BILL MOYERS: What keeps America vital is a continuing discussion of diverse and often conflicting ideas. But what holds us together is the belief that everyone should share in what we call the "American Dream."

The ways in which that dream has been imagined are as complex and often contradictory as America itself. Some see it as the acquisition of fortune and material success. Others see it as social or personal change or ways in which we can work to perfect the union or stand as an ideal for the rest of the world. Still others see the dream as a myth, perhaps even a nightmare.

We've asked the men and women who have appeared on the Journal to share with us their vision for the future of the American dream. Here are some examples.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: My concept of the American dream is well capsulized by Congressman Barney Frank who said that the notion that a rising tide lifts all boats presupposes that you have a boat. In my American dream everybody has a boat.

ORLANDO PATTERSON: My vision of the American dream is an America which is able to make available its enormous resources, the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world, to all its citizens. To remove poverty from this society, which it is quite capable of doing.

EMMA COLEMAN JORDAN: I see a time when every American with talent will be given an opportunity to contribute. And I look for a nation that embraces all of its children and gives every child with talent the opportunity to discover the thing that will be able to light the light of creativity within them. That, we will be able to capture as a nation and go forward and make this century another century of America.

ROBERTO LOVATO: We need to fundamentally alter the American dream. Because the American dream as we knew always had a foundation of imperialism, of domination of other countries of domestic racism. The degree to which we can truly overcome the downside of the dream, the invisible side of the dream is the degree to which we and the rest of the world not just survive but thrive.

GEORGE SOROS: If you mean an ever-increasing living standard, then I think that that dream needs to be revised, because we have been living beyond our means. And we now have a reckoning.

STEVE FRASER: My vision is for all of us to set to work to build the kind of cooperative commonwealth that our late 19th century ancestors, who opposed the inequities of their own day, dreamed about building. In which we all care more about the commonwealth than we do about the acquisition and amassing of great sums of wealth.

REV SAMUEL RODRIGUEZ: There must be a prophetic element. Prophetic means speaking truth, truth telling, truth to power, justice, righteousness. Addressing the issues of those that are around us in need. Caring for every single person around us. The collectiveness of the village, the culture, of looking beyond ourselves.

MARTHA NUSSBAUM: My vision would be of an America in which we each recognize that we each have a conscience, that each of us is searching for the meaning of life — it's a very hard thing to do — and that we agree to respect one another as equals as we carry out that search.

MICHAEL ZWEIG: The idea that there is a bright future ahead of us in the country is only to the degree that we can organize and fight for. I think the American dream is going to have to be based and fulfilled as it always has been in the past, collective action for real democracy and for economic justice. That's what we're going to have to do and it's going to be one hell of a fight.

BILL MOYERS: You'll find many more ideas about the "American Dream," and you can tell us your own, on our blog at PBS.org.