America is in a free-fall. For not only has a pandemic crippled a significant amount of our economy, some of our politicians are giving indications that they might blatantly break from The Constitution if the election results are not to their liking. And because of our pre-pandemic skyrocketing deficit, just to address the human need caused by the Covid-19 pandemic might seriously weaken our economy. That means that our nation might have to choose between its economy or its people. In addition, well established American institutions like the Post Office, Social Security, and Medicare have been put at risk by our elected officials.
On the streets there is more and more violence by both protesters and counterprotesters. The violence of the counterprotesters is practiced by fake protesters who, with their violence, hope to sabotage the protests.
The divisions in our nation make it appear that we are several nations that are at odds with each other rather than one nation. There are deep divisions between the economic classes where wealth disparity has been consistently growing for decades since our nation's passionate embrace of neoliberal capitalism. And as the wealth disparity has further separated the economic classes, so to has it driven even a greater wedge between the races as the wealth disparity between the races has also continued to grow. And the economic driving force behind these growing disparities is a hyper individualism that teaches us that the pursuit of self-interest is our only moral obligation.
And our economy has been driving a force behind the growing political disparity. For while the interests of the upper economic classes are well cared for, the same cannot be said for the interests of the middle and lower economic classes. This leaves the future of the middle class in a state of limbo. Fear of the future and an embrace of the Ayn Rand beliefs held by many in the upper classes have caused many in the middle class to imitate them by looking down with a combination of disdain for and fear of the lower economic classes.
And there is the racial divide. America was founded on white supremacy that has remained throughout our whole history. But those seeking personal significance through their American identity, especially ideological conservatives, deny the role that white supremacy has played throughout our our nation's history and/or present. Some who acknowledge the presence of white supremacy at the beginning of our nation's history wrongly believe that it was eliminated by the efforts of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s.
Of none of the above includes the divide between Americans based on sexual preferences and gender identity. The LGBT community is the latest group of people seeking to obtain the equality and freedoms mentioned in our founding documents but denied to them from the beginning of our nation's history.
But perhaps with all of those divisions, what divides us the most is our ideological differences. It is in our ideological differences that the greatest mistrust of, fear of, and perhaps hatred between Americans exist. Each group portrays the other groups as being the enemy of all Americans. Thus, there is no room for recognizing the valid points made by people from other groups.
Many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians (a.ka., Christian flaming fundamentalists), would like to blame Post Modernism with its rejection of the metanarratives from both Modernism with its reliance on science and reason and Pre Modernism with its reliance on faith and revelation. Their claims against Post Modernism look good on paper, but considering that these same Christians take part in so much of the fray between the different ideologies, their claims fail miserably.
What we see in the deep divisions between the various groups is hostility and the desire to strongly punish dissent and past wrongs along with a black-white thinking that often results in an us vs. them attitude. Meanwhile, many from all ideologies adamantly refuse to question their own ideology and heroes. In addition, each group seems to continually seek more and more power and authority in order to control others. Of course that would be the natural result of black-white thinking where people from other groups are often branded with pejorative labels and portrayed as the enemy. These traits are all part of the authoritarian personality. This personality type comes in two flavors: active and passive. Those with the active personality type seek to rule while those with the passive type not only almost blindly follow the leaders in their own group, they seek the submission of others to those same leaders.
And while the world is alert to the Covid-19 pandemic, authoritarianism is the other pandemic; it is a stealth pandemic. It exists in varying degrees in other nations in addition to the U.S.A. However, while half of our nation is paying attention to the threat of Covid-19, the threat posed by authoritarianism is not just flying in under the radar, it is being passionately embraced by people of all ideologies including conservatives, liberals, and leftists. In fact, authoritarianism is being seen by many as either something that is necessary in today's world or at least highly desirable
And though we have a limited number of active authoritarian leaders and wannabe leaders in our nation, the real threat is posed by passive authoritarians. For any authoritarian leader is powerless unless they have a following. And it is the historical example of following an authoritarian leader to the death that caused some to study authoritarianism in the first place. For authoritarianism was recognized when some tried to explore the reasons why many of the German people remained so loyal to Hitler to the end. Thus, when we embrace authoritarianism, we could be inviting Hitler-like leaders to rule over us. And that is regardless of whether we embrace authoritarianism as a conservative, liberal, or leftist.
We should also note that authoritarianism is based in fear and seeks to make us more and more dependent on our own ideology, group, and leaders and less dependent on logic and facts. One thing that makes authoritarianism attractive is that it offers security in today's upside-down world. For active authoritarians, there is the appeal to be able to control others. For passive authoritarians, there is the appeal to be taken care of. And for conservatives who oppose big government and the nanny state, it would appear that the appeal of being taken care of by powerful leaders would be counter-intuitive to say the least. But conservatism's hyper loyalty to traditions explains why they are most naturally drawn to authoritarianism.
No ideological group either has a monopoly on authoritarianism or is immune to it. But what does make anyone more vulnerable to authoritarianism's evil clutches is the height of the pedestals on which we put our own ideologies, leaders, and heroes. For the higher we build those pedestals, the more prone we are to become passive authoritarians and thus we see all others as threats. In contrast, the more the height of the pedestals we build is determined by reality, the more we realize that we all need each other's insights and help because of the faults of our own ideologies and heroes. And the more we recognize the inadequacies of our own ideologies and heroes, the more we are willing to collaborate with each other.
www.flamingfundamentalist.blogspot.com
(Please note that not all pictured here are flaming fundamentalists)
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This Month's Scripture Verse: For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. I Timothy 6:10 |
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