American Neuroses - A Cultural Analysis

[ZenMuadDib]

The essay is very insightful, although perhaps a bit hyperbolic at times. I'm not counting that as a flaw, though. An essayist's goal should be to support or compel some conclusion, and one can rarely do that with dry, "objective" language.

American architecture is also an interesting symbol of this mentality. In Europe one will often see churches and cathedrals towering above the landscape asserting their significance in the psychology of the people, even if only in their sense of history. In America such edifices cower amidst the shadows of the grand cathedrals of commerce. The subliminal effect of this on the psyche of a people can't be ignored and should not be underestimated.

Excellent point which is rarely raised, although Joseph Campbell gave it a pretty good treatment in The Power of Myth (which I highly recommend).

For this reason, it is no surprise that the Twin Towers were attacked on 9/11. Alternative theories aside, it's clear that the terrorists wanted to strike at the heart of America - our true "religious centers," so to speak. The WTC (commerce) and the Pentagon (military) were ideal targets in this regard, and the very fact that they were targeted is a point in favor of the the "official" version of events in my mind. Religious-minded people would have more motivation to think of these targets than insiders would.

Social status is by no means a new phenomenon; it has existed in various forms forever. There was a time when men would engage in deadly duels over simple matters of status. These days litigation has taken its place; duels are fought in courtrooms under the watchful eye of Judge Judy. But make no mistake! When you watch an episode of Judge Judy you are not watching a legal proceeding. Law is almost peripheral to the real dynamic going on, which is all about a person's acceptability within the parameters of materialistic measure of success and status.

Absolutely, which is the precise reason I hate Judge Judy and often have to either put on headphones or flee the room when it comes on. Such shows have practically nothing to do with law and justice and just about everything to do with providing yet another venue to shout, browbeat, and hoot various "undesirables" into the margins for popular entertainment. It's the tamer (but no less effective) version of the Roman Colosseum.

Anyhow, style-wise, you might do well to replace "Xianity" with "Christianity," since shorthand of that sort has the potential to degrade a piece of this nature. And there is a typo here:

but oblivious to the downside of the materialist Meritocracy is was to become

As for the contemporary version of the "American Dream" as you present it, I think George Carlin put it best when he said "they call it a dream because you'd have to be asleep to believe it."

Or could they simply have wanted to destroy the financial center of the U.S.?

[ZenMuadDib]

Damn, I as actually trying to avoid hyperbole.

I guess it was primarily this sentence that sent up a flag for me:

Thus a great many Americans are stuck in a crazed world of impractical and mostly shattered hopes and dreams, self-loathing, envy, despair and ultimately a festering hatred for life and fate.

It's largely accurate in principle, but I rather doubt most Americans actually feel all of that. For the most part, they are pretty well insulated from actually experiencing the full subjective force of it by the very cultural framework which ostensibly produces such results.

Americans, despite media claims, are actually a reasonably "happy" bunch in most regards. The prevalence of antidepressants and such actually confirms this rather than refuting it, in my view. Americans face so few real problems requiring substantial action that they tend to manufacture various dramas of the sort that can be potentially mitigated by Paxil, Chicken Soup for the Soul, bubble baths, etc...

I'm not sure I follow your logic. The "prevalence" of the use of antidepressants is proof to you that people are actually happy here? I've known many people who are cutters and emo kids that I would have to disagree, also I have felt these emotions myself. I'm not sure if you've really taken the time to get that deep down with yourself and the people you know.

[ZenMuadDib]

Which ones? labor theory of value goes against the very fundamental precepts of the free market.

Oh no, the poor free market. Is the free market your deity or what?

[ZenMuadDib]

My object is not to display an encyclopedic grasp of history, but to show that when you read enuf of it, you come across obscure examples that show you can replace the initial "all" in the above with "most".

There's a more general point there, which is that when you get an explanation of the form "everything is because of..." then you very likely have greatly oversimplified the situation.

Marx saying "everything is caused by class struggle" was as simplistic as saying "everything is genetic" or "everything is cultural" or trying to reduce all of economics or social structure to any one single factor (race, sex, climate, whatever).

A more recent example might be Lloyd deMause who essentially tries to reduce all of history to the history of child abuse.

That last part is very interesting. It seems to me it has to do with exploitation, which is the essence of the class struggle.

[Tomas]

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For many of USA's inmates, crime runs in the family

48% of state prisoners have relatives who have done time

ANGOLA, La. - The fate of the three Caston brothers
may well have been fixed at their births.

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/ne ... titialskip

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[daybrown]

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For many of USA's inmates, crime runs in the family

48% of state prisoners have relatives who have done time

ANGOLA, La. - The fate of the three Caston brothers
may well have been fixed at their births.

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/ne ... titialskip

.

Shuss! You will disturb sensibilities. CBS "60 Minutes", "Born to be bad" bit looked at the DNA markers. Turns out that Aristotle was right after all. Men with darker skins really are more chaloric; altho- it aint from being burned by the sun.

Do you spoze we should let non-white women know the greater risk they face of having difficult sons sired by non-white fathers?

[Tomas]

[quote="daybrown"][quote="Tomas"].

For many of USA's inmates, crime runs in the family

48% of state prisoners have relatives who have done time

ANGOLA, La. - The fate of the three Caston brothers
may well have been fixed at their births.

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/ne ... titialskip


-Daybrown-
Shuss!

-tomas-
Welcome back!




-Daybrown-
You will disturb sensibilities.

-tomas-
Yeah, a few fragile ones around these parts.




-Daybrown-
CBS "60 Minutes", "Born to be bad" bit looked at the DNA markers. Turns out that Aristotle was right after all. Men with darker skins really are more chaloric; altho- it aint from being burned by the sun.

-tomas-
But why name your offspring after (supposed) criminals the James Gang? Was the dad dropped on HIS head by the stork?




-Daybrown-
Do you spoze we should let non-white women know the greater risk they face of having difficult sons sired by non-white fathers?

-tomas-
Well I think most of the women know, but uncontrolled events get in the way. If there are no cultural incentives to prod the children to "get a life" and get outta the small villages (200 people) - what do they do?

It's sometimes worse to breed with different races considering the lighter shades have as much difficulties.

Look at Tiger Woods.

His dad was 1/2 black, 1/4 white, 1/4 american indian

His mom is 1/2 chinese and 1/2 Thai

So Tiger "is" 1/4 black, 1/4 chinese, 1/4 Thai, 1/8 white, 1/8 american indian.

Yet, he's referred to as "african-american" - yet more asian (1/2) than any other continental breed.

His swede-wife and Tiger's genetics mixed in made on Earth.

To me, it matters not a whit the shade we are.

As i said, the United Nation's population control board knows best - right?

In this case would the real sugar daddy stand up?

brown sugar

white sugar

Or does daddy - The United Nation's - color blind?

Or, Uncle Sam - United States

That's the toughie, when couples apply for a marriage license. Uncle Sam gets to sleep in the middle (and cop a feel from both) I've heard from many-a woman - he hit me!

Ditto for birth certificate - sign the children over to the state.



Tomas

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[brokenhead]

Turns out that Aristotle was right after all. Men with darker skins really are more chaloric; altho- it aint from being burned by the sun.

Could you have meant choleric?

[Tomas]

Turns out that Aristotle was right after all. Men with darker skins really are more chaloric; altho- it aint from being burned by the sun.

Could you have meant choleric?

No, he means Chaloric.

ps- Look it up.



Tomas

[daybrown]

In any case, what Aristotle referred to was the impulsive emotionality. And, it turns out, that as the melanin level goes up, the level of adrenalin tends to, while the dopamine and seratonin levels decline. These have been demonstrated to have powerful effects on behavior.

But genetics is always a crapshoot. There are impulsive white men, and self controlled men of any other color. The trick is to find a LINE of sperm donors that reliably have self control. Simply because of the better geneological data, that is much easier to do with white men and temperate zone East Asians.

This has a lot to do with the fact that both Native European and East Asian families are comfortable when progeny intermarry, but disturbed when either weds someone with higher melanin.

There is, however, a red form of melanin which has similar effects, most notably in the descendants of Eric the RED.

[brokenhead]

No, he means Chaloric.

ps- Look it up.



Tomas

Yeah, thanks, Tomas - but I did look it up.

[daybrown]

To return to the topic, I see powerful cultural changes coming, but cant tell how fast. There's been quite a bit in the last 50 years, obviously in racism and sexism. For the first time in its history, the nation is likely to not have a white man as president. But whether that is mere tokenism is a damn moot point.

He's an oreo and she prolly has undescended testes. But whatever congress is like, I see a trend for greater diversity among community lifestyles. Compare NYC, SF, and New Orleans gay lifestyles with Christian fundy heartlands & Mormon Utah. Or black oil rich TX & OK with Green Portland OR.

People are voting by moving to areas with the kind of people they feel comfortable with. The most diverse, Like CA, are having more severe economic problems. Over the last century, there's been an enormous shift from rural to urban areas and lifestyles, but now that looks like its reversing, at least among whites.

During the last century the corporate culture has been destroying the sense of community, clan, & family. That too seems to be changing, in large part because the corporations no longer offer economic security. Communities that organized around serving corporations, like Flint and Detroit MI, are coming apart, going down with the ship.

The corporate media, which has been promoting the corporate culture at the expense of all others is loosing credibility. Last nite, for instance, I saw PBS news say Whirlpool was closing plants in TN and Mexico to move jobs to the plant at Ft. Smith AR. But in email, I find out from someone who actually works there, that the net effect of the changes, whatever they do to the other plants, which may be as reported, is that there will be a net loss of 380 jobs at the Ft. Smith plant.

I expect that most of us here are aware of such distortions from those we know or get email from. Today, we picked up a hitchiker with groceries in hand, that she said she got after pawning something. Her truck had been impounded because her tag had expired, which was because her insurance had lapsed, and she, with with the rise in the cost of gas and living, simply didnt have the money.

I dont doubt that there are millions more like her, and that the impoundment lots will soon be full. The lowest income workers wont have the money to maintain the vehicles to get to work. Employers are going to be facing increasing problems between not having people show up for work, and having to lay off others because of the ripple effect as customers cant get to their place of business either.

All this goes on under the radar because the lowest paid class of workers often work under the table and are not sampled in the opinion polls. In recent trips to the city, I notice increasing numbers of clunkers on the freeways that lack tags. The cops dont seem to see them, knowing that all they'll get is a clunker that nobody will pay for to get out of impoundment. Its cheaper to buy another clunker than pay for the insurance, taxes, and tags.

This is sorta like the blind eye the legal system turns to the sales and use of Marijuanna by the poor. Nobody will pay a bondsman or lawyer, so the cops ignore it. They dont want the dealer's ass in jail, they want the money paid to get him out.

This seems to be going on at the top of the power structure as well; You can do more time for writing hot checks than you can for defrauding investors of millions. Gradually the whole system is becoming more corrupt, and this is oddly, causing people to return to investment in personal relationships, where they think they know who they are dealing with, and what they want out of it.

The most functional communities that we still have are small towns and rural areas where this tradition never died out. We can expect people in these communities to become increasingly alarmed at what is going on in the urban mass culture, and take steps to intensify the relationships they already have.