Ok, let me set the stage, fill in the background for you, this was a comment wherein I try and explain to myself just what happened to the promise we once had and the ideals we once embraced, what caused us to make such a radical turn in the opposite direction ending up where we are now. For those without the interest or patience to wade through my analysis I am going to put the end at the beginning, the punch line at the beginning of the joke; then if anyone cares to see how I got there they can do the wading for themselves.
We are the most advanced materialistic culture that has ever existed on the face of the earth. I'm not looking to argue about this it is simply true, our reverence for and ability to accumulate things is a modern marvel, a Ferris wheel of spinning consumerism, a bumper car delight of shop til ya drop.
Capitalism has spawned its own Frankenstein and Frank has taken our ideals and original purpose in his mammoth mitts and he is throttling it, turning our lives into a perpetual round of follow the money. In capitalism money is the focus, the prime motivator, the bottom line even, that's what business is all about and it sure looks to me like it has started to mold our culture into its ideal.
The real driving force behind our country now is business oriented and this has pervaded and insinuated itself slowly but surely into the national consciousness; it has become the American way of life. They have put up on a very large pedestal a dollar sign and everything is for sale, money is king and look what it has done to us, look at the quality of our actions we have been corrupted by money and surface values without the ability to see beneath them, vanity, vanity all is vanity, yeah.
I believe the moneyed interests have moved in to fill our needs and provide our reason to live and it is incompatible with those ideals we could have embraced but eventually lost hold of under the influence of the materialism brought to us by dare I say it; the capitalists. A corrupting influence money is and basing a philosophy of life on it has caused us to give up what America could have become if it had stayed on the path towards a nation by the people and for the people, all the people.
Well, I don't mind stepping up to the plate and taking a swing at this. The connection between communism, fascism and certain Christian notions is an interesting thought but I'm not sure I can say I see it, in fact I don't see it at all though a case might be made for it.
From my not that well educated perspective communism while seeming to advocate for the common man (something it does have in common with Christianity) does so without the spiritual over-pinnings of God consciousness. Communism as we have seen it portrayed in our world replaces God with the State; as the centerpiece of devotion and worship, that along with whatever fearless leader rises bloodily to the top of that particular heap.
Mao and Stalin remind me more of the Caesar’s than anything else and like the Caesar’s of old they ruthlessly rubbed out the competition so that they and they alone could control the destiny of millions; essentially becoming local gods expecting gratitude and homage as if they were divine. If we were to compare them to anything it should be to God's adversary, the one that that said he wished to be enthroned higher than God, the one who suggests we should worship the created and not the creator.
Kierkegaard said something about I believe it was Socrates that has stuck with me, he said that Socrates was of the opinion that mankind had reached such intellectual heights that God and or gods had become obsolete. In other words humans no longer needed the guidance of God because we were smarter than that and could now control our own destinies and I believe that communism is of the same mind.
Fascism as it manifested itself in Germany anyway was so far removed from Christianity that it was actually anti Christian, by that I mean everything it purported to stand for was the direct opposite of the basic Christian principals. Master races, the superiority of one race over another is a distinctly pagan notion and if one looks at the way paganism was knowingly used by the Third Reich to stir the hearts of the people with the late night ceremonies of the damned, masses of people goose stepping arms raised in salute to their tin pot god with a comb over and a hairy lip.
The Germans didn't need God they had theirs already and his name was Hitler and they worshipped him as their God, their Cesar, their Fuhrer, their leader and guide, no other gods were required or welcome. Do unto other as you would have them do unto you was hardly the founding principal of the Nazi movement; no, might makes right was the concept they followed and brutally follow it they did.
Now the fact that the twentieth century was the bloodiest in history does get my attention and does deserve contemplating upon for good reason. What made the twentieth century unique in all of history that it would produce such a wholesale squandering of human lives, had human behavior radically changed in any significant way, were we so different than our ancestors before us; no, not really so why all the death and destruction?
Well, I can tell you why, it isn't that complicated; we upped the bloodshed factor drastically in the twentieth century because we used our big brains (you know the ones that no longer needed God for guidance) to devise better and better means of killing each other. We took our insights into nature and created with them bombs that decimate whole cites at a time, we used our organizational skills to create factories to efficiently eliminate masses of human beings like Detroit used to turn out cars, mass production or in this case reduction.
So while our technology has improved over time we are still the same basic beings as our ancestors we just have different toys, weapons and clothing but underneath our modern veneer we are pretty much unchanged; our behaviors still conform to ancient models some of them going back to our caveman days. When Carl Jung observed in his book "Man and His Symbols" that humanity, as a whole was suicidal he wasn't kidding, he felt that without some real changes in consciousness (self awareness) humans were likely to stay on the road that eventually leads us over the cliff.
It is sad to think that human beings who seem to have so much potential are seen by an eminent psychologist to be perhaps as unalterablely dumb as a bag of rocks when all is said and done. Just another bipeded naked ape with lemming like tendencies, smart enough to create their own demise but not perceptive enough to avoid it; what we have is intelligence what we don't have is wisdom.
How many just societies have our leaders produced in the last 6000 years or so, maybe that's too far back. How about in the last 500 years, there must have been some right, cultures that respected all of its citizens and made life worth living for them, creating an atmosphere of contentment and harmony that was available for all.
Or take our own noble experiment designed to recognize at least in theory (and that's a start) the basic equality of each and every individual citizen. That each of these individuals were of the same value regardless of race or social class, that no one deserved more respect and dignity than anyone else; we were intended to be a nation by the people and for the people, and I must say that is a very worthwhile goal.
But oooppps, we stumbled at some point and missed the path, we fell right off it and into that ditch they're always talking about. Our ideals and high values became mired in the mud by the side of the road and now the windshield wipers are having a hard time keeping a patch of glass open to see through; now we see through a muddy windshield darkly.
I've been pondering on this situation lately and I made a connection that hadn't occurred to me before. I mean I've known for awhile what the problem is but why we embraced it so wholeheartedly and with such devotion has remained a bit of a mystery until now.
We are the most advanced materialistic culture that has ever existed on the face of the earth. I'm not looking to argue about this it is simply true, our reverence for and ability to accumulate things is a modern marvel, a Ferris wheel of spinning consumerism, a bumper car delight of shop til ya drop.
Capitalism has spawned its own Frankenstein and Frank has taken our ideals and original purpose in his mammoth mitts and he is throttling it, turning our lives into a perpetual round of follow the money. In capitalism money is the focus, the prime motivator, the bottom line even, that's what business is all about and it sure looks to me like it has started to mold our culture into its ideal.
The real driving force behind our country now is business oriented and this has pervaded and insinuated itself slowly but surely into the national consciousness; it has become the American way of life. They have put up on a very large pedestal a dollar sign and everything is for sale, money is king and look what it has done to us, look at the quality of our actions we have been corrupted by money and surface values without the ability to see beneath them, vanity, vanity all is vanity, yeah.
I guess all that is debatable but let me go on and get to my connection, my insight as to why we were so susceptible to the sway of materialism and fell for it like a ton of cash registers. This is only a guess now but it seems reasonable to me, a possible factor in our ending up in this disjointed culture that seems to have jettisoned its original ideals and promise somewhere along the line.
Let me tell you how it happened, I'd been watching a British series called "Midsomer Murders" good show, anyway it takes place in these stunningly beautiful little villages and small towns that have been there for hundreds of years. Not only that they had customs and traditions that went back hundreds of years as well and then it hit me; the United States is so young that it has no roots compared to the European countries not that that is always a bad thing but without the roots of something to hold it together and provide a foundation there was a need to be filled.
I believe the moneyed interests have moved in to fill our needs and provide our reason to live and it is incompatible with those ideals we could have embraced but eventually lost hold of under the influence of the materialism brought to us by dare I say it the capitalists. A corrupting influence money is and basing a philosophy of life on it has caused us to give up what America could have become if it had stayed on the path towards a country by the people and for the people, all the people.
(cross posted from MLW)