The dream was defined by having "the best of the best." In the 1950s, various people had access to the "best" things, and the traditional American dream was in danger and the new American dream was beginning to emerge. Packard said that because of the collapse of the American dream, people have scrambled to find new ways to draw lines between the elected and the unelected. Society has always had a desire to lump people into different categories, whether it be race or religion, and has gone so far as to redefine what the American dream really is and how to separate those who believe it. lived from those who did not live it. However, defining the Dream became difficult when society realized that it could no longer separate people based on material things. Packard recognized this and said that in terms of a person's productive role in society versus their role as a consumer, class boundaries had become rigid, forcing a person to defend themselves instead of 'buying things that automatically gave him a societal boost. The risk of the American dream grew and grew menacingly out of reach, leaving people in a constant state of what seemed like personal feeling..