On one side there is all of the things that this blog brings up. There are the Marxists in drag and the constant complainers. Unfairness and illogical "science" tries to rule the day. I think that you are right about all of this, but there is another side that most Americans never consider. We are convinced that the western ways are the ways of the world, but they are not. If we want to live in and talk about a connected world we have to understand that the roughly one billion people who reside in the anglophone world and western Europe are only a part of the population. Africa, Asia and South America all have a very different perspective on these issues and deal with them differently. The other aspect of all of this is that the influencers want us to forget about the more than 6 billion other people and the possible insights and solutions that they may also have. In Russia, the majority of the citizens do not see the west as evil, or destructive, only as insulated and out of touch. India, Africa and South America have vast amounts of natural resources and Asia has a large population of people with very different world views than the west. If we're going to fix things in America, we may need some help from people who have been largely written off by the west as being too poor or backwards to have anything to offer. It is not arrogance, but ignorance that makes so many of these issues into pernicious problems that grow and destroy like cancer. We each need our own space, but we also need to know that there are others who have some of the truth as well. All of us (myself included) tend to either forget this, or to have major blind spots because of parts of our own experience and worldview that have been only partially examined.
Other possibilities could be helpful. Not sure if you need an explanation why they're being overlooked, but I might have one.
The people open to other ideas are likely the ones who are complicit with the bad ideas America has right now. And don't see a problem to look elsewhere yet. And the ones who aren't complicit are cautious. Hindus infiltrated the catholic church and Protestant churches as well in the 60s and 70s. They got some people to think that their God was evil or that a god being evil could be a good thing. Lots of confusion back then, which came in like a Trojan horse and helped the Marxists. Some people may be trying to avoid a repeat.
But you offer up a good point regardless. As Mulder once said, The Truth is out there.
I don't think that America needs to ditch the basics, because America is the people, not the government or it's allies. I don't know why the Hindus thought to infiltrate the churches, because true Hinduism, like true Christianity is not as simple as a set of rules or beliefs, but a total system that requires commitment, so using it like a Trojan horse takes away all of it's purported benefits. I think that the mindset of other cultures shows a window to other possibilities. Just like India imported the American entrepreneurial spirit and began to see that poverty doesn't have to be permanent, I'm saying that the entire western world needs to see what ideas are available from the cultures they dismissed and America is properly placed to lead that. There are other possibilities that don't occur to us naturally, just like it did not occur to impoverished Hindus that they could change their lot in life until they tried out some individual capitalism and realized that their station did not have to be unchangeable.
Like you said, it's because Hinduism is one thing, but an individual who is Hindu is quite another. It probably happened out of trying to undermine churches or just simply because some wannabe gurus liked getting attention from a bunch of curious Christians during the Hippie and post-Hippie times.
If you have any examples of what exactly Americans are missing from non-Americans, that's what Substack is for. Sharing and learning and all that. At least in theory. 😁
The greatest lesson that westerners can learn from other cultures is to remember that governmental structures should not be sacred. We figured that out about the crown during the revolutionary war, but forgot about it as soon as the constitution was put in place. The people are more important that the structure of the government. We have to be able to consider starting over in regards to our government. The Chinese have done this multiple times in their history, India in the last 50 years has gone from a nearly communist country to an emerging modern state and several south american countries have written new constitutions in the last 5 years. The people who are in power are only people and America needs to remember that. We can change things without their permission. We do not even have to fight them to change things. We can refuse to opt in to their plans. That strategy is at work with many things right now, but Americans have to be willing to throw out the old structure and build another one. It doesn't mean that we have to abandon the ideas of the constitution or to destroy all of our traditions, but those things are currently tied to a system that is likely beyond reform at this point. It may be time to turn our backs on the flag in favor of something that better serves us now.
Substack is a good place for discourse. I've tried to share things in many places, but at the moment I'm trying to interact with the ideas of others rather than to promote my own ideas. For me, it is more rewarding.
On one side there is all of the things that this blog brings up. There are the Marxists in drag and the constant complainers. Unfairness and illogical "science" tries to rule the day. I think that you are right about all of this, but there is another side that most Americans never consider. We are convinced that the western ways are the ways of the world, but they are not. If we want to live in and talk about a connected world we have to understand that the roughly one billion people who reside in the anglophone world and western Europe are only a part of the population. Africa, Asia and South America all have a very different perspective on these issues and deal with them differently. The other aspect of all of this is that the influencers want us to forget about the more than 6 billion other people and the possible insights and solutions that they may also have. In Russia, the majority of the citizens do not see the west as evil, or destructive, only as insulated and out of touch. India, Africa and South America have vast amounts of natural resources and Asia has a large population of people with very different world views than the west. If we're going to fix things in America, we may need some help from people who have been largely written off by the west as being too poor or backwards to have anything to offer. It is not arrogance, but ignorance that makes so many of these issues into pernicious problems that grow and destroy like cancer. We each need our own space, but we also need to know that there are others who have some of the truth as well. All of us (myself included) tend to either forget this, or to have major blind spots because of parts of our own experience and worldview that have been only partially examined.
Other possibilities could be helpful. Not sure if you need an explanation why they're being overlooked, but I might have one.
The people open to other ideas are likely the ones who are complicit with the bad ideas America has right now. And don't see a problem to look elsewhere yet. And the ones who aren't complicit are cautious. Hindus infiltrated the catholic church and Protestant churches as well in the 60s and 70s. They got some people to think that their God was evil or that a god being evil could be a good thing. Lots of confusion back then, which came in like a Trojan horse and helped the Marxists. Some people may be trying to avoid a repeat.
But you offer up a good point regardless. As Mulder once said, The Truth is out there.
I don't think that America needs to ditch the basics, because America is the people, not the government or it's allies. I don't know why the Hindus thought to infiltrate the churches, because true Hinduism, like true Christianity is not as simple as a set of rules or beliefs, but a total system that requires commitment, so using it like a Trojan horse takes away all of it's purported benefits. I think that the mindset of other cultures shows a window to other possibilities. Just like India imported the American entrepreneurial spirit and began to see that poverty doesn't have to be permanent, I'm saying that the entire western world needs to see what ideas are available from the cultures they dismissed and America is properly placed to lead that. There are other possibilities that don't occur to us naturally, just like it did not occur to impoverished Hindus that they could change their lot in life until they tried out some individual capitalism and realized that their station did not have to be unchangeable.
Like you said, it's because Hinduism is one thing, but an individual who is Hindu is quite another. It probably happened out of trying to undermine churches or just simply because some wannabe gurus liked getting attention from a bunch of curious Christians during the Hippie and post-Hippie times.
If you have any examples of what exactly Americans are missing from non-Americans, that's what Substack is for. Sharing and learning and all that. At least in theory. 😁
The greatest lesson that westerners can learn from other cultures is to remember that governmental structures should not be sacred. We figured that out about the crown during the revolutionary war, but forgot about it as soon as the constitution was put in place. The people are more important that the structure of the government. We have to be able to consider starting over in regards to our government. The Chinese have done this multiple times in their history, India in the last 50 years has gone from a nearly communist country to an emerging modern state and several south american countries have written new constitutions in the last 5 years. The people who are in power are only people and America needs to remember that. We can change things without their permission. We do not even have to fight them to change things. We can refuse to opt in to their plans. That strategy is at work with many things right now, but Americans have to be willing to throw out the old structure and build another one. It doesn't mean that we have to abandon the ideas of the constitution or to destroy all of our traditions, but those things are currently tied to a system that is likely beyond reform at this point. It may be time to turn our backs on the flag in favor of something that better serves us now.
Substack is a good place for discourse. I've tried to share things in many places, but at the moment I'm trying to interact with the ideas of others rather than to promote my own ideas. For me, it is more rewarding.