A lonely nation: Has the notion of the ‘American way’ promoted isolation across history?

[Jayhawker Soule]

Both sides are going too far, IMO. MAGA was not unifying in their actions. In ideas, maybe that was intended but it didn't happen.

Forgive the confusion, but were they trying to unite the white nationalists, the misogynists, the homophobes, or all of the above?

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I think there's individualism, which is mainly about individual freedom and individual human rights.

But then there's hyper-individualism where the concept is taken too far. There's always been a certain number who might have isolated themselves on purpose, such as the early mountain men and so forth. But most people relied on the support of a community. I don't think very many people could live off the land, on their own in the wilderness, so most people won't ever be truly isolated, because they wouldn't be able to survive.

Some people might be socially isolated, without any close family ties or real life acquaintances. They may not know who their neighbors are, and everyone they see is a stranger. I don't know if that was ever the "American Way" or even if it has anything to do with individualism, per se. Sometimes, I think we have a kind of dog-eat-dog, "every man for himself" kind of culture out there, which can come across as predatory and hostile. I don't even know if even that would be the "American Way," although even that's a bit of an abstract concept itself, subject to various interpretations.

I think it’s become “dog-eat-dog” in the last couple of decades. Maybe it’s just the change of circumstances in my life, moving from my hometown and entering adult society, but it really seems most neighbors are not friendly anymore, jobs have high school-like cliques, and most people in public avoid each other than talking to each other. I wonder if anyone else can confirm that this change is in fact real.

 

[wellwisher]

I think this points up one of the major problems with the mentality of capitalism is that it largely gives validation to social Darwinist ideas. The mentality is very much a part of popular culture and the way many people look at things.

I sort of agree, however, in the ideal world, capitalism is more like sports than war. In sports, there are one set of rules for all the players, and there is friendly but strong competition, with the teams that are best prepared, often the winners. You cannot expect to be, a couch potato and be competitive. In all sports, you need to put in the work if the goal is to become the best.

War is different from sports. In war you also play hard, but there are no rules. The element of surprise is often an advantage. The goal is win or die. In sports you play hard but also to play another day, such as in the playoffs. War is about ending the game, as soon as possible, using liberty with the rules of engagement. War is not a good capitalism model.

When there is cheating in sports, such as rigging the game, this is when sports become similar to the dark but often legal side of capitalism; lobbyists. Hard work may not matter, if you can take out a player on the other team. No sports team would want the Government to pick their players, and then change their rules, since this is when that sport will decline. Say Government decide we needed to quota system in all sports, rather than allow merit system for the players to evolve and ascend. The result will be a very weak economy instead of an exciting time to be alive.

In my experience, moral people will play by the rules, even in sports and capitalism, while immoral people will often make their own rules; relative morality, which adds confusion and game rigging to the sport of capitalism.

Above is a digital artwork I did about 15 years ago. I called it the smoke of Capitalism. The gold ball is the good side of capitalism; fair sports. The smoke of capitalism comes out from the war side of capitalism.

 

[wellwisher]

I my home town there is a grocery store chain that has demonstrated the best side of capitalism for decades. About 10 years back that the chain become worth $$ billions, and part of the family wanted to sell the business and split the money. However, one of the brothers, with the original family work ethic of his father who started the first store, wanted to keep the family business open. There was so much support from the local community and employees, he was able to get the financing and buy out his family and keep the company open. Since that time, the business continues to grow and still brings the cheapest prices to more and more towns.

Their business model is clean well stocked stores, customers service, and the cheapest prices. They deal in volume and are OK with smaller margins. Each time a new store opens, all the employees get a bonus as a way to retain seasoned employees and help promote family trained employees from within. The company continues to grow and has made it hard for the national chains in the area.

They are now rated third best grocery food chain in the US and was recently named the best inflationary-times grocery store in the US, due to keeping their prices low, during this inflationary time. They recently expanded with the concept of a market kitchen, where you can but freshly prepared food at a fraction of the price of local restaurants. If you are poor you can still eat well for cheap and not have to do dishes. The stores are always full.

 

[InChrist]

The only thing that I can add to this is to note that the culture of material consumption is not the sole cause of our social ills; it is coupled with something even more basic both as an axiom of “Enlightenment” thinking and as a ideological premise of the “American Experiment”, and that is the presumption of the individual and its “rights”. Those “rights” in the modern liberally democratic republic are asserted at the expense of any presumption of responsibility, which in more traditional settings was taken for granted. People today are told, and take for granted, that they and all citizens are responsible for and to only themselves, with a few notable exceptions such as when minor children are involved. This individualism is the ultimate reason why elder parents end up in nursing homes rather than home with those who are supposed to love them, and why the children of parents are supposed to evacuate their home and become “independent” (which means living alone and lonely in an apartment all by themselves) soon after they reach the age of majority. The peculiar type of individualism which is a basis of American democracy can only be viewed as a type of social sickness, and has been responsible for the glorification of the state and concomitant diminution of the family as the locus of peoples affections, which I constantly decry as representative of cultural decay.

Yeah, this kind of individualism is devoid of love and compassion, as well as contrary to God’s design for human interaction and community. I’m grateful for biblical churches where individuals are appreciated for their uniqueness, while there’s unity in caring for one another.

 

[wellwisher]

Forgive the confusion, but were they trying to unite the white nationalists, the misogynists, the homophobes, or all of the above?

The problem is the Left confuses the words right and entitlements. There are human rights that we all share. While entitlements only applies to Left wing fringe groups. These are called rights to confuse the repo off of freedom. Freedom of speech is a shared human right. But the Left uses governed to censor and think that free speech only blind to them like an entitlement/right.

There is no such thing as women's rights or LBGTQ rights. There is only Hunan rights which are one set of rules for all. What are men's rights and natural rights? The Left wants extra entitlements, that are called rights, to confuse the issue. This is what has divided people, since entitlements go back to the monarchy model for government and takes away human rights from the majority. Only cronies then have entitlements.

America was founded on the idea of human rights, superseding the entitlement mentality of the monarchy. Parents pay taxes which pays teachers, yet the Left thinks they are entitled to their children, But the Revolutionary was was fought because there can be no taxation without representation. The MAGA Patriots are fighting for freedom from Left wing monarchy entitlements and oppression; Paul Revere.

 

[Zwing]

The problem is the Left confuses the words right and entitlements.

They are virtual synonyms. Both derive and are granted to citizens from a sovereign power. You don’t imagine that you have any “human rights” in a state of nature, where there is no government or other sovereign, do you? Even though people often talk about thei rights as if they attend them from north and cannot be in any way rescinded, rights are things which exist only within formally constituted societies. When you are walking through the post-apocalyptic forest, and the lion rushes you to make a meal, do you intend to assert your human rights?

 

[PureX]

There have been many very long standing examples of successful socialist economies. Most practiced among smaller societal groups and in less complex social environments. So the claim that anything but capitalism is "worse" is just stupid and dishonest. That, of course, will not stop it from being repeated endlessly, as it is one of the main lies those in favor of capitalism tell themselves and anyone foolish enough to listen to justify greed and the horrible cost of all that greed to all of us.

The only real question is how to adapt socialism to larger societal groups where face to face trading has become less commonplace and the trade chains have become far more complex. But these issues are certainly not insurmountable. We just need to face the ugly truth about capitalism and the wasteful and mean-spirited competition it engenders, and decide to make the change.

 

[Stevicus]

I sort of agree, however, in the ideal world, capitalism is more like sports than war. In sports, there are one set of rules for all the players, and there is friendly but strong competition, with the teams that are best prepared, often the winners. You cannot expect to be, a couch potato and be competitive. In all sports, you need to put in the work if the goal is to become the best.

War is different from sports. In war you also play hard, but there are no rules. The element of surprise is often an advantage. The goal is win or die. In sports you play hard but also to play another day, such as in the playoffs. War is about ending the game, as soon as possible, using liberty with the rules of engagement. War is not a good capitalism model.

When there is cheating in sports, such as rigging the game, this is when sports become similar to the dark but often legal side of capitalism; lobbyists. Hard work may not matter, if you can take out a player on the other team. No sports team would want the Government to pick their players, and then change their rules, since this is when that sport will decline. Say Government decide we needed to quota system in all sports, rather than allow merit system for the players to evolve and ascend. The result will be a very weak economy instead of an exciting time to be alive.

In my experience, moral people will play by the rules, even in sports and capitalism, while immoral people will often make their own rules; relative morality, which adds confusion and game rigging to the sport of capitalism.

View attachment 79281Above is a digital artwork I did about 15 years ago. I called it the smoke of Capitalism. The gold ball is the good side of capitalism; fair sports. The smoke of capitalism comes out from the war side of capitalism.

So, then, it would seem the key issue is to insist upon following a fair and equitable set of rules, based on a consistent set of principles, and stick to it no matter what.

The sports analogy is interesting, although it should be noted that the major sports leagues are ruled over by privately-appointed commissioners who hold a great deal of power that governments typically don't hold over the business community. After the 1919 World Series and the Black Sox scandal came out, major league baseball had a serious PR problem. They needed to restore public confidence that their games were on the up-and-up, and for that, they picked Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis to be the commissioner of baseball, and he insisted on an appointment for life with absolute power - no court cases or appeals.

But with sports, it's really just a game. The losers will still go home afterwards. They will still have a roof over their heads and food on their table. They won't be compelled to live in poverty, squalor, and deprivation. When people are reduced to extreme conditions like that, it's natural and normal to expect crime, violence, political instability, and possibly even war.

Much of it really depends upon the political system and the ability of the political authorities to rein in corruption and maintain stability and order within the government. Based on the events of the past several years, it appears their abilities in this area have been somewhat hobbled and diminished.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

A lonely nation: Has the notion of the 'American way' promoted isolation across history?

People are lonely the world over. But as far back as the early 19th century, when the word “loneliness” began to be used in its current context in American life, some were already asking the question: Do the contours of American society — that emphasis on individualism, that spreading out with impunity over a vast, sometimes outsized landscape — encourage isolation and alienation?

This is a little more complicated than that of course, but it seems to me that individualism, which originated in Western society, is more accented in America. This is to our detriment. We need to support one another, and to some extent be part of the established society. There needs to be a balance of some kind between individuals and society. Some parts of the world go too far in the other direction, I have the impression but really I have ignorance of how it is in those parts of the world since I've never lived there.

There’s a different, opposing take on this too:

Where government -promoting it as a benefit to your “autonomy”- looks after your children and your elders [on your behalf], you are less reliant on your family, neighbours and friends (sometimes, resulting in greater distancing and/or sense of solitude) but entirely dependent on government, to whom you are but a faceless number.

Humbly,
Hermit

 

[Zwing]

it would seem the key issue is to insist upon following a fair and equitable set of rules, based on a consistent set of principles

I think there are, at least here in the U.S. The key is understanding that the educational experience is a life-or-death competition for societal authority. School at all levels is the proving ground for the nation’s youth. It is worthy of note that people in the higher socio-economic classes obviously realize this, while generally, those of the lower seem not to. The best thing any father of a family with children could do, is to take the big screen TV out onto the middle of the street, and smash it to bits.

 

[Stevicus]

I think there are, at least here in the U.S. The key is understanding that the educational experience is a life-or-death competition for societal authority. School at all levels is the proving ground for the nation’s youth. It is worthy of note that people in the higher socio-economic classes obviously realize this, while generally, those of the lower seem not to. The best thing any father of a family with children could do, is to take the big screen TV out onto the middle of the street, and smash it to bits.

I grew up watching TV, although I have mixed views on whether or not its existence affects one's education and upbringing. I think a much bigger factor is the stability and functionality of the parents and household. My own father was born during the Depression, in a lower-class family, yet his parents also stuck together and provided the strength and stability needed to get through tough times.

By the time my father was in college, it was the 1950s, and towards the end of that decade, he got married and started his family when times were quite different, much more opulent and luxurious. He was earning a decent living, and he and my mother were living the happy suburban family lifestyle of the 1960s - or so it might have seemed. They were living the American Dream, and yet, it went sour. They started to fight, drink more heavily, and eventually got divorced. Even though they were better off socioeconomically than their parents, they didn't really follow their own principles, nor did they have anywhere near the moral strength and emotional stability that their parents did. They remained pretty messed up for many years, while I had to grow up in the private hells they created.

But as I grew older, I encountered more and more people my age whose own stories were similar to mine. Toxic, unstable, abusive, neglectful, dysfunctional upbringings - even at a time when we considered ourselves more modern and enlightened than the older generations. It was a time when a lot of old traditions and values were being openly challenged - and some actively torn down. There was the notion of "Middle Class Morality," which was seen as a negative - too stifled and repressed. Some people thought that "all you need is love" - and they believed in free love, free speech, freedom of expression, freedom to be you and me, etc. But then, maybe there was too much freedom in some areas and not enough in other areas.

 

[metis]

The MAGA Patriots are fighting for freedom from Left wing monarchy entitlements and oppression; Paul Revere.

So, trying to overthrow our democracy, which Trump and some of his MAGA supporters clearly tried to do, is all fine & dandy with you? What is it about democracy that you hate? Or maybe you just hate America?

At least in the past, I saw that you said you were a Christian, so how can you reconcile that with Trump and his antics? Jesus taught "love one another", and yet what we constantly hear from Trump is hate, hate, and more hate. His own sister, who he says he's closer to than any other person, says his only "morality" is love for himself.

 

[Zwing]

I have mixed views on whether or not its existence affects one's education

I would think this evident enough to require no empirical evidence.

I have grave misgivings about several aspects of modern American culture, and it’s historical drift. There are more important aspects of culture than being flush with money, which the U.S. definitely is. Most particularly, the evident vulgarity, the individuality, the need for constant stimulation and its close cousin the excessive love for passive entertainment all bother and worry me. I don’t think I want to raise my children in such a cultural milieu as we have, as I worry that their minds would be corrupted so as to not allow them to be able to reach their potential.

 

[Zwing]

Beyond that, I experience a visceral reaction against the way that modern Americans seem to live. For instance, nobody eats “at table” (as a family…) in the home anymore; almost everybody I know eats on the goddamn sofa in front of the TV. Everything about the way we live seems wrong to me, as if I fell down the rabbit hole without realizing it. Where the he’ll have our notions of propriety gone? Are most of my friends simply “white trash”?

 

[Stevicus]

I would think this evident enough to require no empirical evidence.

I have grave misgivings about several aspects of modern American culture, and it’s historical drift. There are more important aspects of culture than being flush with money, which the U.S. definitely is. Most particularly, the evident vulgarity, the individuality, the need for constant stimulation and its close cousin the excessive love for passive entertainment all bother and worry me. I don’t think I want to raise my children in such a cultural milieu as we have, as I worry that their minds would be corrupted so as to not allow them to be able to reach their potential.

Yes, although not all TV is/was necessarily a cultural wasteland. Some of it was educational and decent quality. Nowadays, it's not just TV but hundreds of channels, millions of websites, Tik Tok, YouTube. We didn't have near the number of choices or access to a wide array of information as we do now. But it seems most of it appeals to the lowest common denominator. Even when people have the choice to use something for good and take the high road, we still invariably end up in the gutter.

 

[Truthseeker]

There’s a different, opposing take on this too:

Where government -promoting it as a benefit to your “autonomy”- looks after your children and your elders [on your behalf], you are less reliant on your family, neighbours and friends (sometimes, resulting in greater distancing and/or sense of solitude) but entirely dependent on government, to whom you are but a faceless number.

Humbly,
Hermit

Oh, my gosh, I posted this so long ago, I've lost my train of thought. I think I was looking not from the standpoint mainly of government taking care of us in a collective way, but of us caring about each other, instead of expecting that individual to take care of his own problems.

 

[Truthseeker]

There’s a different, opposing take on this too:

Where government -promoting it as a benefit to your “autonomy”- looks after your children and your elders [on your behalf], you are less reliant on your family, neighbours and friends (sometimes, resulting in greater distancing and/or sense of solitude) but entirely dependent on government, to whom you are but a faceless number.

Humbly,
Hermit

Oh, my gosh, I posted this so long ago, I've lost my train of thought. I think I was looking not from the standpoint mainly of government taking care of us in a collective way, but of us caring about each other, instead of expecting that individual to take care of his own problems.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

Oh, my gosh, I posted this so long ago, I've lost my train of thought. I think I was looking not from the standpoint mainly of government taking care of us in a collective way, but of us caring about each other, instead of expecting that individual to take care of his own problems.

I think you were, yes.

But your post reminded me that the promise of personal autonomy is used rhetorically, also by governments with significant power over and influence on their citizens’ lives.

It seems to me that whether you live in a capitalist, socialist or communist state; in modern times, individualism is still the ideal on everyone’s mind and “personal autonomy” is what any of these governments will say that they offer.

We want close ties, strong families and real community spirit, but we don’t want our families and friends to have control over our person and we do not want to [ourselves] raise our children or look after our parents when they’re ill and old, because we have careers and hobbies and other things to tick off our great personal bucket lists and such responsibilities stop us from being able to do that.

Yet, we should keep in mind that all responsibility is in fact power and, if we give away those fundamental responsibilities to the state, what we are giving them is just that: full power over our “autonomy”.

Autonomy is a romanticised figure of our imagination. Man is not autonomous and he never will be - man is interdependent and seldom is his interdependency free from uneven power-aspects.

The choice we have -at least in theory- is whether to be interdependent with our nearest and dearest or with a faceless body of government.

Humbly,
Hermit

 

[metis]

The choice we have -at least in theory- is whether to be interdependent with our nearest and dearest or with a faceless body of government.

In a democracy, we are the government.