The Culture Code (25 page)

My most powerful memory of America was seeing the astronauts plant an American flag on the moon. I never felt prouder of this country than I felt in that moment. To me, that represented everything great about us—everything we should be trying to achieve.

—a fifty-one-year-old man

My first memory of America was going to the Lincoln Memorial when I was a little kid. We’d been on vacation in Washington for a couple of days at this point and we’d seen many things, but that image of Abraham Lincoln sitting there made a huge impression on me. My mother told me that Lincoln “freed the slaves.” I had no idea what that meant at the time, but it sounded like something big, and that meant a lot to me. It gave me some idea about what Americans were supposed to do.

—a twenty-six-year-old man

My son’s soccer team held a candlelight vigil the Friday after 9/11. Lots of us were crying, including many of the kids, but as I saw the lights flickering in these boys’ eyes, I saw hope. They were confused and maybe even a little frightened, but I never believed for a second that they would be intimidated. They were the future of America and they had so much to accomplish in their lives.

—a forty-year-old woman

My most powerful memory of America came at the end of the movie
Planet of the Apes
(the original, not the remake). When I saw the Statue of Liberty buried in the sand, I felt incredibly sad. At the same time, though, I told myself that something like this movie would never happen, that America would always live on because Americans had the vision to keep it alive.

—a forty-seven-year-old man

My father may have been the most patriotic person who ever lived. He came here when he was a young boy and he believed that the opportunities he got here were greater than he would have gotten anywhere else. Every night at bedtime, he told us stories about America and about great Americans. I went to sleep with these visions of greatness dancing in my head. I’d like to believe I’ve passed that sense of patriotism down to my children and my grandchildren.

—a sixty-two-year-old woman

The range of these messages was very striking: from the simplicity of a father’s bedtime stories to the innocence of a child learning about Lincoln for the first time; from the sadness and resolve of seeing the image of a fallen icon or youngsters bearing up under tragedy to the pride of witnessing our flag flying on alien soil. What did not change, though, was the energy of the stories. The use of phrases like “everything we should be trying to achieve,” “it sounded big and that meant a lot to me,” “I saw hope,” “keep it alive,” and “greatness dancing in my head” suggested a mythological dimension, a hyperreality that came to mind when Americans thought about America.

The American Culture Code for America is
DREAM
.

Dreams have driven this culture from its earliest days. The dream of explorers discovering the New World. The dream of pioneers opening the West. The dream of the Founding Fathers imagining a new form of union. The dream of entrepreneurs forging the Industrial Revolution. The dream of immigrants coming to a land of hope. The dream of a new group of explorers landing safely on the moon. Our Constitution is the expression of a dream for a better society. We created Hollywood and Disneyland and the Internet to project our dreams out into the world. We are the product of dreams and we are the makers of dreams.

Discovering this Code puts many of the other Codes in this book into context. We see love as false expectations because we dream of romances that can last a lifetime. We see beauty as man’s salvation because we dream that we can truly make a difference in someone’s life. We see fat as checking out because we chase dreams so hard that they sometimes overwhelm us. We see health as movement because we dream of a life without limits. We think of work as who we are because we dream that we have a contribution to make and that we can become tremendously successful at our chosen professions. We see shopping as reconnecting with life because we dream of our place in a bigger world. We see money as proof, and luxury as military stripes, because money and luxury make visible our dreams of our best selves. We see the American president as Moses because we dream that someone can lead us to an even better America.

Our notion of abundance is a dream: it is the dream of limitless opportunity that we believe is synonymous with being American. Our need for constant movement is the expression of a dream in which we can always do more, always create and accomplish. Even our cultural adolescence is a dream: we want to believe we are forever young and that we never truly have to grow up.

We’ve built our culture on dreamlike stories that, amazingly, are true. An undertrained militia defeats the most powerful army in the world to give us our freedom. A child is born into slavery and goes on to become one of the world’s greatest inventors. Two brothers battle with the laws of physics and give man wings. A woman refuses to be relegated to the back of the bus and touches off a social revolution. A team of kids comes from nowhere to win an Olympic gold medal against all odds. A young man develops a great idea in his garage and becomes the wealthiest person on the planet.

We have become the most powerful, most influential culture in the world because we believe in the power of dreams. Optimism is not only absolutely on Code, it is essential to keeping our culture vibrant. We do the “impossible” because we believe it is our destiny. In fact, the times when America has faltered as a culture have been the times when it has allowed pessimism to become a prevalent force. The Great Depression was this culture’s longest period of national despair, and it went on so long because we forgot that we were capable of doing the impossible and getting ourselves out of it. In the mid to late 1970s, we again bowed to pessimism, as high rates of unemployment, an oil crisis, and a harrowing hostage situation led us to think less of ourselves. In both cases, dreams raised us back up—the dream of the New Deal and the dream of the new America of the Reagan administration.

Pessimism is off Code in America, as is self-hatred. We must always keep in mind that mistakes are valuable to us because we learn from them and become stronger as a result. When we have a down period, we must always keep in mind that we have historically followed these with long stretches of growth and prosperity. Our European friends have predicted the “end” of America dozens of times, but the end has never even come close to happening. One of our favorite icons is the Comeback Kid. We love people who fail and then rise up again (as in Bill Clinton’s comeback after the Lewinsky scandal and Martha Stewart’s comeback from imprisonment) because it is such a strong cultural trait. The way New York City (and the entire country, really) bounced back after 9/11 is truly inspiring and precisely on Code.

Few have had any lasting success selling pessimism in America. Hollywood occasionally flirts with dark, European-style movies, but its blockbusters consistently reflect magic and dreams. Unabashed creativity and happy endings are right on Code. Some books critical of America and the American culture have hit American best-seller lists over the years, but the books that endure offer promise and hope. Even the negative campaigning that currently typifies politics has an optimistic undertone. It has a strong reptilian character that tells us “Everything will be fine as long as you vote for me.”

OUR
PRIMARY
MISSION:
KEEPING
THE
DREAM
ALIVE

Remaining on Code means supporting our dreams and our dreamers. We want to encourage people to have big ideas, to take risks, and to learn from their mistakes. We want to promote reinvention and starting over. It is entirely on Code for people to change careers, locales, or living situations as long as they genuinely believe that doing so gives them a chance to grow. We want our politicians to give us visions of a better tomorrow. We want our entertainers to stir our imaginations. We want our corporations to show us how their products improve our conditions. We want our teachers to inspire creativity. We want our clergy to give us hope and guidance in living fulfilling lives. We want our media to show us what others are doing to contribute to the world.

America should never shut the door to exploration and discovery. As impractical as it seems, the space program is right on Code. The American journey to the moon is a landmark in the history of our culture and the history of the world. We were the first people ever to free ourselves from this planet and go to another one. Rather than closing down the space program because it costs too much and accomplishes too little, we should set grander goals. If going to Mars seems nearly impossible, it will be that much more satisfying to get there. Dreams are priceless.

America can never stop welcoming immigrants because to do so would be to quash one of our most enduring dreams. Safeguards are, of course, necessary, but the new blood that comes with immigration keeps the dream of America alive for all of us. If someone wants to come here and embrace our culture, that makes our culture stronger and at the same time reminds us why America is unique.

We can also never stop promoting ourselves and our philosophy to the rest of the world. While we must always respect the cultures of others and understand that we cannot make a culture contravene its own Code, sharing the optimism and dreams of America benefits the entire world. Isolationism and protectionism are not only foolhardy in an increasingly global economy, but also utterly off Code. It is America’s mission to provide dreams to humanity. Not by forcing our ideology down anyone’s throat, but by sharing our vision in our films, our books, our products and inventions, our acts of charity, and our efforts in bringing aid to underdeveloped nations.

YOUR
PRESCRIPTION
IS READY

The Culture Code offers the benefit of great new freedom gained from understanding why you act the way you do. It gives you a new set of glasses with which you can see the world in a new way. We are all individuals, and each of us has a complex set of motivations, inspirations, and guiding principles—a personal Code, if you will. However, seeing how we think
as a culture,
how we behave as a group in predictable patterns based on the survival kit we received at birth as Americans, or English, or French, enables us to navigate our world with a vision we’ve heretofore lacked.

As we close, consider one additional freedom that comes to Americans via the cultural unconscious. That is the freedom to dream, to eschew cynicism and pessimism, and to allow yourself to imagine the boldest things for yourself and your world.

For Americans, nothing is more on Code.

A book is like a child…with many unknown parents. I might be the known one, but I would like to acknowledge my debt to all who supported my work, encouraged my passion, and gave me hope when I most needed it.

First, of course, is my wife, Sophie. She is my wisdom (perhaps her name should be Philo-Sophie). She always gave me love and helped me to stay focused.

Second is the one who shared the front line, digging into the collective unconscious, doing the planning and the thinking, and finally the writing. Lou Aronica is definitely more than a writer, he is a thinker and now my American brother in arms.

All this work could not have been accomplished without the internal support and encouragement I got from many of today’s CEOs, presidents, and chairmen of major corporations. Special thanks go to A. G. Lafley (Procter & Gamble), Jeff Immelt (GE), Bob Lutz (Chrysler and then GM), Horst Schulze (former president of Ritz-Carlton), Gary Kusumi (
GMAC
), and John Demsey (Estée Lauder). Against all odds and despite traditional thinkers on their team, they trusted me. Together we have done remarkable work in breaking the Culture Code.

After thirty years of digging into the core of the collective unconscious, I want to thank the publisher who understood there were diamonds to be found. Special thanks to everyone at Doubleday Broadway and especially to my editor, Kris Puopolo, whose suggestions were always a creative stimulation and inspired me to identify better and more direct ways to communicate the depth of different things.

My agent Peter Miller is my “favorite lion” (this is his Code), and he has been fighting for this book like a lion. Scott Hoffman also knows how to roar, and his assistance has been invaluable.

¹
Milwaukee:
ASQ
Quality Press, 1992.