full disclosure: This commentary on the photo combines professional research interests in public administration and public policy with personal interests—family interests—for that young nurse later married and became the author’s mother. From the scholarly perspective, such photographs have been seen as “instrumental in establishing midwives’ credentials and cultural identity at a key transitional moment in the history of the midwife and of public health” (Keith, Brennan, & Reynolds 2012). There is also deep irony if we see these photographs as being a fragment of the American dream, of a recent immigrant’s hope for and success at achieving that dream; but that fragment of the vision is understood quite differently when we see that she began a hopeful career working with a Black population forcibly segregated by law under the incongruously named “separate but equal” legal doctrine. That doctrine, derived from the United States Supreme Court’s 1896 decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, would remain the foundation for legally enforced segregation throughout the South for another quarter century. The options open to the young, white, immigrant nurse were almost entirely closed off for the population with which she then worked. The remaining parts of this overview are meant to provide the following: (1) some biographical information on the nurse; (2) a description, in so far as we know it, of why she was in Mississippi; and (3) some indication of areas for future research on this and related topics.

James Bryce and the Australian Constitution

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-200
Author(s):  
Stephen Gageler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Constitutional Development ◽  
Practical Operation ◽  
Responsible Government ◽  
Shed Light

James Bryce was a contemporary of Albert Venn Dicey. Bryce published in 1888 The American Commonwealth. Its detailed description of the practical operation of the United States Constitution was influential in the framing of the Australian Constitution in the 1890s. The project of this article is to shed light on that influence. The article compares and contrasts the views of Bryce and of Dicey; Bryce's views, unlike those of Dicey, having been largely unexplored in contemporary analyses of our constitutional development. It examines the importance of Bryce's views on two particular constitutional mechanisms – responsible government and judicial review – to the development of our constitutional structure. The ongoing theoretical implications of The American Commonwealth for Australian constitutional law remain to be pondered.

Situational Breakdowns

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Nassauer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Outcomes ◽  
Dynamic Processes ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Impact

This book provides an account of how and why routine interactions break down and how such situational breakdowns lead to protest violence and other types of surprising social outcomes. It takes a close-up look at the dynamic processes of how situations unfold and compares their role to that of motivations, strategies, and other contextual factors. The book discusses factors that can draw us into violent situations and describes how and why we make uncommon individual and collective decisions. Covering different types of surprise outcomes from protest marches and uprisings turning violent to robbers failing to rob a store at gunpoint, it shows how unfolding situations can override our motivations and strategies and how emotions and culture, as well as rational thinking, still play a part in these events. The first chapters study protest violence in Germany and the United States from 1960 until 2010, taking a detailed look at what happens between the start of a protest and the eruption of violence or its peaceful conclusion. They compare the impact of such dynamics to the role of police strategies and culture, protesters’ claims and violent motivations, the black bloc and agents provocateurs. The analysis shows how violence is triggered, what determines its intensity, and which measures can avoid its outbreak. The book explores whether we find similar situational patterns leading to surprising outcomes in other types of small- and large-scale events: uprisings turning violent, such as Ferguson in 2014 and Baltimore in 2015, and failed armed store robberies.

Americans Misperceive Racial Disparities in Economic Mobility

2021 ◽  
pp. 014616722110241
Author(s):  
Shai Davidai ◽  
Jesse Walker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Racial Disparities ◽  
American Dream ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Mobility ◽  
Systemic Racism ◽  
Economic Disparities ◽  
Lay Beliefs ◽  
Socioeconomic System

What do people know about racial disparities in “The American Dream”? Across six studies ( N = 1,761), we find that American participants consistently underestimate the Black–White disparity in economic mobility, believing that poor Black Americans are significantly more likely to move up the economic ladder than they actually are. We find that misperceptions about economic mobility are common among both White and Black respondents, and that this undue optimism about the prospect of mobility for Black Americans results from a narrow focus on the progress toward equality that has already been made. Consequently, making economic racial disparities salient, or merely reflecting on the unique hardships that Black Americans face in the United States, calibrates beliefs about economic mobility. We discuss the importance of these findings for understanding lay beliefs about the socioeconomic system, the denial of systemic racism in society, and support for policies aimed at reducing racial economic disparities.

Who Wins and Who Loses in the Provincial Courts of Appeal? A Statistical Analysis, 1920–1990

1994 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter McCormick
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Data Base ◽  
The United States ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Party Capability ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Appeal Courts ◽  
Different Levels

AbstractGiven the visibility and obvious importance of judicial power in the age of the Charter, it is important to develop the conceptual vocabulary for desribing and assessing this power. One such concept that has been applied to the study of appeal courts in the United States and Great Britain is “party capability”, a theory which suggests that different types of litigant will enjoy different levels of success as both appellant and respondent. Using a data base derived from the reported decisions of the provincial courts of appeal for the second and seventh year of each decade since the 1920s, this article applies party capability theory to the performance of the highest courts of the ten provinces; comparisons are attempted across regions and across time periods, as well as with the findings of similar studies of American and British courts.

East African Studies Program, Syracuse University

1964 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 575-577
Author(s):  
Fred G. Burke
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Graduate School ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
African Studies ◽  
East African ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Syracuse University

Rapid social, economic, and political developments on the continent of Africa since 1950 made it almost impossible for general African Studies Programs in the United States to keep up with new knowledge and events. In order to fill the growing need for more sharply defined Programs, Syracuse University, through the Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, established in September 1962 the East African Studies Program with Dr Fred G. Burke as director.

scholarly journals Lin, Tony Tien-Ren (2020) Prosperity Gospel Latinos and Their American Dream

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 861-862
Author(s):  
Eric M. Trinka
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Dream ◽  
The United States ◽  
Prosperity Gospel ◽  
Thick Description ◽  
The Us

In this nuanced ethnography of Latinx migrants in the United States, Tony Tian-Ren Lin presents a thick description of those drawn to Prosperity Gospel Pentecostalism (PGP). The monograph opens with thorough yet concise introductions to the origins of the PGP movement in the US and its contours among Latinx communities. Readers are given a crash course in the primary assumptions and patterns of praxis espoused by PGP adherents, which are oriented around the formulaic pursuit of blessing via a combination of faith and action.

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