THE Ideology, that in its ‘Freedom’ illusion, deceives us ‘That it isn’t an Ideology’
This isn’t about America or Americans, but rather about a new ‘Way of Life’, that was born out of American values, and then ‘globally shaped’, over the past two decades, and now adopted, in vary degrees, by virtually every nation on the planet.
‘Americanism’ is not Capitalism. Americanism is a culture that is about how normal people (you and I, etc) go about their lives, interact and what they see as their ultimate purpose, and the values that are embraced to pursue that purpose. As my e-letter says, Capitalism (A supercharged versions) is ‘just’ the engine for manifesting this culture. Capitalism is easily to ‘name’ as the problem because it seems like a system that isn’t what we are part of and really the realm of the business world / Wall Street, etc..
Americanism is about ALL of ‘Us’ caught in its web. Google, Airbnb, Uber, Facebook, Amazon, Expedia, Hotel.com, Hollywood, most of The Media, etc, etc around the world, are the enablers of the spread of Americanism. ‘They’ very cleverly ‘force’ us to see the world a certain way, and to manage almost all our relationships in a Americanism way: One void of real human feeling, primarily utilitarian / transactional, for a world were selfish economic liberty is the goal.
Competition is the basis for making progress towards that goal, and so deep under it all, everyone is a competitor in a game were the ego rewards for victory, are so high that despicable human values are prized over virtue. The whole ‘game of life’ has been ‘algorithmized’ using processes that are deigned to best fit the ruthless goal, and in the process the whole of society is being channelled into being individual capitalists, to enable one to reach one’s dream.
If you have read or studied Ayn Rand, you will understand what I’m pointing to here. Americanism is basically the manifestation of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, being turbocharged through the digital age and its now global ‘process machinery’. It is all ‘cleverly’ presented to make it addictive, like candy, and just like candy it is proving to be not good for our diet!
Americanism is based on core ideals and values, which include Freedom, Individualism, Happiness, Rights, Capitalism Science and Technology.
This, notably void of any Spiritual or Beyond Human context.
In our ever increasingly, secular world, Americanism is now the globally dominant, ‘religion’ or ‘pseudo religion’.
Beyond Democratic Liberty, Americanism is about the pursuit of an ‘Economic Liberty ideal for All’. In many ways our ‘way of interacting’ in all walks of life, have become increasingly ‘algorithmised’ around this new ‘religion’.
This largely organic, global, cultural alignment, has resulted in massive, global economic upliftment. Upliftment, which has preferentially benefitted some nations and different socio-economic groups over others, but it has also largely improved ‘The Lot’, of most in the world.
At the heart of the ideology is an illusion of Freedom. This beyond democratic freedom, but rather an Individual Freedom Dream linked to Economic Freedom ‘Success’. A Freedom, now free of any Spiritually based moral / ethical restraint, and driven by an algorithim that promises more unconstrained freedom with more money, wealth and power. A Freedom that works on Machaivellian Competion requiring Domination and Exploitation of others. This breeds a cancerous Freedom that is void Responsibility: Resposibility to some bigger, Cosmic story.
The Americanism ideology is centred around the following debt centred, economic system, that has enabled the ideology’s ‘Beliefs and Value’ to take over the world:
The Engine: A turbo-charged form of capitalism, is its powerful, enabling engine.
The Fuel: A never-ending supply of human created, Money, linked to ever-expanding Debt, is this engine’s illimitable, High Octane fuel.
The Elusive Goal: The whole, Debt leveraged system, and our own voracious use of personal Debt, lures us into thinking we have a perpetual growth machine. One that can satisfy all our needs and voracious wants wants bringing each of us closer to ‘The Dream’, and its elusive ‘Happiness prize’.
Every single nation that has adopted Americanism, is in huge and ever growing debt with Nature. To put things into context: If everyone in the world lived like the Average American or Australian ‘today’, ‘we’ would need more than Five Planet Earths to sustain us. (All the other so called 1st World countries hare only slightly better on this metric.)
This means that if the whole world was as Americanism successful as them, rather than ‘just’ being the 70% in Debt with Nature that we are today, we would be a staggering 500%!
Beyond its conflict with Nature, Americanism is increasingly tearing society apart. Many have become enslaved in the process, and society has never been as stressed, angry, and as unhappy, as it is today.. Read here.
As stated above: Facebook (and all its social media offshoots), Google, Amazon, Apple, Uber, Hotel.com, AirBnB, all the Chinese equivalents, etc are the impressive pervaders of Americanism. Algorithimising human relations, so we are all Americanised in a, Relationship Context: With capitalist rewards for each one of us, as the Only Goal.
After many intense years of exploration within communities around the world, I’m beginning to realise that most people are so entrenched in Americanism, that they don’t see that firstly it is ‘just and ideology’ created by humans: That Americanism is not how all humans actually are naturally / DNA wired.
So many people tell me: “To be Greedy is to be Human” or to be some other Americanism value / belief “Is to Be Human”. People who haven’t lived in other culture and ideologies or had deep exposure to them, can’t comprehend that there are other ways of living, that are more connected to Nature.
They are slowly beginning to see the ‘Ideology problem‘ I point to…. The problem is that Americanism and its marketing has been so dominating and exploitive that most peoples’ brains are now developed to that way of working. Causing cognitive blindness.
Bernie Sanders is having a huge struggle with the, over 45 year olds, for some of this reason. And as radical as his proposed new ‘ideology’ is, it is not focusing enough on THE Problem. Undestandably he has had to appeal to the young who as a priority want the Wealth Gap addressed. The ideology solution we need to solve THE Problem, will be so foreign to almost all people that it is at this stage unpallatable, and so democratically unviable.
As the Climate Tragedy phase get mainstream this will all change. It will become like the Coronavirus situation: Not WHAT we Like, but what WE HAVE to DO! The human soon gets to like the new, as long as enough people make it The Fashion!
In Nature, and through our Spiritual conection, lies our ONLY source of solution.
We ‘ONCE’ did Belong Deeply , and therein lies hope….
PS: Trump is a ‘fine product’ of Americanism, and a growing number of Americans are are seeing the cancer of Americanism. Bernie Sanders is essentially anti-Americanism.