We tacitly teach narcissism and individualization as parents and teachers. Each child must have his/her own room, his/her own toys, etc. Grades, in school, reward individual achievement. Competition, whether it's athletic or having the best car or luxury lifestyle encourages it. One of the colonial statesmen commented that part of the "Indian problem" was that they weren't selfish enough. Native Americans practiced "give-aways" and communal property. If there was ownership, it was, among the Pueblos, in the hands of the women, and grandmothers were more powerful than chiefs in some tribes: they chose them, and if they didn't live up to their responsibilities, the grandmothers removed them. Even today, tribal casinos use the profits to build health clinics, centers for old folks, child care and after-school activities. I believe it was either Vine Deloria Jr. or Daniel R. Wildcat who, looking towards America's future, suggested Americans "tribalize," meaning we need to learn to look after each other. The welfare of the individual depends on the group; and the welfare of the group depends on the individual.
Interesting observations, Carol. I think much of so-called "American exceptionalism" revolves around our narcissistic individualism -- the way our economy is organized to reward individual effort, how resistant we are to all manner of social safety nets that are common in other rich countries, our guns, how we always talk about "rights" but rarely about "responsibilities."
I've been saying we have "too many rights and not enough responsibilities" for years, especially when watching folks grow up with Mom's Credit Card bulldozing the way for them to feel success without actually achieving it for themselves.
Not forgetting our hypocrisy about individual responsibility when we subsidize fossil fuels and arms manufacturers and bail out banks. Yet the US has enacted some social good changes in our culture. Seatbelts. Helmets. Nicotine. And we are now up against the viral evil of social media's propagation of evil.
.....bribing a crew coach to gain entrance, when the offspring doesn't row, just to access the perceived lofty university, took it to a new level , for me. [and some were outraged they were prosecuted]
Thanks for these papers. Human lives were much more complicated and much more extensive in what we ridiculously call ‘the Americas’ — too late I guess — at least that’s what I have come to understand from Charles Mann’s books ‘1491’ and ‘1493,’ and from ‘The Long Summer,’ by Brian Fagan and other books I appreciate.
Without documented laws and rules and maps, and with the tragic termination of almost all of the oral histories, and with massive deliberate destruction of recorded histories and stories by colonizers, we will have to do the best we can to piece together and understand how people conducted their societies.
When you look at the history of this country this behavior isn’t so surprising. The country was “founded”—forgive me, Native Americans—by two kinds of people: those who were so far out of the mainstream that they couldn’t function within the societies in which they lived (Puritans, etc.), and those seeking profit, from Columbus, Ferdinand, and Isabella onward. South Carolina is a good example. Europeans who settled in the Caribbean came there in search of ways to make money, and so rice and indigo plantations were born. Then what happened? They needed labor and we got slavery. The people who rebelled against England did so for profit, but they cloaked their rebellion in terms of “freedom” to attract poorer people to the fight. Is it any wonder we have the nonsense we’ve got today? Americans have bought into capitalism like a religion as well as the myth of exceptionalism that goes back to the revolution. Throw slavery and its terrible effects into the mix and you get Trump, anti-vaxxers, and a narcissism that’s so toxic it’s destroying our society.
What you are seeing here is the effect of atomization and the me me aspect of the baby boomer generation.
Our ruling class has convinced people that they do not have common interests, they do not have the ability to organize to effect change, and they better look out for number one in order to survive.
Add to that the effect of entitlement and bourgeois values of conspicuous consumption and conformity.
Like the people in NYC who see black grime on their windows and don’t make the association between auto exhaust and what they breathe into their lungs and is on their windows your friends would be surprised at how many chemicals are floating around in their blood streams from the food they eat, water they drink and air they breathe.
Body purity is a myth. Drag out the articles finding micro plastics in the bodies of seals in the arctic. If they only knew how modern industrial energy and food production contaminated their pure bodies every day they might be more focused on doing something about it other than refusing to take vaccines.
Yes this is very true. The civil rights, anti-war, feminist, environmentalist, personal freedom movements of the 1960-70s engaged in the collective action that brought about all the personal freedoms that libertarians cherish and take for granted. It is like benefiting from Union won economic gains without being a union member and then saying why should I join a union.
The problem is that with no collective responsibility for other people no society can function for very long. We are seeing that with the response to Covid you have observed. The death rate there is a relatively small % of those infected. I find it hard to ignore but others dismiss it.
Maybe with global warming when the need for collective action threatens human existence, libertarians, liberals, and progressives will see the necessity not the luxury of adopting policies that involve working together collectively for beneficial results. I hope so.
It has often happened when there was a disaster in a place that people get together to deal with it. People find themselves 'in the same boat'. It can bring people together when facing the threat because it is immediate, and for a short time, status and wealth does not matter. Every one is dirty, hungry and equally in need. They cooperate because they need to, in the moment, in order to survive.
I think the anti-vaxxers you spoke with are absolutely correct in their assessment of the “BIG” corporate establishments. These BIG corporations are running America with their BIG dollars and lobbyists buying and controlling politicians. We, the American people, have become mere pawns in their quest to see who can accumulate the most wealth.
This is no small reason why and how Trump got elected. But, obviously, Trump is NOT the solution.
We, the people, need to wrest control of our country back from the BIG corporations. This, of course, will take time. I see our position today similar to America’s position of the late 1800’s - early 1900’s. If we can end this gilded age as we did to end that gilded age we will be all the more better for it.
Exactly right, Todd. But it seems to me that it's the abuse of corporate power, as it infects and dominates our public institutions, that's at the core of the problem. We are now in the Second Gilded Age. (I find it reassuring that the first Gilded Age was remedied, to a large extent, by what historians now call the Progressive Era.)
The tragic part is that we've allowed it to happen. Corporations as people, lobbyists, Citizens United... and a Supreme Court blessing. How do we fix this and re-approach 'We the people's? I'm seeking the trail that would take us there, but not finding it. Is it even a possibility after a SC blessing?
Is it even a possibility? Not in a system with only two parties, an electoral college, and a system that awards political power based on land mass and not population.
America is not about democracy or liberty or freedom, it is all about greed and money.
The uber wealthy have no concept of “enough”. No amount of wealth is ever enough.
A dog given a bowl that never empties will literally eat himself to death.
The obsolete Electoral College and US Senate reminds me of the British "rotten borough" I've happened on a few times; fortunately, it's now extinct. A rotten borough was a region guaranteed seats in Parliament but no longer having a population warranting that level of representation. The rotten borough's small electorate could be easily come under the control of a rich person thus allowing them to buy representation in Parliament. That sounds a lot like many of our smaller states.
Mark (Borgmann) have you considered the possibilities of using the 13th amendment against "Corporations as people" and the Citizens United ruling? What????!!! But that is the anti slavery amendment. Yes. Bear with me a moment. In his Citizens United ruling, I believe (if I have it right) that a large part of Justice Kennedy's ruling was based on the fact that under the 14th amendment he could not legally favor one group of "persons" over another and all must be treated the same under the law - even if some of those persons were "unnatural persons" as in the case of Corporations. So, I ask myself, has the Supreme court painted itself into a corner?
If Slavery is, by definition, the ownership of one person by another person and Corporations are indeed "persons" under the law with constitutional protections (viz. the Citizens United finding) then it stands to reason that every privately owned and publicly traded Corporation as a "person" owned in whole or in part by other "persons" is by definition a slave (I'm not talking about the employees - I'm talking about the actual corporations!). As such (i.e. as slaves) these enslaved corporations must surely have 13th Amendment rights (further guaranteed by the 14th Amendment) that require that they (the corporations) be freed immediately from the bondage of their chattel slavery (i.e freed from their ownership as a person by another person). Yes it sounds crazy but is it not the logical consequence of Corporations as persons with equal rights to their biological brother and sister persons under the 14th amendment? (per the Citizens United ruling)
"So what?" you might ask! Well, if I'm right... ... this is a very dangerous idea. a) The immediate "emancipation" of corporations from the ownership of their stockholders would bring Wall Street crashing down with ripple effects throughout the world and likely grind the world economy to a halt. b) An argument could be made that while the Corporation has the legal right to First Amendment free speech rights it, in reality, cannot exercise those rights because all it's speech and actions are compelled by that class of "slave owners" who are simultaneously both stockholders and executives aka slave drivers/ overseers! Which would surely make such overseer stockholders (i.e. executives and slave owners) accessories to any illegal (but compelled) action of a corporate person and therefore legally liable for prosecution along with the corporation. c) anyone with stocks and shares will be forced to lose vast percentages of their wealth as they are forced to relinquish their ownership of their "corporate slaves".
Now you and I both know that the powers that be just aren't going to let that happen. So, how does the Supreme Court find its way our of this corner that they seem to have painted themselves into? Perhaps by admitting that they have been wrong all along about corporate "personhood" and that maybe, just maybe, they have to reconsider their (in my view) cavalier actions in giving the rights of biological persons so freely to the "unnatural person" that is a corporation.
I've probably missed something in my reasoning because I'm not a lawyer and would love to have a lawyer (Robert Reich perhaps) and especially a Constitutional Lawyer (Barack Obama perhaps) weigh in on this perspective!! Do you know any Constitutional Lawyers who might be interested in exploring this idea?
Wow Mark. You've made. Me wish I knew a constitutional lawyer!
You've made a fascinating argument.
I've often thought that todays' corporations are really slave owners, with their employees being the slaves... With no housing or food provided, but I digress.
Thank you for your post. It's had my head spinning for the better part of the day! 8-)
You're welcome Mark. :) :) :) It's the second time I've posted this perspective. Hoping that maybe Robert Reich will get to see it. I'm sure he's pretty connected!
Robert, as usual your on it. Individualism is running amuck in our country and mindset. It has become for some people the ego in the extreme. I, me, mine. That is all that matters, others be damed. The Impeached Con Man being the societal manifestation of ego turned deadly. Sadly it has connected itself to Capitalism in negative ways now causing global disasters on a daily basis. When ego disconnects from spirit, well here we are. Compassion, personal truth, love and service does create better worlds. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” - Spock
When ego disconnects from spirit, and from any concept of the common good. I think we need, as a society, to talk more about the common good -- about our responsibilities to one another as members of the same society. (Several years ago I wrote a book about this, called, not incidentally, The Common Good.)
I'm looking at my copy. Published in 2018 with 184 pages of body text -- enough to have an index, which it lacks. I see I made about a 20 item index of my own on the blank back pages.
Individualism must become a central topic in any discussion of the health of a nation. Individualism undermines the possibility of cohesiveness for any group. It carries with it a win-lose model of interaction. It's everyone for himself driven by the "greed is good" neo-libertarianism that has sunk its tentacles deep into our society. The other extreme is collectivism, in which the "good" is that of the state; this is embodied in communism. The balance lies in a win-win model, in which"we all do well when we ALL do well". Every member of the society must be granted equal respect, value, and ability to thrive and contribute to the common good. That is a vision of the kind of a democracy that we could become, a vision which in itself could become a motivator for change. To a remarkable extent, external threats galvanized the cohesiveness that enabled us to rise above our individualism into the greatness of our role in two World Wars. The threat of climate catastrophe could challenge us to rise above individualism to do great things once again. But the corruption of our government by the power of money makes Washington an obstacle rather than an agent for doing so.
Prof. Reich: As much as I appreciate your thesis, I also wish to expand upon it by referencing the work of research anthropologist Dorothy Lee (1905-1975). In her book Valuing the Self: What We Can Learn From Other Cultures (1976), Lee expresses concerns about American culture’s definition of “autonomy” as simply freedom from external interference. She shows, in her description of the Native American community of the Dakota, how autonomy develops through a person’s close affiliation within a positive social context. The Dakota honor without bias each member’s role, contribution, and potential. The individual feels not only valued but empowered—not merely engaged but capable. Similarly, observing autonomous individuals among her own acquaintances, Lee notes, “These people…could set out on a search for autonomy, only because somewhere in their lives they discovered true community; only when they discovered a friend, a teacher, a counselor, a priest, a wife who recognized their dignity, who valued and trusted them.”
I just subscribed for a year on the basis of this column, because it speaks to my frustration so eloquently. My liberal neighbor insists that the Covid numbers for our town are bogus. My artist neighbor across the street will not get vaxxed because she's sure she's too pure for the vaccine. (A line of dried food she tried to market has already failed, because it was, well, too dry.) Normally, I like living among liberal and creative people, but sometimes our self-involvement is just over the top, not to mention self-destructive. Yes, a third neighbor is a diehard right-winger, and I don't dare ask if he and his wife have had the shots, but at least that's no surprise. Thank you, Mr. Reich.
I agree with your take right up until the last word - individualism. This makes these people seem heroic when in fact they are just unjustifiably stubborn and most tragically selfish.
Because I had suspected that Prof Reich carefully had chosen his words, I decided to conduct a bit of research. Stumbling upon literary and cultural critic Raymond Williams, I learned, that contrary to its predecessor ‘individuality’ that throughout much of history stressed “both a unique person and his [or her] indivisible membership of a group,” ‘individualism,’ a more recent C19 coinage, emphasized “the primacy of individual states and interests” over the individual’s connection to community. I suppose Prof. Reich knows a thing or two.
I agree but have to consider it through the lens of the people who are actually “living” and my estimation is they see themselves as heroic. Like they tamed the frontier LOL It is all about how they see themselves; they could care less what we think or what reality is.
JOEOH: Presuming we agree that definitions are descriptions of reality, I grant that we must account for differences in how we understand, describe, and define our terms.
There’s narcissism and there’s stupid narcissism. I, like Dr. Reich, share some of his neighbors beliefs and have no love for big Pharma. But if one just looks below the company hierarchy and finds their are real people doing diligent work and can explain what they did and how it works, and it DOES work, then “I don’t care” morphs into “I don’t care and I am stupidly going to ignore those facts.” Look at the other headlines today and you see in “The Guardian” that we stupidly ignore the facts that we are at risk of another wave of COVID-19. That would be devastating to our economy and drive even more healthcare workers from the field. These folks may be beyond reach and some are screaming mad about mandates, taking the rest of us down with them. Stupid, selfish, destructive narcissism.
People forget that Dr Fauci literally saved countless lives in the 80's with his discoveries on treatments for the AIDS virus - and instead, he is vilified. But yes, I think the bulk of the problem is collective stupidity - as soon as the infection numbers start dropping, we run to the bars and throw away our masks, again and again. We never allow ourselves to really get ahead of this thing but act like children.
I agree that Narcissism knows no political boundaries. Your analysis is a call to be more purposeful in teaching about the public good, compassion, and the interconnections among all of us -- people, animals, the earth..... We continue to lean toward "rugged individualism" as a nation which can have its moments, I guess, but is dangerous because it ignores a necessary social compact.
I agree with Bernard Baruch, we can only live with hope for the future when we use science & moral reason to solve the problems we face. Science tells us to get vaccinated. John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" tells us to get vaccinated. Individualism & liberty have limits for those who are paying attention.
The real problem with the unvaccinated is they are filling up every hospital bed - again. That leaves no room for other critically ill patients that may be injured in an accident or having a heart attack. And nurses and doctors are quitting because they are exhausted. Time to require proof of vaccination for admittance to any hospital to be treated for COVID.
Many of us predicted this kind of outcome during the Reagan administration - the philosophy of self uber alles would have consequences. And now we have at least one generation, maybe more, who were not taught Society as a value, a necessity. Their public school education stank because it's in the interest of the GOP to turn public education into a class-based prison system. And there is no way to talk to them when they just don't care. The only choices we have are fantasies: we all become instant experts in manipulative psychology, drug them with psilocybin and talk about Society until the feel the Love and Responsibility, ostracize them, imprison them, kill them. Fantasies. The question is why are other wealthy nations not falling prey to these Self people?
I blame our inferior education system to a large degree. Also, do other countries allow religions to dictate curricula like they do here? The church/state separation hasn't happened yet, and as long as the money flows from the churches to government, this will not change.
Narcissism. 'I matter- to hell with everyone else.' I think that they are sociopathic in their approach to life. They don't really believe that the 'others' are people worthy of consideration. It is a variant of the Nazi mindset. It may be a cultural problem but these people CHOOSE to act as they do.
Unfortunately, I see his as much on the blue side as the red. I am very dismayed at how many times I hear from my liberal friends, how can you live among “those people”. If liberals or progressives want to take the moral high ground, we must understand people plight and, regardless of political party. When I have discussions with my rural friends, we agree on 80-90 % of what really matters. It is how we move forward and envision the future is where we differ.
I think you are Exactly Correct. We live in a time where it's very hard to see the Government or the Big Corporations caring about The People and so we get THAT trickle down to the citizens not caring about each other. The US is a very Dog Eat Dog Country on the Whole. We are not a collective Society, where as one does well, we all do well. That is just not an ingrain idea in the US as it is in say a European Country.
When healthcare companies make billions a year in profits in the US market - but we see inferior healthcare outcomes- we see that the success of these companies is not correlated to successfully delivered healthcare - we learn not to trust.
I am vaccinated - and would encourage everyone to get the vaccine - but how do you actually appeal to the American people. Patriotism has become a tool of empire. Solidarity has been abandoned by politicians who were supposed to have the working classes back. Our system has become predatory towards its people.
Make America great again works in the republican base becuase they feel the animus that through US history has been reserved for "the other" - African slaves, native people, non-white immigrants ( Asian, Italian, Irish, ...) to different degrees. Now that US hegemony has reached or passed its peak - profits must be extracted from Americans- including the previously protected and sacrosanct "white" people..
We don't have trust in our institutions- we don't have or share a single set of cultural ideals - or even share a set of fundemental truths. To get people vaccinated you would need counter narratives based on the specific identity of the people you want to reach.
Unfortunately the republican party thrives on creating mistrust in government - and once Biden was elected it was inevitable they would callously create doubt about the vaccine for political capital and to create a crisis.
And our institutions have been hollowed out. Why does the FDA for example allow drug companies to do their own studies - like the national vehicle safety crash test ratings- government should be taking potential drugs and performing independent testing and providing transparency and objectivity. Why is the FDA funded by the drug companies- it creates perverse incentives especially in leadership where the revolving door only opens for people who play ball.
I hate to sound callous but they cannot die fast enough. They are beyond reaching with logic, science, self-interest, empathy or compassion. They don’t care about my survival so why should I give a damn about theirs?
Darwinism is correct. Survival of the fittest is an immutable fact.
A side benefit of their untimely suicidal demise is fewer stupid or ignorant voters in upcoming elections.
Just another reason why I left the United states to live a better quality of life as an expat living overseas,
We tacitly teach narcissism and individualization as parents and teachers. Each child must have his/her own room, his/her own toys, etc. Grades, in school, reward individual achievement. Competition, whether it's athletic or having the best car or luxury lifestyle encourages it. One of the colonial statesmen commented that part of the "Indian problem" was that they weren't selfish enough. Native Americans practiced "give-aways" and communal property. If there was ownership, it was, among the Pueblos, in the hands of the women, and grandmothers were more powerful than chiefs in some tribes: they chose them, and if they didn't live up to their responsibilities, the grandmothers removed them. Even today, tribal casinos use the profits to build health clinics, centers for old folks, child care and after-school activities. I believe it was either Vine Deloria Jr. or Daniel R. Wildcat who, looking towards America's future, suggested Americans "tribalize," meaning we need to learn to look after each other. The welfare of the individual depends on the group; and the welfare of the group depends on the individual.
Interesting observations, Carol. I think much of so-called "American exceptionalism" revolves around our narcissistic individualism -- the way our economy is organized to reward individual effort, how resistant we are to all manner of social safety nets that are common in other rich countries, our guns, how we always talk about "rights" but rarely about "responsibilities."
I've been saying we have "too many rights and not enough responsibilities" for years, especially when watching folks grow up with Mom's Credit Card bulldozing the way for them to feel success without actually achieving it for themselves.
Not forgetting our hypocrisy about individual responsibility when we subsidize fossil fuels and arms manufacturers and bail out banks. Yet the US has enacted some social good changes in our culture. Seatbelts. Helmets. Nicotine. And we are now up against the viral evil of social media's propagation of evil.
.....bribing a crew coach to gain entrance, when the offspring doesn't row, just to access the perceived lofty university, took it to a new level , for me. [and some were outraged they were prosecuted]
That's a great lesson Carol! As Hillary said "it take a village". We need better villages.
The communal property myth is dismaying. I've put a fair bit of my time in American Indian law. Here are just two resources: https://daily.jstor.org/yes-americans-owned-land-before-columbus/. https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1879&context=vlr.
Thanks for these papers. Human lives were much more complicated and much more extensive in what we ridiculously call ‘the Americas’ — too late I guess — at least that’s what I have come to understand from Charles Mann’s books ‘1491’ and ‘1493,’ and from ‘The Long Summer,’ by Brian Fagan and other books I appreciate.
Without documented laws and rules and maps, and with the tragic termination of almost all of the oral histories, and with massive deliberate destruction of recorded histories and stories by colonizers, we will have to do the best we can to piece together and understand how people conducted their societies.
reading, b.rad
When you look at the history of this country this behavior isn’t so surprising. The country was “founded”—forgive me, Native Americans—by two kinds of people: those who were so far out of the mainstream that they couldn’t function within the societies in which they lived (Puritans, etc.), and those seeking profit, from Columbus, Ferdinand, and Isabella onward. South Carolina is a good example. Europeans who settled in the Caribbean came there in search of ways to make money, and so rice and indigo plantations were born. Then what happened? They needed labor and we got slavery. The people who rebelled against England did so for profit, but they cloaked their rebellion in terms of “freedom” to attract poorer people to the fight. Is it any wonder we have the nonsense we’ve got today? Americans have bought into capitalism like a religion as well as the myth of exceptionalism that goes back to the revolution. Throw slavery and its terrible effects into the mix and you get Trump, anti-vaxxers, and a narcissism that’s so toxic it’s destroying our society.
Good points, Paula. I think we tend to equate "freedom" with individualism -- when real freedom requires some degree of community.
What you are seeing here is the effect of atomization and the me me aspect of the baby boomer generation.
Our ruling class has convinced people that they do not have common interests, they do not have the ability to organize to effect change, and they better look out for number one in order to survive.
Add to that the effect of entitlement and bourgeois values of conspicuous consumption and conformity.
Like the people in NYC who see black grime on their windows and don’t make the association between auto exhaust and what they breathe into their lungs and is on their windows your friends would be surprised at how many chemicals are floating around in their blood streams from the food they eat, water they drink and air they breathe.
Body purity is a myth. Drag out the articles finding micro plastics in the bodies of seals in the arctic. If they only knew how modern industrial energy and food production contaminated their pure bodies every day they might be more focused on doing something about it other than refusing to take vaccines.
I often discover people who call themselves liberal or progressive but who are really libertarian: they don't think in terms of the common good.
Yes this is very true. The civil rights, anti-war, feminist, environmentalist, personal freedom movements of the 1960-70s engaged in the collective action that brought about all the personal freedoms that libertarians cherish and take for granted. It is like benefiting from Union won economic gains without being a union member and then saying why should I join a union.
The problem is that with no collective responsibility for other people no society can function for very long. We are seeing that with the response to Covid you have observed. The death rate there is a relatively small % of those infected. I find it hard to ignore but others dismiss it.
Maybe with global warming when the need for collective action threatens human existence, libertarians, liberals, and progressives will see the necessity not the luxury of adopting policies that involve working together collectively for beneficial results. I hope so.
It has often happened when there was a disaster in a place that people get together to deal with it. People find themselves 'in the same boat'. It can bring people together when facing the threat because it is immediate, and for a short time, status and wealth does not matter. Every one is dirty, hungry and equally in need. They cooperate because they need to, in the moment, in order to survive.
What do I think?
I think the anti-vaxxers you spoke with are absolutely correct in their assessment of the “BIG” corporate establishments. These BIG corporations are running America with their BIG dollars and lobbyists buying and controlling politicians. We, the American people, have become mere pawns in their quest to see who can accumulate the most wealth.
This is no small reason why and how Trump got elected. But, obviously, Trump is NOT the solution.
We, the people, need to wrest control of our country back from the BIG corporations. This, of course, will take time. I see our position today similar to America’s position of the late 1800’s - early 1900’s. If we can end this gilded age as we did to end that gilded age we will be all the more better for it.
Exactly right, Todd. But it seems to me that it's the abuse of corporate power, as it infects and dominates our public institutions, that's at the core of the problem. We are now in the Second Gilded Age. (I find it reassuring that the first Gilded Age was remedied, to a large extent, by what historians now call the Progressive Era.)
The tragic part is that we've allowed it to happen. Corporations as people, lobbyists, Citizens United... and a Supreme Court blessing. How do we fix this and re-approach 'We the people's? I'm seeking the trail that would take us there, but not finding it. Is it even a possibility after a SC blessing?
Is it even a possibility? Not in a system with only two parties, an electoral college, and a system that awards political power based on land mass and not population.
America is not about democracy or liberty or freedom, it is all about greed and money.
The uber wealthy have no concept of “enough”. No amount of wealth is ever enough.
A dog given a bowl that never empties will literally eat himself to death.
The obsolete Electoral College and US Senate reminds me of the British "rotten borough" I've happened on a few times; fortunately, it's now extinct. A rotten borough was a region guaranteed seats in Parliament but no longer having a population warranting that level of representation. The rotten borough's small electorate could be easily come under the control of a rich person thus allowing them to buy representation in Parliament. That sounds a lot like many of our smaller states.
Mark (Borgmann) have you considered the possibilities of using the 13th amendment against "Corporations as people" and the Citizens United ruling? What????!!! But that is the anti slavery amendment. Yes. Bear with me a moment. In his Citizens United ruling, I believe (if I have it right) that a large part of Justice Kennedy's ruling was based on the fact that under the 14th amendment he could not legally favor one group of "persons" over another and all must be treated the same under the law - even if some of those persons were "unnatural persons" as in the case of Corporations. So, I ask myself, has the Supreme court painted itself into a corner?
If Slavery is, by definition, the ownership of one person by another person and Corporations are indeed "persons" under the law with constitutional protections (viz. the Citizens United finding) then it stands to reason that every privately owned and publicly traded Corporation as a "person" owned in whole or in part by other "persons" is by definition a slave (I'm not talking about the employees - I'm talking about the actual corporations!). As such (i.e. as slaves) these enslaved corporations must surely have 13th Amendment rights (further guaranteed by the 14th Amendment) that require that they (the corporations) be freed immediately from the bondage of their chattel slavery (i.e freed from their ownership as a person by another person). Yes it sounds crazy but is it not the logical consequence of Corporations as persons with equal rights to their biological brother and sister persons under the 14th amendment? (per the Citizens United ruling)
"So what?" you might ask! Well, if I'm right... ... this is a very dangerous idea. a) The immediate "emancipation" of corporations from the ownership of their stockholders would bring Wall Street crashing down with ripple effects throughout the world and likely grind the world economy to a halt. b) An argument could be made that while the Corporation has the legal right to First Amendment free speech rights it, in reality, cannot exercise those rights because all it's speech and actions are compelled by that class of "slave owners" who are simultaneously both stockholders and executives aka slave drivers/ overseers! Which would surely make such overseer stockholders (i.e. executives and slave owners) accessories to any illegal (but compelled) action of a corporate person and therefore legally liable for prosecution along with the corporation. c) anyone with stocks and shares will be forced to lose vast percentages of their wealth as they are forced to relinquish their ownership of their "corporate slaves".
Now you and I both know that the powers that be just aren't going to let that happen. So, how does the Supreme Court find its way our of this corner that they seem to have painted themselves into? Perhaps by admitting that they have been wrong all along about corporate "personhood" and that maybe, just maybe, they have to reconsider their (in my view) cavalier actions in giving the rights of biological persons so freely to the "unnatural person" that is a corporation.
I've probably missed something in my reasoning because I'm not a lawyer and would love to have a lawyer (Robert Reich perhaps) and especially a Constitutional Lawyer (Barack Obama perhaps) weigh in on this perspective!! Do you know any Constitutional Lawyers who might be interested in exploring this idea?
Wow Mark. You've made. Me wish I knew a constitutional lawyer!
You've made a fascinating argument.
I've often thought that todays' corporations are really slave owners, with their employees being the slaves... With no housing or food provided, but I digress.
Thank you for your post. It's had my head spinning for the better part of the day! 8-)
You're welcome Mark. :) :) :) It's the second time I've posted this perspective. Hoping that maybe Robert Reich will get to see it. I'm sure he's pretty connected!
Robert, as usual your on it. Individualism is running amuck in our country and mindset. It has become for some people the ego in the extreme. I, me, mine. That is all that matters, others be damed. The Impeached Con Man being the societal manifestation of ego turned deadly. Sadly it has connected itself to Capitalism in negative ways now causing global disasters on a daily basis. When ego disconnects from spirit, well here we are. Compassion, personal truth, love and service does create better worlds. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” - Spock
When ego disconnects from spirit, and from any concept of the common good. I think we need, as a society, to talk more about the common good -- about our responsibilities to one another as members of the same society. (Several years ago I wrote a book about this, called, not incidentally, The Common Good.)
I'm looking at my copy. Published in 2018 with 184 pages of body text -- enough to have an index, which it lacks. I see I made about a 20 item index of my own on the blank back pages.
Individualism must become a central topic in any discussion of the health of a nation. Individualism undermines the possibility of cohesiveness for any group. It carries with it a win-lose model of interaction. It's everyone for himself driven by the "greed is good" neo-libertarianism that has sunk its tentacles deep into our society. The other extreme is collectivism, in which the "good" is that of the state; this is embodied in communism. The balance lies in a win-win model, in which"we all do well when we ALL do well". Every member of the society must be granted equal respect, value, and ability to thrive and contribute to the common good. That is a vision of the kind of a democracy that we could become, a vision which in itself could become a motivator for change. To a remarkable extent, external threats galvanized the cohesiveness that enabled us to rise above our individualism into the greatness of our role in two World Wars. The threat of climate catastrophe could challenge us to rise above individualism to do great things once again. But the corruption of our government by the power of money makes Washington an obstacle rather than an agent for doing so.
Prof. Reich: As much as I appreciate your thesis, I also wish to expand upon it by referencing the work of research anthropologist Dorothy Lee (1905-1975). In her book Valuing the Self: What We Can Learn From Other Cultures (1976), Lee expresses concerns about American culture’s definition of “autonomy” as simply freedom from external interference. She shows, in her description of the Native American community of the Dakota, how autonomy develops through a person’s close affiliation within a positive social context. The Dakota honor without bias each member’s role, contribution, and potential. The individual feels not only valued but empowered—not merely engaged but capable. Similarly, observing autonomous individuals among her own acquaintances, Lee notes, “These people…could set out on a search for autonomy, only because somewhere in their lives they discovered true community; only when they discovered a friend, a teacher, a counselor, a priest, a wife who recognized their dignity, who valued and trusted them.”
Your book really spoke to me (read it as soon as it came out) & I've been using the phrase ever since, in letters to my legislators.
I just subscribed for a year on the basis of this column, because it speaks to my frustration so eloquently. My liberal neighbor insists that the Covid numbers for our town are bogus. My artist neighbor across the street will not get vaxxed because she's sure she's too pure for the vaccine. (A line of dried food she tried to market has already failed, because it was, well, too dry.) Normally, I like living among liberal and creative people, but sometimes our self-involvement is just over the top, not to mention self-destructive. Yes, a third neighbor is a diehard right-winger, and I don't dare ask if he and his wife have had the shots, but at least that's no surprise. Thank you, Mr. Reich.
Thank you.
I agree with your take right up until the last word - individualism. This makes these people seem heroic when in fact they are just unjustifiably stubborn and most tragically selfish.
Because I had suspected that Prof Reich carefully had chosen his words, I decided to conduct a bit of research. Stumbling upon literary and cultural critic Raymond Williams, I learned, that contrary to its predecessor ‘individuality’ that throughout much of history stressed “both a unique person and his [or her] indivisible membership of a group,” ‘individualism,’ a more recent C19 coinage, emphasized “the primacy of individual states and interests” over the individual’s connection to community. I suppose Prof. Reich knows a thing or two.
I agree but have to consider it through the lens of the people who are actually “living” and my estimation is they see themselves as heroic. Like they tamed the frontier LOL It is all about how they see themselves; they could care less what we think or what reality is.
JOEOH: Presuming we agree that definitions are descriptions of reality, I grant that we must account for differences in how we understand, describe, and define our terms.
There’s narcissism and there’s stupid narcissism. I, like Dr. Reich, share some of his neighbors beliefs and have no love for big Pharma. But if one just looks below the company hierarchy and finds their are real people doing diligent work and can explain what they did and how it works, and it DOES work, then “I don’t care” morphs into “I don’t care and I am stupidly going to ignore those facts.” Look at the other headlines today and you see in “The Guardian” that we stupidly ignore the facts that we are at risk of another wave of COVID-19. That would be devastating to our economy and drive even more healthcare workers from the field. These folks may be beyond reach and some are screaming mad about mandates, taking the rest of us down with them. Stupid, selfish, destructive narcissism.
People forget that Dr Fauci literally saved countless lives in the 80's with his discoveries on treatments for the AIDS virus - and instead, he is vilified. But yes, I think the bulk of the problem is collective stupidity - as soon as the infection numbers start dropping, we run to the bars and throw away our masks, again and again. We never allow ourselves to really get ahead of this thing but act like children.
I agree that Narcissism knows no political boundaries. Your analysis is a call to be more purposeful in teaching about the public good, compassion, and the interconnections among all of us -- people, animals, the earth..... We continue to lean toward "rugged individualism" as a nation which can have its moments, I guess, but is dangerous because it ignores a necessary social compact.
I agree with Bernard Baruch, we can only live with hope for the future when we use science & moral reason to solve the problems we face. Science tells us to get vaccinated. John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" tells us to get vaccinated. Individualism & liberty have limits for those who are paying attention.
The real problem with the unvaccinated is they are filling up every hospital bed - again. That leaves no room for other critically ill patients that may be injured in an accident or having a heart attack. And nurses and doctors are quitting because they are exhausted. Time to require proof of vaccination for admittance to any hospital to be treated for COVID.
Yes, yes, yes!!
even under age people? Or those who have been misinformed by Fox news or the ex 'president'?
Many of us predicted this kind of outcome during the Reagan administration - the philosophy of self uber alles would have consequences. And now we have at least one generation, maybe more, who were not taught Society as a value, a necessity. Their public school education stank because it's in the interest of the GOP to turn public education into a class-based prison system. And there is no way to talk to them when they just don't care. The only choices we have are fantasies: we all become instant experts in manipulative psychology, drug them with psilocybin and talk about Society until the feel the Love and Responsibility, ostracize them, imprison them, kill them. Fantasies. The question is why are other wealthy nations not falling prey to these Self people?
I blame our inferior education system to a large degree. Also, do other countries allow religions to dictate curricula like they do here? The church/state separation hasn't happened yet, and as long as the money flows from the churches to government, this will not change.
Narcissism. 'I matter- to hell with everyone else.' I think that they are sociopathic in their approach to life. They don't really believe that the 'others' are people worthy of consideration. It is a variant of the Nazi mindset. It may be a cultural problem but these people CHOOSE to act as they do.
Unfortunately, I see his as much on the blue side as the red. I am very dismayed at how many times I hear from my liberal friends, how can you live among “those people”. If liberals or progressives want to take the moral high ground, we must understand people plight and, regardless of political party. When I have discussions with my rural friends, we agree on 80-90 % of what really matters. It is how we move forward and envision the future is where we differ.
I think you are Exactly Correct. We live in a time where it's very hard to see the Government or the Big Corporations caring about The People and so we get THAT trickle down to the citizens not caring about each other. The US is a very Dog Eat Dog Country on the Whole. We are not a collective Society, where as one does well, we all do well. That is just not an ingrain idea in the US as it is in say a European Country.
When healthcare companies make billions a year in profits in the US market - but we see inferior healthcare outcomes- we see that the success of these companies is not correlated to successfully delivered healthcare - we learn not to trust.
I am vaccinated - and would encourage everyone to get the vaccine - but how do you actually appeal to the American people. Patriotism has become a tool of empire. Solidarity has been abandoned by politicians who were supposed to have the working classes back. Our system has become predatory towards its people.
Make America great again works in the republican base becuase they feel the animus that through US history has been reserved for "the other" - African slaves, native people, non-white immigrants ( Asian, Italian, Irish, ...) to different degrees. Now that US hegemony has reached or passed its peak - profits must be extracted from Americans- including the previously protected and sacrosanct "white" people..
We don't have trust in our institutions- we don't have or share a single set of cultural ideals - or even share a set of fundemental truths. To get people vaccinated you would need counter narratives based on the specific identity of the people you want to reach.
Unfortunately the republican party thrives on creating mistrust in government - and once Biden was elected it was inevitable they would callously create doubt about the vaccine for political capital and to create a crisis.
And our institutions have been hollowed out. Why does the FDA for example allow drug companies to do their own studies - like the national vehicle safety crash test ratings- government should be taking potential drugs and performing independent testing and providing transparency and objectivity. Why is the FDA funded by the drug companies- it creates perverse incentives especially in leadership where the revolving door only opens for people who play ball.
Suicide is not a crime but manslaughter is.
I hate to sound callous but they cannot die fast enough. They are beyond reaching with logic, science, self-interest, empathy or compassion. They don’t care about my survival so why should I give a damn about theirs?
Darwinism is correct. Survival of the fittest is an immutable fact.
A side benefit of their untimely suicidal demise is fewer stupid or ignorant voters in upcoming elections.
Just another reason why I left the United states to live a better quality of life as an expat living overseas,
Jane…start planning to leave NOW. Don’t wait until it is too late and no country will take Anerican refugees.