I wonder, how much do Americans criticise their own country? At least, here in Germany, everyone is shitting on everything Germany provides and the country constantly increases her quality.
uspol (-)
@AdalwinAmillion I can't speak for all Americans, but I for one criticize America pretty heavily. That said, America isn't really a representative democracy, or even a representative republic; it has the trappings of one, but it's functionally a plutocratic oligarchy at the federal level, so "criticizing the country" does little to actually address problems. Government officials know people can be swayed by ads, so they mostly listen to moneyed interests first.
uspol (-)
@literorrery Well, I was called a "pinnacle of what is annoying about Europeans" by some American, because I criticise everything, even America, and many Americans don't seem to like that.
uspol (-)
@AdalwinAmillion There's a skein of patriotism -- really, of any love-of-community -- that thinks "above reproach" means "absolved of critique." It holds that you point all analysis _outward_ because if you love something, you handle any and all problems with it quietly and behind the scenes, if you handle them at all. Public face above all. I find that approach prevents problems from ever actually being fixed, because "saving face" is what lets people pretend they don't have problems.
uspol (-)
@AdalwinAmillion Personally, I think if we can't acknowledge our problems, admit where we've screwed up, and address our failures, we're never going to be who we want to be in the world, whether "we" is a community, a nation, or the voices in my head. Accountability is part of building trust. That starts with being honest about our own failings.
The problem is that this is really hard. I can't do it consistently or well even in my own head, and I like to think I've practiced this.
uspol (-)
@AdalwinAmillion For people who aren't used to this kind of self-reflection, or whose coping strategies are tied to a sense of impregnable identity, or resistance to loss... there are issues that have to be tackled even before the self-reflection can happen, and that takes time and energy and resources from outside that aren't always available. So we get pockets of denial, which happen to be useful for shoving through toxic narratives of outsider agitation. "Your woes are their fault!"
uspol (-)
@AdalwinAmillion This, I think, is our fundamental divide: those who question and doubt the grand metanarrative of American history and identity, versus those who don't. And those who don't are desperately fighting against the need to admit that maybe we screwed up somewhere and our systems aren't working. They're hoping to delay the ugly reckoning until it will no longer hurt them personally to have it, but the longer we wait, the worse it gets, and the more everyone else suffers.
uspol (-)
@AdalwinAmillion Now take all that and wrap it up in a layer of American Civil Mythology. The American Dream ("if you work hard, you'll get ahead") and the Self-Made Man ("only weaklings accept help") conspire to encourage people to reify their own denial, forcing them to hold up the toxic shame spiral of refusing to look for better answers outside their own head because to do so is to Fail At American. And our leaders have been exploiting this for decades, if not centuries.