If there is one thing that bothers me…I wanted to put the next few words in quotation marks, but I will elaborate it now. I wanted to say Western society but I realize that i don’t know enough about other societies around the world to exclude them from my observation. I also think that “Western society” can be replaced by “the Hollywood society” as in the spreader of a worldview that by now is so adopted that Stalin and Mao would be jealous at their effectiveness and hypnotic power.
Ok, one more time. If there is one thing that bothers me then it is the individualism preached by the church of Hollywood. If you observe modern culture or just talk to people you notice that a lot of people see themselves as unique, one of a kind. We are of course all unique, as in the combination of molecules stacked together to form you as a person. What most people mean with that is that they can not be treated as other people. Their perceived history and qualities are so unique that they know best how to handle themselves.
I can give an example that might clarify what I mean. I’ve been around a lot of people with mental problems. One thing that often happened is that someone took their medicine for a while but then decided that not the doctors knew what was best for them but they where the ones that knew what was best. They stopped with the medicine and awhile later they are back at square one. It is the idea that our own judgment has more value than that of others, even if you know that the other know better. People don’t like authority.
I don’t think that there where better times in the past, or that other cultures do a better job raising their kids. First of all, I only know the past through stories and books and I have lived in countries with other cultures, but I didn’t “live” that culture, at the most I was an distant observer.
Before 2016 I always thought that the culture that was prevalent before world war two was the cause for that war and the death camps. In those day’s most people didn’t decide what they would do with their life, that was decided by society and your family. People where used to obey and follow, even if it was into a grave. But after Trump was elected president, and specially now in 2020, where millions of people sheepishly follow a leader I am thoroughly confused. At the one hand everybody takes it for granted that they are an individual, an individual that can decided for themselves in what to do with their life, in a stark contrast with older generations. On the other hand they all follow a leader or an idea, this time in a stark contrast with their individualism.
My complaint seems odd, I don’t like the out of control individualism but also dislike the slavishness towards leaders/trendsetters and those trends. I prefer a more skeptical society and individual. That skepticism should not only be pointed towards society, but also towards oneself. Don’t forget that most of what we like in modern society, our medicine, computers, transportation, welfare state and so on, is born out of the skeptical minds of scientists. On of the more important rules in science is that you have to try to undermine your own conclusions, and your own thoughts.
Nochrisis 