Fear Mongering and Capitalism: A Recipe for Fascism?
Totally unfounded fear of bullshit, like "the disaster at the border" and men kissing, while truly world-historical threats that should concentrate our minds and actions, not send us into a panic, are literally suppressed.
Paging Dr Freud!
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I know, I'm way too pessimistic. A negative Nelly. I'm sure every single one of you will keep your head, your morals, and your dignity as the resources run out. Scarcity always brings out the best in people. We'll all share and climb down in a noble and fair fashion, with altruism breaking out all over.
Proof? Look at how we've all faced reality and have reorganized life now, when it's still not awful for at least some of the species, in order to meet the undeniable and inevitable (and current) crises. You can see the courage, the fortitude, the grim but joyous determination not only to survive but to thrive all over the place.
People are mostly focused on the right issues, as any flip through a daily paper anywhere on earth will instantly prove, if your daily conversations won't serve. I mean, c'mon: every single day, the vast bulk of your conversation with others is about the massive problems facing your children, right? You're not bullshitting about whether Junior got into Harvard or merely Brandeis, right, while hovering over them every second to "protect them"...while the threats guaranteed to kill them or warp their lives into some medieval hellscape go completely unaddressed. I know: you love your children more than anything. I believe you; that's what's so sad.
So, yeah, that's why I have such a deep and abiding faith in people. I don't even need to go to my experiences in my family, where people were just falling all over themselves to help others in the family. To say nothing of the families I've seen throughout my life: just an unambiguously wonderful situation of selfless love and support and affection. Or the wonderful experience of watching a set of siblings pull together and comfort and help each other as the pater familias died, as I've seen in my in-laws. It was just deeply moving to see that love actualized.
To say nothing of what you see private-tutoring SATs over 25 years; it forms a deep and abiding faith that people will definitely be able to rise to the world-historical, completely unprecedented occasion.
And just in case you think I'm taking the false comfort of the total pessimist, which is false and which is a perverse comfort, no, I'm not. (The perverse comfort of the true pessimist is that it's an excuse for inaction; it lets you off the moral hook. I mean, if we're evil and there's no chance for any progress, why tilt at windmills, right? Actually, that's no answer, as one could at minimum keep trying, like Sisyphus, simply out of moral duty--but that rarely comes up. Pessimism is a dodge.)
The final outrage is that, yes, our species clearly has the capacity to think well and act well. There are examples everywhere. That's what makes it all worse: we could solve these problems and have a better society for all. Not perfection; just better--survival-plus, call it. We could; we just don't fucking feel like it.
We. Don't. Fucking. Feel. Like. It. And we love our loved ones with a deep and abiding love; I don't doubt that for a microsecond. Just not as much as personal, usually instant gratification.
Paging Dr Freud!
"I got ze page; I am out of ze office now and won't be coming back. You're on your own and my only comment is that I wasn't pessimistic enough. See you all soon!"
I know, I'm way too pessimistic. A negative Nelly. I'm sure every single one of you will keep your head, your morals, and your dignity as the resources run out. Scarcity always brings out the best in people. We'll all share and climb down in a noble and fair fashion, with altruism breaking out all over.
Proof? Look at how we've all faced reality and have reorganized life now, when it's still not awful for at least some of the species, in order to meet the undeniable and inevitable (and current) crises. You can see the courage, the fortitude, the grim but joyous determination not only to survive but to thrive all over the place.
People are mostly focused on the right issues, as any flip through a daily paper anywhere on earth will instantly prove, if your daily conversations won't serve. I mean, c'mon: every single day, the vast bulk of your conversation with others is about the massive problems facing your children, right? You're not bullshitting about whether Junior got into Harvard or merely Brandeis, right, while hovering over them every second to "protect them"...while the threats guaranteed to kill them or warp their lives into some medieval hellscape go completely unaddressed. I know: you love your children more than anything. I believe you; that's what's so sad.
So, yeah, that's why I have such a deep and abiding faith in people. I don't even need to go to my experiences in my family, where people were just falling all over themselves to help others in the family. To say nothing of the families I've seen throughout my life: just an unambiguously wonderful situation of selfless love and support and affection. Or the wonderful experience of watching a set of siblings pull together and comfort and help each other as the pater familias died, as I've seen in my in-laws. It was just deeply moving to see that love actualized.
To say nothing of what you see private-tutoring SATs over 25 years; it forms a deep and abiding faith that people will definitely be able to rise to the world-historical, completely unprecedented occasion.
And just in case you think I'm taking the false comfort of the total pessimist, which is false and which is a perverse comfort, no, I'm not. (The perverse comfort of the true pessimist is that it's an excuse for inaction; it lets you off the moral hook. I mean, if we're evil and there's no chance for any progress, why tilt at windmills, right? Actually, that's no answer, as one could at minimum keep trying, like Sisyphus, simply out of moral duty--but that rarely comes up. Pessimism is a dodge.)
The final outrage is that, yes, our species clearly has the capacity to think well and act well. There are examples everywhere. That's what makes it all worse: we could solve these problems and have a better society for all. Not perfection; just better--survival-plus, call it. We could; we just don't fucking feel like it.
We. Don't. Fucking. Feel. Like. It. And we love our loved ones with a deep and abiding love; I don't doubt that for a microsecond. Just not as much as personal, usually instant gratification.