[hermit]

The last 11 months has been an intensive process of turning my blindness into sight.

As this sight has developed, it's become increasingly clear to me that the great nation of my birth has become increasingly stupid. Now our country has gone to shit. Fingers are pointing everywhere but at ourselves.

I point the finger squarely at my fellow Americans, for the following crimes:

- People who value emtpy phrases like "stay the course" over prudence.

- People who gave mindless lip service to "liberty", while supporting the rollback of our freedoms.

- People who were eager to believe justifications for war, instead of exercising caution.

- People who ignored warnings that war would bankrupt our nation.

- People who claim that war is undesirable, but sometimes necessary, and then embrace that necessity.

- People who elected the same dumbass president twice, despite him being clearly incompetent, and then went on to vote for a similar dumbass cut from the same cloth.

- People who are eager to buy into all sorts of lies based on their prejudices, without actually taking a moment to verify the truthfulness of their beliefs.

- People who sold out our own manufacturing industry by buying foreign made crap because it was a few dollars cheaper. Now we have nothing but an addiction to China's plastic.

- People who still cling to the same old tired lies, despite there being a wealth of information to the contrary.

Even as I read this forum, it's clear to me that a lot of people still havn't revisited their core beliefs, but are still blaming the same old bogeymen.

I really don't know who has made America this dumb. My suspicion is that we did it all by ourselves. I don't know why.


Even worse, I've been guilty of a lot of the points above.

[Dreamtwister]

And now that you know, what are you going to do about it?

[americandream]

Farming a civilisation for mindless consumerism requires certain objective outcomes, paramount amongst which is the lack of intellectual acumen.

Whom do we blame for this? I guess we might as well ask what the contours of the ideal bee colony are.

Substance, or the lack of it, is a function of form.

[Fishman]

Hermit
I strongly agree.
The ultimate empty phrase, like "CHANGE" without asking any details.
The blind belief that others who repeated say they plan to kill you, will not try, given any chance they can.
Keep up the great intellectual dreams.

[outcast]

People have always been this way. Nothing has changed.

[AlexdeLarge]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Fishman', '
')The ultimate empty phrase, like "CHANGE" without asking any details.

[Sixstrings]

hermit wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s this sight has developed, it's become increasingly clear to me that the great nation of my birth has become increasingly stupid. Now our country has gone to crap. Fingers are pointing everywhere but at ourselves.

[Kristen]

America is narcissistic, unwilling to reflect on what she has become.

1. We're a country with an insatiable appetite for anything everyone else likes or has.

2. We are hypnotized by constant repetition of three worded catch phrases.

3. We are bombarded with constant symbols and suggestions. Look around the room and count the number of logos you can see.

4. Everything is instant and getting faster. Our minds are preoccupied with the latest gadgets and cell phones. Everytime you are out in the city notice the people always checking their phones. People can't just sit still and think.

5. We are afraid of suffering.

6. People are medicated when they "don't fit in" with society.

The list could go on forever. Our culture is so materialistic and shallow, its disgusting to those with an intelligent mind.

[wisconsin_cur]

We universalize our own experience and apply it to the whole of one culture or region.

Like,
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kristen', '
')
America is narcissistic, unwilling to reflect on what she has become.

1. We're a country with an insatiable appetite for anything everyone else likes or has.

2. We are hypnotized by constant repetition of three worded catch phrases.

3. We are bombarded with constant symbols and suggestions. Look around the room and count the number of logos you can see.

4. Everything is instant and getting faster. Our minds are preoccupied with the latest gadgets and cell phones. Everytime you are out in the city notice the people always checking their phones. People can't just sit still and think.

5. We are afraid of suffering.

6. People are medicated when they "don't fit in" with society.

The list could go on forever. Our culture is so materialistic and shallow, its disgusting to those with an intelligent mind.

[3aidlillahi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', 'W')e universalize our own experience and apply it to the whole of one culture or region.

Like,
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kristen', '
')
America is narcissistic, unwilling to reflect on what she has become.

1. We're a country with an insatiable appetite for anything everyone else likes or has.

2. We are hypnotized by constant repetition of three worded catch phrases.

3. We are bombarded with constant symbols and suggestions. Look around the room and count the number of logos you can see.

4. Everything is instant and getting faster. Our minds are preoccupied with the latest gadgets and cell phones. Everytime you are out in the city notice the people always checking their phones. People can't just sit still and think.

5. We are afraid of suffering.

6. People are medicated when they "don't fit in" with society.

The list could go on forever. Our culture is so materialistic and shallow, its disgusting to those with an intelligent mind.

[wisconsin_cur]

I would say that we often see what we want to see. Take this for example.

I have my consumerist impulses. Yes I read a lot from the library but I also buy many books, sometimes compulsively. Am I the rule or the exception to it?

I have some family members that are, to be kind, foolish hillbillies with six televisions and are, all the bad things we want to say is universally true about americans... they are also loving and kind. They are capable of saying very insightful things and great sacrifice for no gratitude or reward. The can be quite industrious and excellent problem solvers. Are they the exceptions or the rule? They are both.

I spent a summer in Indonesia (Java), living in people's homes when I was in college. I was universally adored as an American... everyone's biggest disappointment with me was that I could not play the guitar like Bon Jovi. They could also say the most racist things about other ethnic groups. What should we say is universally true about Indoesians? What is the exception that proves the rule? They are both. What one emphasizes depends upon the value judgments you want to make (usually for sub-conscious emotional reasons) more than an objective analysis of the Javanese people.

With the possible exception of #6 (which I would dispute) are these not true of all peoples? When Iran was in revolution were the people not bombarded with and susceptiable to symbols and suggestions? Where do the people live who can sit down and think... and do we say this just because our own opinions are more popular there or because there is some real measurable indicator of increased reflective behavior. Just because the symbols/suggestions of other cultures are different than my own does not mean that they are not used in other cultures. It only means that I may not recognize them.

I love it how so many of my immigrant friends cannot see the faults of America (of which there are plenty) and (some of) the natural born seem so aware and preoccupied with them ... while being equally fascinated with the virtue of some other (foreign) culture. This tells me that what is at work is not objective analysis but romance.

There is a tendency to romanticized "the other" just as there is a tendency to fear it. What we fear and romanticized is the "chrome and fins" when if fact we all come with stock engines and transmissions. Ford and Chevy learned along time ago that you do not have to change the vehicle every few years, just the outside styling. In the same way most of what passes as cultural analysis, whether it lauds one culture or casts another as evil is usually no more substantive than a bunch of hillbillies arguing whether Chevy or Ford makes better trucks.

[wisconsin_cur]

I say usually because there is room to have a real adult conversation about the relative virtues of different cultures, even as one can have an adult conversation about the relative virtues of Toyota over say Buick. But you are darned lucky to come across an adult conversation on the matter and one should be very thankful for every second of that adult conversation because it may drift into posturing at any given moment.

[3aidlillahi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')With the possible exception of #6 (which I would dispute) are these not true of all peoples? When Iran was in revolution were the people not bombarded with and susceptiable to symbols and suggestions?

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') think most of us here have spent countless hours with countless numbers of people from across the country and have been to many parts of the country to know that what Kristen says is the universal truth in America. It's certainly not a case of applying universally what's held locally (damn, I forgot what this type of argument is...).

[wisconsin_cur]

1) the title assumes that there is a progression. We have become stupid therefore we must not have been stupid at one time.

2)You do not call people stupid if they are average. If you are saying x is stupid than it assumes that this is a judgment against someone else. If I say "xyz brand oatmeal tastes like crap" I am not saying "It tastes like oatmeal" I am saying that compared to other brands of oatmeal, this brand is peculiarly bad.

3) Saying these things are "universally true" and the exceptions just prove the rule, is about as intelligent as white people who castigate blacks, "except for my friend Jim, he's ok" or "Mexicans are lazy except for Jose at the factory, he works hard" or any other bit of racist/tribal/cultural simplifications that serve only to create false divisions.

This does not mean that there are not real differences that we could talk about, only that they are not simple nor are they of the kind listed above.

[TommyJefferson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hermit', 'i')t's become increasingly clear to me that the great nation of my birth has become increasingly stupid. Now our country has gone to crap.

[3aidlillahi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '2'))You do not call people stupid if they are average. If you are saying x is stupid than it assumes that this is a judgment against someone else. If I say "xyz brand oatmeal tastes like crap" I am not saying "It tastes like oatmeal" I am saying that compared to other brands of oatmeal, this brand is peculiarly bad.

[3aidlillahi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') disagree. It's clear to me that America and the rest world have become increasingly free and wealthy over the last 100 years due to cheap oil.

[mgibbons19]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('3aidlillahi', 'W')e universalize our own experience andIt's certainly not a case of applying universally what's held locally (damn, I forgot what this type of argument is...).

[wisconsin_cur]

Since I do not have time to engage further for a couple of days I will leave the field to you only adding that if I talked about the increased pathological violence orientation of arab culture (a culture that I would contend is more unified than this mosiac called america)... or if I just said "Muslims are stupid" I would be guilty of gross over-simplification.

And if I said things like:
1. They're a people with an insatiable preoccupation with sex.

2. They are hypnotized by constant repetition of three worded catch phrases that contain the word "Allah."

3. They are bombarded with constant symbols and suggestions. Look around the room and count the number of Koran quotes you can see.

4. Everything is anger and angrier. Their minds are preoccupied with every grievence (real and imagined) of the last 1000 years. Everytime you turn on the TV they are chanting death to someone. They can't just sit still and think.

5. They are afraid of change.

6. People are executed when they "don't fit in" with society.

oh, and,

7. The exceptions just prove the rule.

I think it would be greeted with a little more critical thought than the "Americans are stupid" catch-phrase.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')tereotypes are one form of ecological fallacy