I hear these comments for not wanting to help people, and it feels like we’re worshipping individuality to the detriment of community, which is necessary for survival.
- “I don’t want my money going to ___ .”
- “This is not a democracy, it’s a constitutional republic!”
- “You don’t have any freedoms under socialism/communism.”
- “They’re just looking for a handout because they’re lazy.”
- “I’m a self-made man. I didn’t need anyone’s help.”
- “Empathy is not a virtue.”
- “I don’t see how that’s my problem.”
It’s been like that for a while (how did they get stomach chattle slavery, or the native genocide, or murdering brown people around the globe like Nam?), it’s the reason the rest of the world is very wary of Americans even if they don’t come in tanks and jets. Even Western Europeans are wary of Americans at this point, and they’re basically the same community!
I think that Roman Catholicism and offshoots (not the message of Jesus, but the unholy creation of the empire) are partly to blame, primarily the disinfo of Paul, the fed, with his “faith without works” and “you’ll be saved if you become a man worshipping polytheist!”. Ideology is very malleable, so we can do something about it, but Nietzsche already pointed to the struggle like 200 years ago and a solution proposed by the locals with local ideological tools hasn’t been found yet. Islam is the path forward for the West (and the rest of the world), but ofc you hate to hear it, even if it would offer an ideological framework based on the belief in God and objective morality (you gotta act right to save yourself, more or less Jesus’ message for everyone who’s actually read the Sermon of the Mount, for instance)… don’t forget that that gut reaction has been fostered by the powers that be in the same way that it was for the Japanese, the Vietnamese, the natives, the Africans, and now the Mexicans and Chinese. Maybe there’s something there, huh?
… wut.
If anything, Atheism is the way forward.
Replacing godheads and debating minute dogmatic differences between colonizer/authoritarian religions is not going to change things for the better. We’ve been doing that for millennia.
Emphasizing historical learning and perspectives from the breadth of the world as well as modern civic humanist principles in our communities sounds a lot more effective to me than replacing one fictitious narcissistic sky daddy with another. Go peddle your ancient brainrot elsewhere.
I really don’t think “we” have, certainly the West hasn’t (with even the term “sky daddy” showing the clear anthropomorphic nature of God in the Western man’s mind, because amoral paganism/polytheism never left, it was just superficially transformed…). The vast majority of people won’t hold themselves accountable when the pleasures of this world are too enticing if they don’t feel like they’ll be unavoidably held accountable by a higher power. With discernment, integrity, selflessness and a clear heart it’s possible to do so to a certain/great extent, but these traits are secondary in the West, where overpowering violence, trickery and the capacity to acquire goods and satisfy yourself are paramount. But whatever, I guess we’ll see.