I do not see it as cowardice or cynicism that puts Republican or Russian ambition and greed for raw power ahead of everything -- everything human or humane or moral or ethical or rational. I see it simply as a satanic-level lack of character. All else stems from that, and from its attendant hubris. How America got to elevating such debas…
I do not see it as cowardice or cynicism that puts Republican or Russian ambition and greed for raw power ahead of everything -- everything human or humane or moral or ethical or rational. I see it simply as a satanic-level lack of character. All else stems from that, and from its attendant hubris. How America got to elevating such debased people to such high positions, and why they are succeeding in their quest, is the question.
For what it's worth, I think Satan knows very well who/what he is and would show more spine in explaining his positions than the people referenced above.
My answer is that half the electorate feels perpetually aggrieved over a perceived loss of secure place in society, and accordingly takes pleasure in elevating the worst people out of spite.
And they convince themselves that they're right by insisting that the election was rigged and fastening on any and every grift that confirms their bias.
I agree with other commenters who note the American obsession with winning, but after all there are more winners now in the blue states than in the red ones. Silicon Valley is rife with winners. Wall Street too. Yet Trumpism loathes a certain kind of winner and adulates others. So I think the root obsession is with cultural dispossession.
It certainly seems there is a lot of spite in politics; perhaps it explains why so many vote against their own self-interest; perhaps spite trumps intelligent choice.
The key point here is that these people are NOT the winners (they see themselves cheated out of their rightful position and things)--it is the fact that there are seemingly a lot of winners in the Blue states that REALLY pisses them off.
Don't you know that those leftist/socialist practices and the lack of the right genes are supposed to be contributing to failure, not to success? The fact that it isn't that way is proof positive of some vast conspiracy.
There are a lot of post-college libertarian tech bros who are head over heels for Musk. I know several and live in Denver—a deep blue city filled with transplants from other deep blue cities.
Oh, them. I was in tech in the 80s and 90s, so I know who you mean. Are they equally head over heels for oil industry billionaires like the Kochs? Or is it just their Tech tribe?
From what I’ve seen, only Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and Jordan Peterson share the same kind of absolute defense from the “winner worship” crowd. Elon Musk is mostly who the tech bro/crypto bro types that want to see current institutions unravel worship because of his hype of DeFi and “free speech.” A lot of the current libertarian tech bro circuit were either prior “Ron Paul Revolution” types or would have fit in perfectly back then. Just think of BTC as digital gold and there’s little difference between the libertarian DeFi movement and Ron Paulers who wanted us to go back to a gold standard. Both groups hate national fiat currencies under the control of the federal reserve.
The politicians are chasing the voters, and the voters have told them loud and clear that they want "winners" and "fighters," so that's what their pols do. "Winner-Worshipping" has a long history in this country. Trump is just the ultimate "winner" in the minds of these folks. Filthy rich. Wife decades younger than him. Bright white smile. Does whatever he wants and gets away with it. Put Clinton's political career in the ground. For certain types of men, who could be a bigger "winner" than Trump? Elon Musk gets the same worship for largely the same reasons. "Winning-worship." These idols only start losing their power with their worshippers once they start publicly losing. Sometimes, they can't even take it when their "winner" loses and they have to make up Cope Conspiracies about rigged elections to pamper their feelings.
Just replace “toxic masculinity” with “winner-worship” and apparently it becomes more palatable and understandable to those who act this way. I learned this just the other day.
The odd thing is: some of those "winner-worshippers" who tell us we shouldn't hold Trump to an established moral code also make a big deal about their "Christian faith" and their deep concern to protect "religious values" -- which they imagine Trump defends in his idiosyncratic way -- and then perhaps they give us another round of apologetics for Putin. It all gets very bizarre.
Indeed. The voters and non voters are a big problem at some level. They elect these horrid people. Never ones to miss an opportunity to vote against their own self interest. It is astounding.
The goofs attained their high positions in government because of the campaign contributions this country's oligarchs made to their respective campaigns.
The wealthy want complete and total control of this country's citizenry, and they'll get it via the ballot box.
What do Americans glorify more than anything else? What is the core of the American mythology?
1) Freedom/liberty; and
2) Success
In America success is almost always measured in wealth/power (because the two go hand in hand). We lionize those people who amass these things--often regardless of how they did it--and sometimes BECAUSE of their determination, ambition and (lets face it) disregard for law, norms, and human decency along the way.
We know/understand/see that these people do not have to follow the same rules and laws that we do--it is demonstrated to us regularly.
We observe them regularly avoid accountability/responsibility.
They are, in fact, regularly rewarded by the system for basically being bad people and doing bad things. How many times has Elon Musk flouted SEC regulation in order to make himself a few extra bucks? Bill Gates' games with Microsoft Explorer? All of Apples BS with their proprietary technology and monopolistic practices? The steel barons having striking workers killed? Same with mineworkers.
It becomes pretty obvious (whether it is in fact actually true or an artifact of the media and perception) that--as the saying goes--nice guys finish last. We celebrate their cunning in the same vein that Trump celebrates Putin's "genius."
This is what happens when your God is Mammon.
While we will celebrate some other types of success there is always this undercurrent that these are lesser successes or that these are the types of success that only "regular" people aspire to (because it is the only type of success they are going to see, after all).
We create organizations with immense wealth and power and the rights of actual people and that have no moral or ethical dimension--and we are okay with that, because it is only business--and that's different, amiright? Anything goes as long as you don't get charged for the crime or aren't found guilty.
Freedom used to have the flip side of responsible citizenship--but we abandoned that at some point, just as we kind of abandoned the idea of a larger community of Americans. Now freedom and liberty are conflated with license and narcissism.
As a nation we have little or no character. The corporations have pumped us up in our self-importance and uniqueness and specialness over the years building our senses of entitlement to new heights, fattening our greed to new heights.
The Founders built protections into the Constitution because they understood a bit about how bad people could be--how important character was to governance--even if that character had to be coerced or forced or somehow simulated by taking advantage of people's lack of character.
But we beavered away at that over the centuries and the lack of character has become so great, the ambition so great, the selfishness so great, that the norms and rules no longer hold sway.
Changes in technology made this even worse. Social media and mass media made this worse. The decadence of wealth made it worse.
People of little character elect and re-elect leaders of no character.
We reward cruelty, ambition, and selfishness.
We parade these things before the world in the media as models to emulate, mouthing platitudes about our honesty and righteousness... and get very VERY angry when we get called on it.
In order for there to be character, the community must enforce character. This goes above and beyond mere adherence to law... but we barely even enforce the law, if you are the right person or have enough money or influence.
I think it is accurate to say that as a nation we have no culture -- because we are a melting pot, which, as with so many things, is both our strength and our weakness. Perhaps we have no national character either. Yet just as there are many subcultures within our shores, there are many persons of much character. I would count you and many others on these pages, and elsewhere, also.
I agree that there are those who tolerate evil and bad behavior because they hope one day to be among those wealthy and powerful who destroy with gleeful abandon. I pray they are not even a scant majority. I tend to think, or at least hope, it is more an apathy or the fact that life is hard and therefore distracting, than it is a lack of fundamental character. And I think the intentional dumbing down of education, particularly in re citizenship (like Civics classes), has played a part. And both parties have contributed, one deliberately, one in ignorance or blindness.
But when you say "we reward cruelty, ambition and selfishness," while I agree in principle, I wish to say "speak for yourself there" or "who is this WE of whom you speak?"
I know you said it is just a partial answer. Perhaps "who is this WE?" is a part of it?
There area lot of people that tolerate bad behavior. I would argue that it is a majority (and indeed a sizable majority) of the population. I say this on the basis of who we elect to office and the bar that we set and the behavior that we expect from them. This also applies to the corporate sphere.
People either tolerate it by voting for them or by not actually bothering to vote. People tolerate it by giving their custom to businesses that behave badly. People tolerate it by allowing laws to be written that allow these things. By allowing those who commit crimes or other bad behaviors to sit in judgment upon themselves, if they happen to hold political office or have sufficient wealth.
WE do reward cruelty, ambition, selfishness--the WE in this case is society as a whole--because the rules and norms are set up as such that (regardless of whether you actively acquiesce in the reward) the whole does, in fact , reward such behaviors.
There are a number of reasons for this. You touch upon some of them. This is part of the larger cultural narrative that pardons segments of society from the norms (and even often the laws) that individual (and poor and powerless) members of society must adhere to--that writes the laws the way the laws are written (given the understanding that the law represents, in its essence, the bare minimum requirements for participation in society).
All of this stuff is INCREDIBLY complex and layered. I am doing the Reader's Digest condensed version of the Reader's Digest condensed version (and add in several more iterations of that) here.
What you talk about WRT education (dumbing down and lack of civics education) is a common trope in arguments about societal/cultural collapse. it has become a part of the larger explanative narrative of why things are they way there are. I don't think it actually has much validity--at least in the sense that you are using it and not rooted in that in the manner that most people believe.
Education has not (in content terms) been dumbed down--in fact the reverse (if you look at the standards). My state REQUIRES Civics for graduation (where I grew up in the 60s/70s did not). Indeed, there are far more requirements now than in the past, far more things that are supposedly required (including critical thinking).
What has changed is:
1)the ability and willingness to enforce those requirements;
2)The perceived societal function of education;
3) the commodification of society and, in particular, education.
As a society, we are no longer willing or able to enforce many requirements--this is an outgrowth (in simple terms) of the redefinition of freedom/liberty/autonomy and the prioritization of the individual over the communal.
2 and 3 are outgrowths of the industrial revolution, commercialization of society and (again) the elevation of the private commercial choice over the communal.
Few people REALLY care about education in the classical sense (even though we attempt to provide an education). The priority is on education as certification for earning money. Students are not particularly interested in learning "useless" things--nor are parents necessarily all that interested in those things being taught. This has crept its way throughout our educational system (all the way to the post-graduate level).
We are, in general, not interested in being or becoming better people (especially if that requires a lot of effort), merely interested in becoming successful people (according to the larger societal definition of success--which in the case of America means making money and gaining social status).
Again, an incredibly simplified presentation of something incredibly complex.
Ok. (I really want to think about this a while -- and I will -- meanwhile....) If "WE" is Society, then how does a segment of society change society as a whole? Is the Tea Party an example of that? Can it only be a political answer? What does the majority do when the tyranny of the minority is under way? And, also, is this unique to American society? Perhaps because we're a melting pot? Or because we have a mythical view of ourselves?
I take your excellent points about education. And about society, for that matter. So how is societal change effected? (I would argue that the social contract has completely broken down in the past 6-10 years; how is it glued together?) Because it certainly looks like a minority has broken the whole.
I saw earlier someone on tv saying it is the fault or result of the past decade of social media, the FBs of the world. If that is true or if it is more complex as you say or both, it seems humans are more like lemmings than individuals.
Society changes in a variety of ways. The most recent example is the effects of the introduction of web-based social media on society--the ultimate effects of which are not clear at this point... but they do not look good.
Given the complexity of society and its nature, pretty much ALL societal change is in essence, an unintended consequence (not the right phrase but I can't come up with the right phrase at the moment).
What do I mean by that?
X has a plan to change society (X can be an individual or a corporate entity--when I say corporate entity I mean a group, not necessarily a business entity). That plan has a particular end in mind. They utilize a variety of methodologies, rhetorical and material (ad campaigns, political lobbying, altering/creating institutions and policies, and so on). Their methodology is based upon the latest research and methodologies.
It is HIGHLY unlikely that they will achieve their end. They WILL change society--the problem is that society is, in a sense, alive. It will resist change or twist/alter it. The number of variables is simply too high as are the range of potential responses and (thrown in on top) the accidents of history.. a plague, a war. an economic collapse.
Remember also that there are a lot of actors with THEIR own plans--so you are actually engaged in something more akin to war--because there WILL be opposition.
And then someone invents a widget that puts 10% of the population out of work--which has its own knock on change effects.
Do you begin to see how complex all of this actually is?
People try and change society all of the time--and they always succeed (if change = success).. what that change is, however, is unlikely to be what they were planning on.
There will always be some form of a tyranny of a minority--often less blatant than what we have, but sometimes moreso. The vast sweep of recorded history is far more often an example of the tyranny of minorities than of majorities.
Usually the majority sucks it up and accepts it unless or until it becomes too objectionable or burdensome--then the revolution comes and guess what you get--a new tyranny of the minority (just a different minority).
It is VERY far from unique--it is almost a norm.
It is not that humans are lemmings it is more that they lack the drive or attention or energy (or all three) to exercise larger scale, substantive agency except in rare cases. It is easier to go along to get along, so long as things do not get too bad. There ARE limits, but those limits are far broader than most people think or even suspect.
I think there are unintended consequences to almost every action. Unanticipated results. "Pluck a flower, kill a star." Social media may yet destroy Western society. J. Haidt has an interesting piece in The Atlantic. Yet Russia's hackers seem to have been very successful in achieving their ends of disrupting Western society in general and our 2016 election in particular, and to sew deep division overall, via social media. They seem to be achieving their goal. But perhaps we cannot see the end since we are still in the middle. Maybe the better example of unintended consequences is Putin's war against the West and in Ukraine, at least for the moment. He must be very surprised if he is aware of what he has caused.
Thank you for taking the time to clarify. I sometimes am foiled by assumptions I have held without noticing and it is always good to be nudged out of them.
Russia did not change our society--IOW, that was not their goal. They took advantage of what our society IS.
Creating chaos, distrust, and division is easy... and democracies are weak in that they can only tolerate so much division and distrust before they collapse. If you want to destroy a society, the reality is that you do not have to do much--it will tend to fall apart by itself over time as the various groups separate themselves from each other (a natural tendency) and each pursues what it perceives to be their own interests.
It takes a LOT of work to maintain a society and you can't ever stop working on maintaining it.
None of this happens fast (we have been working our way to where we are basically since the 60s, in terms of proximate causes).
What I present here is a particular narrative, based upon MY reading, observation, and thought over the last 30 years or so. There are biases in it and blind spots--I don't pretend to fully understand any of this. I don't think anyone fully understands all of this.
Correctly tends to mean "the same as me'" Given the nature and plasticity of language this is not fully possible--although there can be a great deal of congruence.
What is key is understanding what the other person means when they say X (to the best of your ability)--the understanding is, I think, more important than the congruence because it establishes a basis to build congruence--it is prior.
Great post. Intertwined in all of this is that they have elevated the Left as the greatest evil on the planet; therefore, no matter what they do to retain power....it's "righteous".
As I understand it, having periodically listened to right-wing talk radio in the days when I had a car and a daily commute - I'm thinking of the zealous Dennis Prager going back to the early 90s - what is so evil about THE Left is they are secular. Lacking Judeo-Christian values, the cultural institutions they dominate will destroy America. Yes, whatever they do, Constitutional or not (JD Vance, I'm looking at you), to stop the Left is righteous.
I do not see it as cowardice or cynicism that puts Republican or Russian ambition and greed for raw power ahead of everything -- everything human or humane or moral or ethical or rational. I see it simply as a satanic-level lack of character. All else stems from that, and from its attendant hubris. How America got to elevating such debased people to such high positions, and why they are succeeding in their quest, is the question.
It's because they cultivate their ability to con trusting people.
For what it's worth, I think Satan knows very well who/what he is and would show more spine in explaining his positions than the people referenced above.
My answer is that half the electorate feels perpetually aggrieved over a perceived loss of secure place in society, and accordingly takes pleasure in elevating the worst people out of spite.
And they convince themselves that they're right by insisting that the election was rigged and fastening on any and every grift that confirms their bias.
I agree with other commenters who note the American obsession with winning, but after all there are more winners now in the blue states than in the red ones. Silicon Valley is rife with winners. Wall Street too. Yet Trumpism loathes a certain kind of winner and adulates others. So I think the root obsession is with cultural dispossession.
It certainly seems there is a lot of spite in politics; perhaps it explains why so many vote against their own self-interest; perhaps spite trumps intelligent choice.
Strong emotion (love, hate, fear--choose one) invariably overwhelms rational choice.
Yes. Sigh.
The key point here is that these people are NOT the winners (they see themselves cheated out of their rightful position and things)--it is the fact that there are seemingly a lot of winners in the Blue states that REALLY pisses them off.
Don't you know that those leftist/socialist practices and the lack of the right genes are supposed to be contributing to failure, not to success? The fact that it isn't that way is proof positive of some vast conspiracy.
100%
Maybe this is why I don't know anyone who worships Elon Musk: I live in a blue state and grew up in one too.
There are a lot of post-college libertarian tech bros who are head over heels for Musk. I know several and live in Denver—a deep blue city filled with transplants from other deep blue cities.
Oh, them. I was in tech in the 80s and 90s, so I know who you mean. Are they equally head over heels for oil industry billionaires like the Kochs? Or is it just their Tech tribe?
From what I’ve seen, only Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and Jordan Peterson share the same kind of absolute defense from the “winner worship” crowd. Elon Musk is mostly who the tech bro/crypto bro types that want to see current institutions unravel worship because of his hype of DeFi and “free speech.” A lot of the current libertarian tech bro circuit were either prior “Ron Paul Revolution” types or would have fit in perfectly back then. Just think of BTC as digital gold and there’s little difference between the libertarian DeFi movement and Ron Paulers who wanted us to go back to a gold standard. Both groups hate national fiat currencies under the control of the federal reserve.
All men. It looks like this is a white, male thing. (Thx for the details.)
The politicians are chasing the voters, and the voters have told them loud and clear that they want "winners" and "fighters," so that's what their pols do. "Winner-Worshipping" has a long history in this country. Trump is just the ultimate "winner" in the minds of these folks. Filthy rich. Wife decades younger than him. Bright white smile. Does whatever he wants and gets away with it. Put Clinton's political career in the ground. For certain types of men, who could be a bigger "winner" than Trump? Elon Musk gets the same worship for largely the same reasons. "Winning-worship." These idols only start losing their power with their worshippers once they start publicly losing. Sometimes, they can't even take it when their "winner" loses and they have to make up Cope Conspiracies about rigged elections to pamper their feelings.
I honestly don't know anyone who worships Elon Musk.
Consider yourself lucky 😂
I think this is brilliant; I had never thought of "winner" in this way but it sounds accurate.
Just replace “toxic masculinity” with “winner-worship” and apparently it becomes more palatable and understandable to those who act this way. I learned this just the other day.
The odd thing is: some of those "winner-worshippers" who tell us we shouldn't hold Trump to an established moral code also make a big deal about their "Christian faith" and their deep concern to protect "religious values" -- which they imagine Trump defends in his idiosyncratic way -- and then perhaps they give us another round of apologetics for Putin. It all gets very bizarre.
Indeed. The voters and non voters are a big problem at some level. They elect these horrid people. Never ones to miss an opportunity to vote against their own self interest. It is astounding.
The goofs attained their high positions in government because of the campaign contributions this country's oligarchs made to their respective campaigns.
The wealthy want complete and total control of this country's citizenry, and they'll get it via the ballot box.
How did we get here? Here is a partial answer:
What do Americans glorify more than anything else? What is the core of the American mythology?
1) Freedom/liberty; and
2) Success
In America success is almost always measured in wealth/power (because the two go hand in hand). We lionize those people who amass these things--often regardless of how they did it--and sometimes BECAUSE of their determination, ambition and (lets face it) disregard for law, norms, and human decency along the way.
We know/understand/see that these people do not have to follow the same rules and laws that we do--it is demonstrated to us regularly.
We observe them regularly avoid accountability/responsibility.
They are, in fact, regularly rewarded by the system for basically being bad people and doing bad things. How many times has Elon Musk flouted SEC regulation in order to make himself a few extra bucks? Bill Gates' games with Microsoft Explorer? All of Apples BS with their proprietary technology and monopolistic practices? The steel barons having striking workers killed? Same with mineworkers.
It becomes pretty obvious (whether it is in fact actually true or an artifact of the media and perception) that--as the saying goes--nice guys finish last. We celebrate their cunning in the same vein that Trump celebrates Putin's "genius."
This is what happens when your God is Mammon.
While we will celebrate some other types of success there is always this undercurrent that these are lesser successes or that these are the types of success that only "regular" people aspire to (because it is the only type of success they are going to see, after all).
We create organizations with immense wealth and power and the rights of actual people and that have no moral or ethical dimension--and we are okay with that, because it is only business--and that's different, amiright? Anything goes as long as you don't get charged for the crime or aren't found guilty.
Freedom used to have the flip side of responsible citizenship--but we abandoned that at some point, just as we kind of abandoned the idea of a larger community of Americans. Now freedom and liberty are conflated with license and narcissism.
As a nation we have little or no character. The corporations have pumped us up in our self-importance and uniqueness and specialness over the years building our senses of entitlement to new heights, fattening our greed to new heights.
The Founders built protections into the Constitution because they understood a bit about how bad people could be--how important character was to governance--even if that character had to be coerced or forced or somehow simulated by taking advantage of people's lack of character.
But we beavered away at that over the centuries and the lack of character has become so great, the ambition so great, the selfishness so great, that the norms and rules no longer hold sway.
Changes in technology made this even worse. Social media and mass media made this worse. The decadence of wealth made it worse.
People of little character elect and re-elect leaders of no character.
We reward cruelty, ambition, and selfishness.
We parade these things before the world in the media as models to emulate, mouthing platitudes about our honesty and righteousness... and get very VERY angry when we get called on it.
In order for there to be character, the community must enforce character. This goes above and beyond mere adherence to law... but we barely even enforce the law, if you are the right person or have enough money or influence.
I think it is accurate to say that as a nation we have no culture -- because we are a melting pot, which, as with so many things, is both our strength and our weakness. Perhaps we have no national character either. Yet just as there are many subcultures within our shores, there are many persons of much character. I would count you and many others on these pages, and elsewhere, also.
I agree that there are those who tolerate evil and bad behavior because they hope one day to be among those wealthy and powerful who destroy with gleeful abandon. I pray they are not even a scant majority. I tend to think, or at least hope, it is more an apathy or the fact that life is hard and therefore distracting, than it is a lack of fundamental character. And I think the intentional dumbing down of education, particularly in re citizenship (like Civics classes), has played a part. And both parties have contributed, one deliberately, one in ignorance or blindness.
But when you say "we reward cruelty, ambition and selfishness," while I agree in principle, I wish to say "speak for yourself there" or "who is this WE of whom you speak?"
I know you said it is just a partial answer. Perhaps "who is this WE?" is a part of it?
There area lot of people that tolerate bad behavior. I would argue that it is a majority (and indeed a sizable majority) of the population. I say this on the basis of who we elect to office and the bar that we set and the behavior that we expect from them. This also applies to the corporate sphere.
People either tolerate it by voting for them or by not actually bothering to vote. People tolerate it by giving their custom to businesses that behave badly. People tolerate it by allowing laws to be written that allow these things. By allowing those who commit crimes or other bad behaviors to sit in judgment upon themselves, if they happen to hold political office or have sufficient wealth.
WE do reward cruelty, ambition, selfishness--the WE in this case is society as a whole--because the rules and norms are set up as such that (regardless of whether you actively acquiesce in the reward) the whole does, in fact , reward such behaviors.
There are a number of reasons for this. You touch upon some of them. This is part of the larger cultural narrative that pardons segments of society from the norms (and even often the laws) that individual (and poor and powerless) members of society must adhere to--that writes the laws the way the laws are written (given the understanding that the law represents, in its essence, the bare minimum requirements for participation in society).
All of this stuff is INCREDIBLY complex and layered. I am doing the Reader's Digest condensed version of the Reader's Digest condensed version (and add in several more iterations of that) here.
What you talk about WRT education (dumbing down and lack of civics education) is a common trope in arguments about societal/cultural collapse. it has become a part of the larger explanative narrative of why things are they way there are. I don't think it actually has much validity--at least in the sense that you are using it and not rooted in that in the manner that most people believe.
Education has not (in content terms) been dumbed down--in fact the reverse (if you look at the standards). My state REQUIRES Civics for graduation (where I grew up in the 60s/70s did not). Indeed, there are far more requirements now than in the past, far more things that are supposedly required (including critical thinking).
What has changed is:
1)the ability and willingness to enforce those requirements;
2)The perceived societal function of education;
3) the commodification of society and, in particular, education.
As a society, we are no longer willing or able to enforce many requirements--this is an outgrowth (in simple terms) of the redefinition of freedom/liberty/autonomy and the prioritization of the individual over the communal.
2 and 3 are outgrowths of the industrial revolution, commercialization of society and (again) the elevation of the private commercial choice over the communal.
Few people REALLY care about education in the classical sense (even though we attempt to provide an education). The priority is on education as certification for earning money. Students are not particularly interested in learning "useless" things--nor are parents necessarily all that interested in those things being taught. This has crept its way throughout our educational system (all the way to the post-graduate level).
We are, in general, not interested in being or becoming better people (especially if that requires a lot of effort), merely interested in becoming successful people (according to the larger societal definition of success--which in the case of America means making money and gaining social status).
Again, an incredibly simplified presentation of something incredibly complex.
Ok. (I really want to think about this a while -- and I will -- meanwhile....) If "WE" is Society, then how does a segment of society change society as a whole? Is the Tea Party an example of that? Can it only be a political answer? What does the majority do when the tyranny of the minority is under way? And, also, is this unique to American society? Perhaps because we're a melting pot? Or because we have a mythical view of ourselves?
I take your excellent points about education. And about society, for that matter. So how is societal change effected? (I would argue that the social contract has completely broken down in the past 6-10 years; how is it glued together?) Because it certainly looks like a minority has broken the whole.
I saw earlier someone on tv saying it is the fault or result of the past decade of social media, the FBs of the world. If that is true or if it is more complex as you say or both, it seems humans are more like lemmings than individuals.
Society changes in a variety of ways. The most recent example is the effects of the introduction of web-based social media on society--the ultimate effects of which are not clear at this point... but they do not look good.
Given the complexity of society and its nature, pretty much ALL societal change is in essence, an unintended consequence (not the right phrase but I can't come up with the right phrase at the moment).
What do I mean by that?
X has a plan to change society (X can be an individual or a corporate entity--when I say corporate entity I mean a group, not necessarily a business entity). That plan has a particular end in mind. They utilize a variety of methodologies, rhetorical and material (ad campaigns, political lobbying, altering/creating institutions and policies, and so on). Their methodology is based upon the latest research and methodologies.
It is HIGHLY unlikely that they will achieve their end. They WILL change society--the problem is that society is, in a sense, alive. It will resist change or twist/alter it. The number of variables is simply too high as are the range of potential responses and (thrown in on top) the accidents of history.. a plague, a war. an economic collapse.
Remember also that there are a lot of actors with THEIR own plans--so you are actually engaged in something more akin to war--because there WILL be opposition.
And then someone invents a widget that puts 10% of the population out of work--which has its own knock on change effects.
Do you begin to see how complex all of this actually is?
People try and change society all of the time--and they always succeed (if change = success).. what that change is, however, is unlikely to be what they were planning on.
There will always be some form of a tyranny of a minority--often less blatant than what we have, but sometimes moreso. The vast sweep of recorded history is far more often an example of the tyranny of minorities than of majorities.
Usually the majority sucks it up and accepts it unless or until it becomes too objectionable or burdensome--then the revolution comes and guess what you get--a new tyranny of the minority (just a different minority).
It is VERY far from unique--it is almost a norm.
It is not that humans are lemmings it is more that they lack the drive or attention or energy (or all three) to exercise larger scale, substantive agency except in rare cases. It is easier to go along to get along, so long as things do not get too bad. There ARE limits, but those limits are far broader than most people think or even suspect.
I think there are unintended consequences to almost every action. Unanticipated results. "Pluck a flower, kill a star." Social media may yet destroy Western society. J. Haidt has an interesting piece in The Atlantic. Yet Russia's hackers seem to have been very successful in achieving their ends of disrupting Western society in general and our 2016 election in particular, and to sew deep division overall, via social media. They seem to be achieving their goal. But perhaps we cannot see the end since we are still in the middle. Maybe the better example of unintended consequences is Putin's war against the West and in Ukraine, at least for the moment. He must be very surprised if he is aware of what he has caused.
Thank you for taking the time to clarify. I sometimes am foiled by assumptions I have held without noticing and it is always good to be nudged out of them.
Russia did not change our society--IOW, that was not their goal. They took advantage of what our society IS.
Creating chaos, distrust, and division is easy... and democracies are weak in that they can only tolerate so much division and distrust before they collapse. If you want to destroy a society, the reality is that you do not have to do much--it will tend to fall apart by itself over time as the various groups separate themselves from each other (a natural tendency) and each pursues what it perceives to be their own interests.
It takes a LOT of work to maintain a society and you can't ever stop working on maintaining it.
None of this happens fast (we have been working our way to where we are basically since the 60s, in terms of proximate causes).
What I present here is a particular narrative, based upon MY reading, observation, and thought over the last 30 years or so. There are biases in it and blind spots--I don't pretend to fully understand any of this. I don't think anyone fully understands all of this.
:)
The words of the ideals are widely shared. The understanding of those ideals and the definitions of those words are not.
Correctly tends to mean "the same as me'" Given the nature and plasticity of language this is not fully possible--although there can be a great deal of congruence.
What is key is understanding what the other person means when they say X (to the best of your ability)--the understanding is, I think, more important than the congruence because it establishes a basis to build congruence--it is prior.
And we have been taught not to, while pretending we do.
Great post. Intertwined in all of this is that they have elevated the Left as the greatest evil on the planet; therefore, no matter what they do to retain power....it's "righteous".
As I understand it, having periodically listened to right-wing talk radio in the days when I had a car and a daily commute - I'm thinking of the zealous Dennis Prager going back to the early 90s - what is so evil about THE Left is they are secular. Lacking Judeo-Christian values, the cultural institutions they dominate will destroy America. Yes, whatever they do, Constitutional or not (JD Vance, I'm looking at you), to stop the Left is righteous.
And yet, the US is "the most devout of all the rich Western democracies" (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/31/americans-are-far-more-religious-than-adults-in-other-wealthy-nations/). How can the US god be both Mammon and the Judeo-Christian God?
Because Mammon is the actual God, Yaweh (in whatever form) is merely a marker of identity.
Good point. Yes.
A very good question. And whatever the answer is, if it's social media, education, whatever, it needs to be fixed, pronto.