Society is not the government, or the nation

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 14, 2026 15:10
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SIGNYM

Saturday, January 16, 2016 8:21 PM

In past posts, I've conflated societies and nations, which was probably confusing to everyone. Especially me.

I think some people may feel that I support rabid nationalism (I don't) or Big Government (not necessarily that either, altho sometimes only Big Government can solve a problem).

I've stated over and over that I think the United States has lost its society. I believe that the EU is losing its social fabric, too, due to international bank-imposed austerity and rampant immigration.

So, what binds a society together?

More than anything, it's
A common view of what's right and what's wrong, and
A common language.

If you don't have those, you don't have a society.

Time and time again, I hear Democratic and Republican politicians refer to "American values", especially around the SOTU and elections!

So, what ARE "American values"?

Hard work?
Equal opportunity competition (technocracy)?
Helping the disadvantaged?
Devil-take-the-hindmost capitalism?
White-ness?
Christianity?
Gun ownership?
Getting drunk and sleeping around as much as possible?
Taking selfies?
Sedating oneself with a smartphone and videogames?
"Freedom"?
Savings?
Investment?
Being "business friendly"?
Free trade/ open borders?

I guarantee you that whatever you pick, you'll wind up at completely different endpoints.

Now, having incompatible values may be TOLERABLE in good times, when everyone can get most of what they want. But during times of significant stress - economic and polity - the fractures in our society (if any can be said to exist) absolutely come into plain view. (Sometimes we're even forced to confront our own internal logical fractures, and that's saying something!) About half of the people seem to feel there's a significant problem, but they're all pulling in a different direction: Less guns? More guns? Less inequality? More inequality? More jobs? Free trade? The other half have mentally and morally checked out, or are so overwhelmed with their lives they've got no spare time to think about the issues.

This dysfunctionalism - IMHO- is not accidental. Through the magic of advertising and the trivialization of the media, and thanks to the power of the churches, most people have been so swamped with ghafla (distraction) they no longer recognize real, mortal threats (and not the fake ones hawked in the media).

There is an author who lived thru the dissolution of the Soviet Union- who speaks from experience about collapse. (Dmitry Orlov) There is economic collapse, there is financial collapse, there are disasters, there is impeding war, there is even national collapse. But all of these collapses are solvable for the average person, IF YOU HAVE A FUNCTIONING SOCIETY. That means that an effective number of average people agree on what the problem is, and how to solve it, and are fundamentally correct in their assessments. Right now, the people defining the problems (to them) and the solutions (in their favor) are TPTB. The rest of us are left squabbling and bickering over trivia.

When Obama speaks of a conversation long overdue, he shouldn't be talking about race. Race is just a tiny fraction of this long overdue conversation.

So, what ARE American values?

SECOND

Saturday, January 16, 2016 9:51 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Right now, the people defining the problems (to them) and the solutions (in their favor) are TPTB. The rest of us are left squabbling and bickering over trivia.

Hasn't it always been like this? At the very beginning, Washington, Jefferson and Monroe were TPTB and #1, #2 & #5 richest presidents of all time.
http://business.time.com/2014/02/15/the-10-richest-presidents-in-ameri
can-history/

And today's Christians in America split themselves into 35 major groups for trivial reasons. They squabble and bicker about every little detail in the Bible. You cannot get two of them to unite so that the number drops to 34. More likely the number will rise to 36. http://undergod.procon.org/view.background-resource.php?resourceID=87

Despite the religious conflict, churches aren't burning down competing churches, which is all America really needs to keep functioning. That is the main American value that holds the country together: don't burn down your neighbor's church! But I do get the impression that Texas Republicans want to commit arson against their political competition.

Texans have done it before when they put a torch to the Union. Didn't work so well, but it took years of war to prove it convincingly. Ted Cruz thinks this time it will work. Ted ought to extinguish his flaming torch.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 16, 2016 10:10 PM

HAHAHA!

Good description of Cruz!

Well, IMHO, we need more (at this point) that simply not burning each other's churches down. The de-industrialization and rampant financialism are serious problems that are biting us in the butt now, and will bite very hard if/when the USA dollar loses its value. Because right now, we're buying everything from abroad.

Other problems I would put in the "important" category are environmental- the collapse of fish stocks (needs international attention), loss of biodiversity, global climate shift, degradation of internal natural resources. We can't have a healthy economy on an unhealthy resource base - look at China, they tried it and see how well it's working for them!

But your mileage may vary. One way to figure out what people's values are is to have them tell you what they think the problems are.

So, what are America's big problems?

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

WISHIMAY

Saturday, January 16, 2016 10:19 PM

I don't really know much about fixing society, but I have a story this morning that I thought was interesting...

My kid has been telling me for weeks that the kids she sits with have been annoying her with how much they talk about Sean Menendez and other boys that they have crushes on. My kid doesn't care. She's not allowed to date, and like her parents, is a little bit of a late bloomer in that department.

I told her she needs to be proactive and set up boundaries. She talks to teacher and the teacher tells her that a table on the other side near the wall that no one sits at has....ta-da.... *wi-fi*.

My kid sits there for lunch and plugs her headphones into her I-Pad. A few minutes later one of her friends comes up and says "Hey, why are you over here by yourself?"

Kiddo says "Because I wanted to be by myself today and this table has wi-fi..."

Friend says "Hey everyone, come sit over here, this table has wi-fi!!"

Groan.

I think the problem is and always has been...people are just so freaking stupid! We have nothing better to do than quibble over nonsense.

SIGNYM

Saturday, January 16, 2016 11:19 PM

A fine example of the media dumbing-down the next generation. Getting people to focus on the Kardashians and Sean Menendez (whoever that is).

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SECOND

Saturday, January 16, 2016 11:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Well, IMHO, we need more (at this point) that simply not burning each other's churches down. The de-industrialization and rampant financialism are serious problems that are biting us in the butt now, and will bite very hard if/when the USA dollar loses its value. Because right now, we're buying everything from abroad.

These are all very solvable problems. Remember WWII? Remember the Great Depression? Everybody that couldn't find work during the Depression found work during the War. The USA ended up richer after the war than before. Not everyone expected that, even if the USA was on the winning side. Obviously there was no Ted Cruz in 1941 telling everyone that government is the problem, never the solution, and business must fight the War plus earn a profit, too! Cruz is a big supporter of the gold standard for the dollar. Freely printing money during WWII would have made Ted furious. "You're debasing the American dollar and destroying the very foundation of America!" he would have said.

Ted would have called for assassinating FDR over wartime price controls and rationing.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Other problems I would put in the "important" category are environmental- the collapse of fish stocks (needs international attention), loss of biodiversity, global climate shift, degradation of internal natural resources. We can't have a healthy economy on an unhealthy resource base - look at China, they tried it and see how well it's working for them!

All these problems are unsolvable so long as you insist every solution must be very profitable for business. The Chinese, the Brazilians, and the Americans can't see how to make a profit by NOT cutting down the Amazon rain forest, for example, so they won't solve it.

If going to the moon could only have been justified by the profits from raw materials returned to Earth and real estate deals on the moon, nobody would have gone there. For a brief moment in history, the moon wasn't about money. Back on Earth, Spain only explored America because the King and Queen believed they'd get rich trading with India! That didn't work out, except Spain found another motive to keep sending ships -- stolen gold and silver! The Americas were about money from beginning to end.

Doesn't always necessarily have to be about only money. Except Americans can't imagine any other reason to work on a problem.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Sunday, January 17, 2016 5:30 AM

Quote:
Doesn't always necessarily have to be about only money. Except Americans can't imagine any other reason to work on a problem.

So... American values are about profit/pillage, hegemony, and genocide?

Yeesh. Not a very good foundation to build on.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

WISHIMAY

Sunday, January 17, 2016 6:19 AM

You know, I've always had this thought that working together with other people to achieve better things for a community would be a really nice way to spend my time. Then I remember... oh, yeah...people...

EVERY DAMN TIME I've ever worked in a group with other people, someone turns into Napoleon or Rip Van Winkle or Mean Girl or is literally to dumb to understand what is happening and what they should be doing.

I can't count the number of times I have been working with hubbs on a project and it goes horribly, horribly wrong because his blood sugar dips, or he just doesn't want to be doing whatever it is and would rather be playing a video game or reading a book.

I think a lot of time just communicating IS the problem with people. Too much to say, too little comprehension, too much room for error.

I hate to be one of those "I'm afraid to try, so I fail now so I won't have to fail later" people, but I just can't seem to get anywhere with the enigma that is humanity. It really does seem that only money and brainwashing and "fear for self" are what can make people work together in any real capacity.

If we could make people think there is a gun to their heads and we will take away all their money maybe we could get somewhere...with ANYTHING...

SECOND

Sunday, January 17, 2016 7:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

So... American values are about profit/pillage, hegemony, and genocide?

If it was good enough for slaveholders Washington and Jefferson, the two richest Presidents of all times, it should be good enough for you.
www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2015/02/22/247-wall-st-richest-p
residents/23484127/

The little old ladies in my family talk about the energy and purpose of their life during WWII compared to the dullness of the 30s. They didn't go into combat yet life was filled with energy, even following the war. But a little at time the values of business came back into control of everything. By the time of Carter or Reagan (the old ladies argue about which one) it felt like being in the 1930s. There was far more money, but everything was again ruled by the almighty dollar.

I thought money and survival were the entire point of Malcolm Reynolds' existence. Then River aimed a loaded gun at Mal's face, reawakening him to a bigger universe that he had stopped caring about.

Before that gun in the face, Mal was exclusively about money and surviving – and a little sex with Nandi, the doomed hooker. Mal had been ranging across a vast universe and yet the total purpose of his life was at the same level as an amoeba. He was microscopically small minded. Even with a gun in his face, River had to cock the hammer on the pistol to get Mal to stop talking long enough to hear River's goal, which was much bigger than money or survival, alcohol or sex.

River only had to say a word and Mal got the point. Mal's a very fast thinker when he is forced to be. At gunpoint. That's why he was fun to watch.

For most people there is no River in their life to explain with a gun to their heads the bigger purpose in life than money. They will be little old ladies before faintly sensing the point Mal clearly saw after one word from River. But they could understand while young.

Which American businesses serve a bigger purpose than moneymaking? I know they are out there, but few and far between.

Trump is a fat sack of $100 bills walking upright. Trump is richer than all the Powerball Lottery winners from this year and last. He is far richer than Washington and Jefferson, the previously richest Presidents. He is the personification of money glorified. And he has a realistic chance to be President, which is a sad thing to say about Americans' values and purpose.
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/01/donald-trump-mediocre-businessm
an

America doesn't have to be this way.

SIGNYM

Sunday, January 17, 2016 10:17 PM

Here is part of my diatribe about American society that I posted under the American men + marriage + American woman thread.

Quote:
So, as far as MEN being fathers ... well, are men interested in it???

I don't know- look at JACK. Nice enough guy, but 100% interested in himself, his videogames, hot babes, and in the stinkin'-thinkin' that comes of being an alcoholic.

Not fatherhood material. Probably only good as that uncle who show up once in a while smelling lightly of booze or beer, entertaining as hell but totally undependable.

I would take a stab and say that MOST men on this board have never been fathers, and probably never will be. The only person in the past who fessed up to being a dad was CHRISISALL.

----------

What is the solution?

Well, once again, we- as a society - HAVE TO DECIDE WHAT WE WANT. Do we want a bunch of underwear-wearing, pizza-snarfing, video-game playing guys who only want a hot women to give them head once in a while while they're engrossed in their virtual worlds? IF NOT, WE HAVE TO MODEL A DIFFERENT BEHAVIOR ON THE MEDIA - one that portrays fatherhood as manly and not- as you say- a buffoon.

Do we want women who are doing their best to fit into this hyper-commercialized world, where they're encouraged to sleep around as much as possible in the mistaken belief that this is somehow "liberation"? Or who feel that they have to do everything by/among themselves because their male counterparts are lacking? THEN WE HAVE TO MODEL A DIFFERENT BEHAVIOR FOR WOMEN IN THE MEDIA.

Do we want a younger generation which realizes that life doesn't always give you happy endings every thirty minutes, that uncertainty, sacrifice, and even pain are part of the equation of being alive, that personal comfort and entertainment are not the highest goals in life, and that the art of being a human grownup is showing up, day after day, and sometimes just keeping on keeping on?

THEN WE HAVE TO REVAMP OUR ENTIRE CULTURE, WHICH FOCUSES ON THE IDEA THAT WE SHOULD FEAR BEING UNHAPPY, THAT OUR COMFORT AND TITILLATION ARE THE HIGHEST GOALS IN LIFE, THAT WE OWE NOTHING TO ANYBODY, THAT WE SHOULD BE JUST ATOMIZED CONSUMERS FLOATING IN A SEA OF POTENTIAL PURCHASES.

And that, my friend, would take such a sea-change I doubt that we will get there in my lifetime, even if there is utter catastrophic collapse compelling us in that direction.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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