On the demonization side: 1. Conspiracist fever dreams about the Bond-villainy of wealthy/successful 2. Socialist leanings oriented to a true north of ressentiment rather than compassion 3. Delusional recoding of mediocre prole lives as “wealthy and successful”
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All this just makes me sad. The hard part is that America is highly attached to its wealth/success orientation as both a great national strength and the root of its exceptionalism narrative. It is hard to accept that your greatest strength can also be your greatest weakness.
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Arrested development is *always* rooted in a sense of one’s strength. It is hard to move past this condition because it’s hard to notice when a strength stops being a strength and turns into a limiting self-perception. I have no suggestions. America will either grow or die.
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Btw, inequality, wealth concentration, cronyism, financialization of everything: all these are not “problems”. The are natural consequences of W/S values and enjoy basic moral sanction. If wealth+success = good, anything that favors it can at worst be inefficient, not bad.
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The “problem” America has with these things is that they let “undeserving” people get wealthy and successful, and prevent greater peaks being reached by bigger Big Men, not because they make the poor more miserable or prisons more terrible.
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America has more compassion for Bezos being harassed by Trump than people scammed by Trump University. More compassion for a well-funded startup being blocked from a market by a protectionist crony sector than people being actively hurt by the social costs of that sector.
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The US is still one of the most religious countries amongst rich western democracies. Not saying that’s a cause, but disagreeing with the monoculture statement.
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The religious culture is also entirely oriented around solving for wealth and success! From 19th century Calvinism to Napoleon Hill and Norman Vincent Peale to Joel Osteen, to be religious is to hack godliness for worldly success.
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Hmm, I'm very curious to know your take on India....we over here perhaps have too much of an 'it is what it is' attitude due to our social history.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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