It’s not “All americans are selfish”. However, there is a case to be made that the culture itself promotes such a behaviour. The mindset seems to be that an individual tries to get on top of everyone else, that achieve the american dream. And this appears to be instilled since childhood.
Every nation has had some degree of a superiority complex at some point in their history, but while most nations dialed down over time, the US has dialed up. A lot of that are reverberations from Cold War propaganda.
I see that complex in a hand full of other nations and they’re all either at war or preparing to go to war. It’s disgusting and terrifying.
I strongly disagree with that. The American dream is that you get ahead through hard work, etc, but it’s not at the expense of others. It’s not winning the rat race. It’s creating something of value from your own hard labor. It’s carving a farm out of the wilderness, it’s not being under someone else’s thumb, it’s starting your own business and providing something of value.
Now I’m not saying this is always true, but the fantasied American Dream ™ isn’t about pulling down others, it’s about rising up yourself.
I agree that is how the Dream is sold, but the reality of capitalism is that it is founded on exploitation. One person can rise above others because the system is pushing them down. And in order to justify that inequality, we have the ideology of American Individualism, which says to always take care of “number one” first. So people who are born into privilege get told that they deserve it, and that people who don’t have it are undeserving because of some moral failure.
The very system breeds the ideologies of selfishness. It doesn’t matter if some Americans are different, on a societal level, we are crazily selfish.
Don’t make it an american thing, selfish people exist everywhere
It’s not “All americans are selfish”. However, there is a case to be made that the culture itself promotes such a behaviour. The mindset seems to be that an individual tries to get on top of everyone else, that achieve the american dream. And this appears to be instilled since childhood.
Every nation has had some degree of a superiority complex at some point in their history, but while most nations dialed down over time, the US has dialed up. A lot of that are reverberations from Cold War propaganda.
I see that complex in a hand full of other nations and they’re all either at war or preparing to go to war. It’s disgusting and terrifying.
I strongly disagree with that. The American dream is that you get ahead through hard work, etc, but it’s not at the expense of others. It’s not winning the rat race. It’s creating something of value from your own hard labor. It’s carving a farm out of the wilderness, it’s not being under someone else’s thumb, it’s starting your own business and providing something of value.
Now I’m not saying this is always true, but the fantasied American Dream ™ isn’t about pulling down others, it’s about rising up yourself.
I’m with you, but it also reminds me of the George Carlin quote:
I agree that is how the Dream is sold, but the reality of capitalism is that it is founded on exploitation. One person can rise above others because the system is pushing them down. And in order to justify that inequality, we have the ideology of American Individualism, which says to always take care of “number one” first. So people who are born into privilege get told that they deserve it, and that people who don’t have it are undeserving because of some moral failure.
The very system breeds the ideologies of selfishness. It doesn’t matter if some Americans are different, on a societal level, we are crazily selfish.
Capitalism is not an american exclusive either.
it’s still a more commonly insideous attitude within the imperial cores of the global north