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It’s exposed a fundamental flaw in US culture. Americans aren’t capable of dealing with a problem where their actions impact others more than themselves. Indiv
by PurpleFoxy 6y ago
It’s exposed a fundamental flaw in US culture. Americans aren’t capable of dealing with a problem where their actions impact others more than themselves.
Individualism breaks down when you have to do something more for everyone else than yourself.
- kortilla 6y ago> Americans aren’t capable of dealing with a problem where their actions impact others more than themselves. Lol, what a crock of shit. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-is-the-most-generous-country-but-americans-say-debt-is-keeping-them-from-giving-more-to-charity-2019-10-18 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-us-is-the-most-generou... The issue is not individualism, it’s that a significant portion of the country literally thinks COVID is overblown and that we are shutting down for “a bad flu”. I’m extremely individualist but I take covid seriously and don’t spread it to others. Individualist != selfish.
- sverhagen 6y agoYeah, there's a lot of charity in the US. Which is then often used as an argument for low taxes, so it may be a net loss. But people here do get to tout their individual donations a lot.
- kingofpandora 6y agoI'd be interested what counts as a charity ... I bet there are a lot that wouldn't qualify as charities by my own personal sensibilities.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago> Americans aren’t capable of dealing with a problem where their actions impact others more than themselves. While it's true USA'ians are probably more individualistic than many other cultures and that may translate some way even to selfishness, the above quote is a gross, incorrect and offensive description, and I'm a brit. Please don't broadbrush entire cultures.
- yorwba 6y agoMaybe a deeper issue is that people don't think of it as protecting themselves. When the pandemic first got started in China and my Chinese friends started buying particle filter masks en masse, it did not feel like they were doing it for the benefit of others. Same with individual municipalities setting up road blocks or requiring quarantine for travelers from other parts of the country. They were just selfishly trying to keep the virus away. In contrast to that, once the pandemic reached Germany, I assumed the government would handle it somehow. Turns out a large part of the government response is just telling people to behave as if they were trying really hard not to get infected.
- 411111111111111 6y agoAnd people in Germany still are shouting how it's becoming a dictatorship... A lot of the things the Chinese government did was only possible because they're not a democracy which has to answer to the courts
- jrs235 6y agoI was also going to comment on how individualism plays in this and US culture. It also doesn't help that the visible "leader" of the US happens to be an extreme narcissist. Due to trickle down culture, behaviors, and attitudes things are getting worse. I'm see the following becoming the motto across a large segment of the population: "Rules (laws) for thee, not for me." Which follows the idea of tribalism and the hidden and unconscious idea of the ingroup and outgroup and that government and laws exist to protect the ingroup from the outgroup. I have had less liberal ideas most my life. I have recently come to say "eff it, climate change whether real or not (I think it's real)and regardless of whether we humans can do anything about it or not (the forces of the universe may still be greater than we can handle and out of our control, we can either come together and take on/fight nature, or we can continue to form tribes and fight each other." Humans seem to need an enemy or something to fight and resist. Let's restore the environment. Yes, there will always be humans who want power, money, and control. Not sure what the best solution is to address that.