The sad truth is it doesn’t matter how true or fabricated whatever it is people believe, as long as it keeps them coordinated and united as a nation… Or else the other nations that really like your stuff and land might make their people all believe the same thing and they can gain advantage over time.
No one likes hearing this cute little opinion I have but I think the greatest enemy the USA has today is not the right wing nut jobs nor the left wing jobs, it’s division itself.
Believe it or not, american citizens today are experimenting two things history is very familiar with:
- religious wars and
- slave revolts.
Sorry, sorry, I mean:
- fundamentally incompatible world views about what people should aspire to be, what they should aspire to become as a collective identity and how to get there and
- society’s most vulnerable people engaging in violence against the armed forces who follow the orders of those who have societal power…
Cause those are totally different.
Either way, when things get this polarized, fights get ugly. Pushing and shoving cannot be unpushed or unshoved… trust and good faith are lost, and they don’t fix themselves.
Only thing that can possibly unite the US with the current level of polarization is nothing short of an atrocity within borders.
Sorry if it’s insensitive to talk about these kinds of opinions out loud. just sharing my honest perspective.
I agree with basically everything you say until you establish the sole culprit of all ills being a socioeconomic philosophy. Everyone’s favorite culprit of the ills of society is capitalism. Not that I have any sympathy for it. It’s just the flavor of subjugation that was working last century. I’ve also seen hypernormalization and I enjoyed it very much, but I think Curtis has the same issue you’re having. Theocracies, feudalism, centrally planned economies such as those that communism often push for, monarchy and anarchy don’t do any better. They all enslave people in their own ways.
The way I see it, the world is run by empires, their vassals and then there are client states and places where there’s nothing to steal left. Empires stay dominant by harnessing the power of three things: thought control, warfare and slaves. Always has been like this and it still is. Show me any human society of over 100.000 people where their most underprivileged aren’t being horribly abused. You might point to scandinavia, but… Who makes their phones and electronic devices? Who handpicks blueberries for them when it’s winter on their hemisphere? Who ends up paying the price for the weapons, the oil and the drugs they sell?
They just managed to sweep their slavery under the rug, just like we comfortably buy our presliced bacon and have a delicious breakfast without ever having to face the death of the animals that were sacrificed for them.
If you think any system fixes what you’re describing, i ask you to paint a picture for me and tell me why it will not eventually devolve into the most ruthless members within eventually getting to positions of power (be it within the private sector, the government or a dominant religious institution) and becoming even more corrupt. I don’t even need any historic examples of it working. Just what it would look like.
Cause empires, societies and ideologies have life cycles, just like organisms do. Sometimes they can renew themselves and gain new strength after big events or compelling leadership come by, but they all collapse eventually. In the vedas they describe the golden age, silver age bronze age and eventually the kali yuga of societies, where corruption, depravity and distrust become so widespread the people stop believing in anything and no longer care about anything but themselves. In the west we prefer talking about decadence, and it’s always the same. Be it with the mongols, the romans, the french, dutch, chinese…
The people on top get so rich it poisons their minds and alienates them from society. The hierarchies become distant from each other, a peasant or slave so far removed from an emperor, they’re unable to consider each other human. The creation myth and the promises of a better tomorrow for all becomes evidently a lie and people stop finding meaning in unity.
Cults of abundance and paganism emerge (cryptobros, technocrats, ecoterrorists, utopian marxists, etc). The people that can afford to drench themselves in hedonism (all decadent empires become completely obsessed with food, sex, drugs, sports and entertainment) while the underprivileged do the shit work and die in wars. Most people stop having kids. The blatant hypocrisy makes people claim for a hero and populism emerges. Unrest comes. Revolutions start bubbling and get crushed by the forces that are kept well trained and fed by the corrupt leadership, until eventually, either some other emergent and younger empire sweeps in or a revolution becomes successful.
Doesn’t really matter which of those happens. The result is the same. The poor get it the worse, the rich flee or break deals and only end up inconvenienced and humiliated but not dead, and people in between either go to other parts of the world because “fuck this place” or become slaves to the new regime, which will do the same thing all over again.
This is no different than a rotten tree falling apart and if you think killing every last capitalist, intel agent and rich person will make any difference, I’d say you’re not looking at the big picture.
The problem with polarization isn’t that you the powerful remain in power and keep oppressing the poor. That part’s inevitable. The problem is they show weakness to foreign enemies who start sharpening their teeth. Then come the proxy wars and if a direct confrontation can be avoided, whoever loses must forever pay tribute to the victor… until it happens to them.
Nature is unfair, life is unfair and politics and societies are extremely unfair and cruel. Doesn’t matter what systems or leaders you choose. Take your pick. Nations either run on warfare, slaves and propaganda, or are the victims of those that do.