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America, in contrast with most other countries, has very little cultural infrastructure to guide people. Freedom and individualism (however shallow) is emphasi

America, in contrast with most other countries, has very little cultural infrastructure to guide people. Freedom and individualism (however shallow) is emphasized. To quote an american catholic saying something very uncatholic, but very american: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and the mystery of human life.” We should not be surprised that into this psychic vacuum rushes various alternatives such as self-help, sports-worship and so forth.

FredPret 5y ago
Sports-worship is a strong feature of many religious and traditional nations as well. Think of European football fans, among many other examples.
nkssy 5y ago
Well, if your view is around individualism and shaping yourself then maybe the whole self-help industry isn't so accidental. Maybe its a progression of a strong need for materials to support that view. Other countries also have it as well but its nowhere near the seemingly overwhelming desire as in the US. Or perhaps theres a travelling sideshow element to self-help that appeals to the PT Barnum types. But I'm not so cynical.
BeetleB 5y ago
> America, in contrast with most other countries, has very little cultural infrastructure to guide people. Freedom and individualism (however shallow) is emphasized. This is very accurate. Having lived in other countries, I can say the "other" side suffers from a different extreme: Sticking to flawed social constructs that impede their progress and/or happiness, no matter how much research and/or self help you throw at them.
- bryananderson 5y ago
  As a counterpoint, we in America certainly do not seem to be immune to sticking with flawed social constructs that impede our progress/happiness. For that matter, less-individualistic societies such as European countries don’t seem immune to some of the symptoms the parent comment mentioned, such as sports-worship. There is something to the notion that American individualism comes with its unique pathologies, but there’s clearly a lot more to the story of why things like self-help have exploded. For one thing, as traditional sources of meaning have withered under the harsh lights of science and modernity, all wealthy societies have seemed to struggle with a crisis of meaning. This leaves a vacuum that gets filled with self-help (the secret to a meaningful life is here in this book), sports-worship, celebrity-worship, video-game escapism, neo-nationalism, whatever. This can be seen all over the developed world. However, America’s extreme individualism may exacerbate this crisis of meaning, since community is often itself a source of meaning. We cannot go back to pre-modernity, nor should we try. What can we do to build societies, here and now, that help people feel a sense of meaning in their lives without the ghastly drawbacks of past sources of meaning such as religion and ethnic nationalism?
  - hallway_monitor 5y ago
    Very insightful post. One thing I've often thought about America is we have less traditional sources of wisdom and value since we basically threw out all tradition. I think you left out the biggest thing people do to fill the void of existential dread: spend money! America is far more obsessed with that habit than any of the ones listed in my experience.
    - et-al 5y ago
      I've long joked that the most beautiful word in the English language is not "cellar door", but "sale".
  - didibus 5y ago
    I just don't believe this take, because I can't relate with it. I am a very happy and fulfilled person, and I've not had to engolf myself in self-help, sports-worship, celebrity-worship, video-game escapism or whatever else you listed, neither do I engolf myself in religion and ethnic nationalism. That leaves me that either your explanation is simply wrong, or only true for some individual. In my opinion, there's a false projection, it's like people complaining about Java versus the number of happy Java developers who don't care to participate either in the complaint or the praises of it online or at every occasion they find. If all you knew about it was the article and comments you'd read online, you'd think everyone dreads Java and become depressed from its prolonged use. Well I feel it similar with America and people's complaints about it. And the closest data I can find is the world surveys on self perceived happiness where people rate themselves on 0 to 10, with 10 being the happiest they can imagine themselves, and on those surveys, individualistic western countries tend to rank better. Edit: Not that I disagree with your conclusion, to help people find meaning and wellbeing in their life is great, and should be a goal of society, as long as is not forced on people, but simply provided as options that are made accessible to them to choose from if they so want.
    - maroonblazer 5y ago
      >And the closest data I can find is the world surveys on self perceived happiness where people rate themselves on 0 to 10, with 10 being the happiest they can imagine themselves, and on those surveys, individualistic western countries tend to rank better. "western countries" is a broad category that includes Europe and the UK. I think the parent was suggesting that these countries' cultures are distinct from the U.S. w/r/t finding meaning. >...to help people find meaning and wellbeing in their life is great, and should be a goal of society, as long as is not forced on people... What an odd response. Was anyone suggesting forcing anything on anyone?
_RPL5_ 5y ago
Here is a list of 200 most popular books sold at Ozon, the biggest on-line retailer in Russia: https://www.ozon.ru/highlight/top-200-knig-po-mneniyu-chitateley-ozon-22872/ https://www.ozon.ru/highlight/top-200-knig-po-mneniyu-chitat... Of the Top-12, 6 to 8 are some form of a self-help book: * 1st: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck. 2nd: Say Yes To Life, a self-help book from an Austrian Holocaust surviver. * 4th: Ben Graham's Intelligent Investor. * 5th: A Russian-author book on the art of "convincing" & "influencing" people (sound familiar?). * 6th: Another American book, "Radical Forgiveness: A Guide to Spiritual Healing" * 8th: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. * 11th: Women Who Love Too Much: If Love is Causing Suffering. Also a US book. * 12th: Atlas Shrugged. I suppose it's not a self-help book, but it's very much in line with the spirit of "open-your-eyes" literature. * If you go down the list, there is a bunch of other titles like Rich Dad Poor Dad, the full set of Nassim Taleb's quasi self-improvement books, etc. We can sort of argue whether some of these books are self-help adjacent or not (like Ben Graham or Nassim Taleb), but the trend is clear: self-improvement literature is very popular in Russia. This shows that the self-help cottage industry is not limited to the US. I think people just like the idea of self-improvement. edit: formatting
- azinman2 5y ago
  A very American trait is to assume something is very American and doesn't apply elsewhere. Usually 'elsewhere' is just defined as a shallow understanding of Europe.
  - silverpepsi 5y ago
    I think by making your comment you just committed the very error you think you're critiquing -- claiming that something common to humanity is a special attribute of Americans. The more general truth is that: it is very human to have a myth about several attributes which are supposedly unique to your culture and less applicable to a shallow stereotype of the other countries your culture leads you to be most faniliar with. For the Chinese, the Japanese, Koreans, and Americans. For the Thais, the Laoatians and Americans. Etc. on and on. With these pairings there is always an accompanying list of the things that make US not be THEM, regardless of whether or not they're factual.
chmod600 5y ago
I believe this comes from confusion between freedom as a choice with consequences, and freedom as a choice without consequences. The latter definition has taken hold over the last few decades because it is seen as offensive to reinforce good choices. Suggesting that people maintain a good diet and exercise is seen as offensive to obese people. Suggesting that people marry a good, stable partner before having children is seen as offensive to single mothers. Suggesting that people focus on jobs and careers that provide stable income is seen as crushing someone's self-actualized aspirations. And suggesting that any of these groups be responsible for the outcomes of their choices is unthinkable. When such basic advice is off-limits, what cultural infrastructure could we possibly have? Edit: removed distracting example.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  "is seen as" x 4 By who? I'm pretty sure they still teach the difference between passive and active voice in school. Passive voice is great if you want to paint in broad strokes without naming names so people can't actually discuss your points. This is choir-preaching. Or argument by implication if you want a secular term.
- lostdog 5y ago
  The cultural infrastructure we had was extremely poor. We put a ton of focus into shaming and punishing people for bad behavior, and it just didn't work. Fat shaming has resulted in even more obese people. Punishing unmarried couples didn't increase the number of stable partnerships at all. We lost the war on drugs. I don't agree with the current trends either ("it's completely ok to do bad thing X!"). However, in addition to good advice for individuals, we need to keep trying to create cultural infrastructure that really does work.
  - mkr-hn 5y ago
    I suspect the lower stress of acceptance, even when it goes overboard in cases where the thing can actually be harmful, still leads to better outcomes. Stress is a well-documented factor in weight gain, for example. My covid 19 after years of losing weight is proof! The loss came from self-acceptance. I stopped beating myself up when I slipped up, and I stopped letting other people shame me for it. That was good for 50 pounds, and I'm headed back down now that I'm vaccinated and getting as much back on track as I can. I don't have data handy, but I suspect shaming has killed more people and ruined more lives than acceptance.
blooalien 5y ago
> "… and so forth." … celebrity worship, corporation worship, politician worship, money worship, conspiracy theories …
- adolph 5y ago
  https://fs.blog/2012/04/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/ https://fs.blog/2012/04/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/ Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
  - didibus 5y ago
    Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. There are very few people not raised in religion or similar belief systems, the few I do know though simply don't worship anything in particular. It was strange for me to accept at first, like... Ok but like what are you? What do you believe in? And having someone answer: "I'm just me and I don't believe in anything, I don't even ask myself that question, I just live." was perspective changing for me. Some people actually don't worship anything, and don't care about it.
    - psychomugs 5y ago
      Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. They could've chosen to not disclose it to you or don't know the true answer for themselves. In that anecdote, they must believe that something is worth just living for, even if it is just themselves.
      - Jolter 5y ago
        You clearly need to get to know some atheists. I recommend you do some traveling in Northern Europe. You’ll find half the population are unbelievers and yet they are all basically decent people.
sakopov 5y ago
> America, in contrast with most other countries, has very little cultural infrastructure to guide people. Freedom and individualism (however shallow) is emphasized. Very true. I went to a public school in Eastern Europe and everyone had to go through the same curriculum no matter what you wanted to focus on after graduation. The basic principle here is to expose students to all subjects and let them decide what they want to focus on in places of higher education. However, in American schools it seemed that you could pretty much weave your way through public schools only taking courses you think you need after you cover some of the basic subjects. There are several problems with this approach. First of all, you're never exposed to subjects that you didn't originally have interest in, but could potentially have appreciation for had you invested some time learning about them. Secondly, your scope of knowledge ends up being pretty narrowly limited to things that you're interested in while having little to no idea about everything else. Lastly, I think colleges and universities end up picking up the slack here when they start teaching coursework that should've otherwise been part of public school curriculum. All-in-all, it is my belief that having at least surface-level understanding in various subjects does make a difference as you get older because it gives you just enough knowledge to be able to look at life in a different light and, at the very least, have a general idea how to start making adjustments. Not to say that you won't need help. In fact, you still might but you're in a much better place than where you would be blindly following someone's advice in a gimmicky self-help book.
- azinman2 5y ago
  I don't think you have an accurate account of American education. Often times there is some level of freedom in high school, but undoubtedly one is forced to take classes from most disciplines. I think what changes is often the advancement one gets to (some might take Calculus, others stop at pre-Calculus or even trigonometry). But I don't think there are many high schools where one stops taking math, science, humanities, etc at all possibly with the exception of the last year. Similarly, most colleges have broad requirements beyond your major. I had to take many classes in humanities, physical, math, sociology, and other areas, for example, even though I was a cognitive science major. My understanding is that this is actually more broad than typical universities in Europe where one only focuses on their area (or certainly at least medical school is that way in many European countries).
psychomugs 5y ago
I've been binging Adam Curtis documentaries recently, and the unifying thread has been the rise of individualism and its being coopted by commerce. In a discussion regarding HyperNormalization [1], he argued that we're beginning to realize how shallow this individualism is, and religion will rear its head at some point to fill this void. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIHC4NNScEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIHC4NNScEI
- oldmanrahul 5y ago
  Thanks for the link. Really enjoyed this take on individualism
- gambiting 5y ago
  Hypernomalization is great, one of my favourite documentaries and I can't recommend it enough to people.
- sjtindell 5y ago
  Century of the Self is my favorite documentary of all time. Great callout.
- userbinator 5y ago
  and religion will rear its head at some point to fill this void. It already did --- it's called politics.
  - psychomugs 5y ago
    This comment strongly suggests that you didn't watch the video and are not familiar with Curtis' work, considering he discusses politics at great length in essentially all of them. From ~7:00 in the video I linked: "The problem for politics of the rise of individualism is that it can't deal with it. Politics requires you to say to people as a political party, come with me, join with us together and we will use that collective power to change the world. But to do that you have to accept that you are part of something, you have to surrender yourself to something. And for the radical movements, that was a disaster. But more than that, it was a disaster for politics generally. Because political parties fell away. So what then politicians they were then faced by is the fact that they didn't have mass support so they couldn't do the main thing that mass democratic politics rose up to do which is to be your representative, your bridgehead into power." Later on in the video: "I do think that one thing that's going to come back onto the table is religion. Because I think the real weakness of the modern systems of managing us as individuals is that it cannot deal with our own mortality... The sense that when they die something will go on and they will be part of something that's going on... In the modern rational, efficient, utilitarian, technocratic world of managing the individual - [the world] cannot give you any consolation." I don't see how politics could answer that.
fullshark 5y ago
What is cultural infrastructure in other countries? Is it just religion / worship?
- sasaf5 5y ago
  Thousands of years of history, local legends unaffected by foreign religions, carefully maintained genealogy trees, archives of state decisions from eons ago etc... To be fair with the US, they have formed a pretty neat legend around the founding fathers and the constitution. I would consider that cultural infrastructure.
- rayiner 5y ago
  It’s not just religion. In Bangladesh, where I’m from, there’s a whole bunch of social norms and practices enforced by your mom talking about you to your aunties and your dad talking with your uncles. In fact, my family was quite non-religious, but we still had all this cultural infrastructure. Two concrete examples. Families have strong involvement in marriage. This isn’t just “here’s your spouse take it or leave it.” It’s a process by which people who have been married a long time and coach a young person about what qualities to look for in a marriage partner. (I remember my wife remarking 8 years into our American-style marriage that she was surprised by how inconsequential her dating preferences at 25 turned out to be. “Who cares what kind of music your husband likes at 2 am when the baby is crying?”) There’s also a lot of active coaching in marriage. I remember my dad being dispatched by the aunties to fly to another state to coach a young couple going through a rough patch.
- aerosmile 5y ago
  It would be the concept of "tradition," which means very different things in the US and Europe. First and foremost, there's the pure frequency in which that term is used. Good luck spending a day in Europe and not being exposed to one tradition or another. It's kind of cute in a superficial way (the way that people dress up for balls in Vienna), and very counter-progressive in others (the way that doctors are more respected than programmers). I would also wage to say that the pure interpretation of the term is a bit different. In the US, using the term "traditionally" in a sentence could have a positive connotation (eg: "traditionally, we celebrate new launches with some drinks") or a negative connotation ("those traditional companies are usually lacking in technology"). In contrast, invoking the term "tradition" in a sentence in, let's say Germany, would be to describe a near-religious ritual that cannot and must not be changed or even questioned (eg: "for Oktoberfest, people dress in traditional outfits that include lederhosen and dirndls.") I struggle to think of a frequent context in Germany in which the term traditional would have a negative connotation. All this is to say that tradition is a wonderful thing if your circumstances lead you to invoke as little change as possible. But for those seeking social mobility and other types of change in their lives, I would argue that traditions can be very negative.
timoth3y 5y ago
> Freedom and individualism (however shallow) is emphasized. It's really not though. By Western standards, America is a very conformist country. You can see this in how schoolchildren are required to pledge allegiance to the flag, to the slow acceptance of gay rights, to controversy over saying over "Happy Holidays." I deeply wish America was a country that supported individualism in the sense of supporting and even celebrating the right to live your life as you see fit. All too often, however, it seems that this love of "individualism" only surfaces when someone needs help or asks for cooperation. That's not individualism. This simply selfishness.
- silverpepsi 5y ago
  "By Western standards" as in you can point to other countries that are clearly more individualistic or do you mean by the measure of Western philosophies of the concept of individualism??
  - timoth3y 5y ago
    I don't think there is a philosophical agreement on what constitutes "individualism", so I won't try to speak to that. However, for the purpose of this discussion, we are talking about a society's relative tolerance of individuals choosing to live their life the way they wish and a relatively weak emphasis on social conformity. I'm sure someone has done proper quantitative research on this, but offhand, I think the Netherlands would score pretty high. P.S. I used "Western standards" to differentiate from developed Asian nations like Japan, Korea, and Singapore which are more conformist.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- buzzert 5y ago
  > slow acceptance of gay rights Huh? Many US states legalized same-sex marriage before other Western democracies like France, New Zealand, Germany, etc. What exactly was slow? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage

FredPret 5y ago

Sports-worship is a strong feature of many religious and traditional nations as well. Think of European football fans, among many other examples.

nkssy 5y ago

Well, if your view is around individualism and shaping yourself then maybe the whole self-help industry isn't so accidental. Maybe its a progression of a strong need for materials to support that view. Other countries also have it as well but its nowhere near the seemingly overwhelming desire as in the US. Or perhaps theres a travelling sideshow element to self-help that appeals to the PT Barnum types. But I'm not so cynical.

BeetleB 5y ago

> America, in contrast with most other countries, has very little cultural infrastructure to guide people. Freedom and individualism (however shallow) is emphasized. This is very accurate. Having lived in other countries, I can say the "other" side suffers from a different extreme: Sticking to flawed social constructs that impede their progress and/or happiness, no matter how much research and/or self help you throw at them.

bryananderson 5y ago
As a counterpoint, we in America certainly do not seem to be immune to sticking with flawed social constructs that impede our progress/happiness. For that matter, less-individualistic societies such as European countries don’t seem immune to some of the symptoms the parent comment mentioned, such as sports-worship. There is something to the notion that American individualism comes with its unique pathologies, but there’s clearly a lot more to the story of why things like self-help have exploded. For one thing, as traditional sources of meaning have withered under the harsh lights of science and modernity, all wealthy societies have seemed to struggle with a crisis of meaning. This leaves a vacuum that gets filled with self-help (the secret to a meaningful life is here in this book), sports-worship, celebrity-worship, video-game escapism, neo-nationalism, whatever. This can be seen all over the developed world. However, America’s extreme individualism may exacerbate this crisis of meaning, since community is often itself a source of meaning. We cannot go back to pre-modernity, nor should we try. What can we do to build societies, here and now, that help people feel a sense of meaning in their lives without the ghastly drawbacks of past sources of meaning such as religion and ethnic nationalism?
- hallway_monitor 5y ago
  Very insightful post. One thing I've often thought about America is we have less traditional sources of wisdom and value since we basically threw out all tradition. I think you left out the biggest thing people do to fill the void of existential dread: spend money! America is far more obsessed with that habit than any of the ones listed in my experience.
  - et-al 5y ago
    I've long joked that the most beautiful word in the English language is not "cellar door", but "sale".
- didibus 5y ago
  I just don't believe this take, because I can't relate with it. I am a very happy and fulfilled person, and I've not had to engolf myself in self-help, sports-worship, celebrity-worship, video-game escapism or whatever else you listed, neither do I engolf myself in religion and ethnic nationalism. That leaves me that either your explanation is simply wrong, or only true for some individual. In my opinion, there's a false projection, it's like people complaining about Java versus the number of happy Java developers who don't care to participate either in the complaint or the praises of it online or at every occasion they find. If all you knew about it was the article and comments you'd read online, you'd think everyone dreads Java and become depressed from its prolonged use. Well I feel it similar with America and people's complaints about it. And the closest data I can find is the world surveys on self perceived happiness where people rate themselves on 0 to 10, with 10 being the happiest they can imagine themselves, and on those surveys, individualistic western countries tend to rank better. Edit: Not that I disagree with your conclusion, to help people find meaning and wellbeing in their life is great, and should be a goal of society, as long as is not forced on people, but simply provided as options that are made accessible to them to choose from if they so want.
  - maroonblazer 5y ago
    >And the closest data I can find is the world surveys on self perceived happiness where people rate themselves on 0 to 10, with 10 being the happiest they can imagine themselves, and on those surveys, individualistic western countries tend to rank better. "western countries" is a broad category that includes Europe and the UK. I think the parent was suggesting that these countries' cultures are distinct from the U.S. w/r/t finding meaning. >...to help people find meaning and wellbeing in their life is great, and should be a goal of society, as long as is not forced on people... What an odd response. Was anyone suggesting forcing anything on anyone?

_RPL5_ 5y ago

Here is a list of 200 most popular books sold at Ozon, the biggest on-line retailer in Russia: https://www.ozon.ru/highlight/top-200-knig-po-mneniyu-chitateley-ozon-22872/ https://www.ozon.ru/highlight/top-200-knig-po-mneniyu-chitat... Of the Top-12, 6 to 8 are some form of a self-help book: * 1st: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck. 2nd: Say Yes To Life, a self-help book from an Austrian Holocaust surviver. * 4th: Ben Graham's Intelligent Investor. * 5th: A Russian-author book on the art of "convincing" & "influencing" people (sound familiar?). * 6th: Another American book, "Radical Forgiveness: A Guide to Spiritual Healing" * 8th: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. * 11th: Women Who Love Too Much: If Love is Causing Suffering. Also a US book. * 12th: Atlas Shrugged. I suppose it's not a self-help book, but it's very much in line with the spirit of "open-your-eyes" literature. * If you go down the list, there is a bunch of other titles like Rich Dad Poor Dad, the full set of Nassim Taleb's quasi self-improvement books, etc. We can sort of argue whether some of these books are self-help adjacent or not (like Ben Graham or Nassim Taleb), but the trend is clear: self-improvement literature is very popular in Russia. This shows that the self-help cottage industry is not limited to the US. I think people just like the idea of self-improvement. edit: formatting

azinman2 5y ago
A very American trait is to assume something is very American and doesn't apply elsewhere. Usually 'elsewhere' is just defined as a shallow understanding of Europe.
- silverpepsi 5y ago
  I think by making your comment you just committed the very error you think you're critiquing -- claiming that something common to humanity is a special attribute of Americans. The more general truth is that: it is very human to have a myth about several attributes which are supposedly unique to your culture and less applicable to a shallow stereotype of the other countries your culture leads you to be most faniliar with. For the Chinese, the Japanese, Koreans, and Americans. For the Thais, the Laoatians and Americans. Etc. on and on. With these pairings there is always an accompanying list of the things that make US not be THEM, regardless of whether or not they're factual.

chmod600 5y ago

I believe this comes from confusion between freedom as a choice with consequences, and freedom as a choice without consequences. The latter definition has taken hold over the last few decades because it is seen as offensive to reinforce good choices. Suggesting that people maintain a good diet and exercise is seen as offensive to obese people. Suggesting that people marry a good, stable partner before having children is seen as offensive to single mothers. Suggesting that people focus on jobs and careers that provide stable income is seen as crushing someone's self-actualized aspirations. And suggesting that any of these groups be responsible for the outcomes of their choices is unthinkable. When such basic advice is off-limits, what cultural infrastructure could we possibly have? Edit: removed distracting example.

mkr-hn 5y ago
"is seen as" x 4 By who? I'm pretty sure they still teach the difference between passive and active voice in school. Passive voice is great if you want to paint in broad strokes without naming names so people can't actually discuss your points. This is choir-preaching. Or argument by implication if you want a secular term.
lostdog 5y ago
The cultural infrastructure we had was extremely poor. We put a ton of focus into shaming and punishing people for bad behavior, and it just didn't work. Fat shaming has resulted in even more obese people. Punishing unmarried couples didn't increase the number of stable partnerships at all. We lost the war on drugs. I don't agree with the current trends either ("it's completely ok to do bad thing X!"). However, in addition to good advice for individuals, we need to keep trying to create cultural infrastructure that really does work.
- mkr-hn 5y ago
  I suspect the lower stress of acceptance, even when it goes overboard in cases where the thing can actually be harmful, still leads to better outcomes. Stress is a well-documented factor in weight gain, for example. My covid 19 after years of losing weight is proof! The loss came from self-acceptance. I stopped beating myself up when I slipped up, and I stopped letting other people shame me for it. That was good for 50 pounds, and I'm headed back down now that I'm vaccinated and getting as much back on track as I can. I don't have data handy, but I suspect shaming has killed more people and ruined more lives than acceptance.

blooalien 5y ago

> "… and so forth." … celebrity worship, corporation worship, politician worship, money worship, conspiracy theories …

adolph 5y ago
https://fs.blog/2012/04/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/ https://fs.blog/2012/04/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/ Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
- didibus 5y ago
  Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. There are very few people not raised in religion or similar belief systems, the few I do know though simply don't worship anything in particular. It was strange for me to accept at first, like... Ok but like what are you? What do you believe in? And having someone answer: "I'm just me and I don't believe in anything, I don't even ask myself that question, I just live." was perspective changing for me. Some people actually don't worship anything, and don't care about it.
  - psychomugs 5y ago
    Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. They could've chosen to not disclose it to you or don't know the true answer for themselves. In that anecdote, they must believe that something is worth just living for, even if it is just themselves.
    - Jolter 5y ago
      You clearly need to get to know some atheists. I recommend you do some traveling in Northern Europe. You’ll find half the population are unbelievers and yet they are all basically decent people.

sakopov 5y ago

> America, in contrast with most other countries, has very little cultural infrastructure to guide people. Freedom and individualism (however shallow) is emphasized. Very true. I went to a public school in Eastern Europe and everyone had to go through the same curriculum no matter what you wanted to focus on after graduation. The basic principle here is to expose students to all subjects and let them decide what they want to focus on in places of higher education. However, in American schools it seemed that you could pretty much weave your way through public schools only taking courses you think you need after you cover some of the basic subjects. There are several problems with this approach. First of all, you're never exposed to subjects that you didn't originally have interest in, but could potentially have appreciation for had you invested some time learning about them. Secondly, your scope of knowledge ends up being pretty narrowly limited to things that you're interested in while having little to no idea about everything else. Lastly, I think colleges and universities end up picking up the slack here when they start teaching coursework that should've otherwise been part of public school curriculum. All-in-all, it is my belief that having at least surface-level understanding in various subjects does make a difference as you get older because it gives you just enough knowledge to be able to look at life in a different light and, at the very least, have a general idea how to start making adjustments. Not to say that you won't need help. In fact, you still might but you're in a much better place than where you would be blindly following someone's advice in a gimmicky self-help book.

azinman2 5y ago
I don't think you have an accurate account of American education. Often times there is some level of freedom in high school, but undoubtedly one is forced to take classes from most disciplines. I think what changes is often the advancement one gets to (some might take Calculus, others stop at pre-Calculus or even trigonometry). But I don't think there are many high schools where one stops taking math, science, humanities, etc at all possibly with the exception of the last year. Similarly, most colleges have broad requirements beyond your major. I had to take many classes in humanities, physical, math, sociology, and other areas, for example, even though I was a cognitive science major. My understanding is that this is actually more broad than typical universities in Europe where one only focuses on their area (or certainly at least medical school is that way in many European countries).

psychomugs 5y ago

I've been binging Adam Curtis documentaries recently, and the unifying thread has been the rise of individualism and its being coopted by commerce. In a discussion regarding HyperNormalization [1], he argued that we're beginning to realize how shallow this individualism is, and religion will rear its head at some point to fill this void. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIHC4NNScEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIHC4NNScEI

oldmanrahul 5y ago
Thanks for the link. Really enjoyed this take on individualism
gambiting 5y ago
Hypernomalization is great, one of my favourite documentaries and I can't recommend it enough to people.
sjtindell 5y ago
Century of the Self is my favorite documentary of all time. Great callout.
userbinator 5y ago
and religion will rear its head at some point to fill this void. It already did --- it's called politics.
- psychomugs 5y ago
  This comment strongly suggests that you didn't watch the video and are not familiar with Curtis' work, considering he discusses politics at great length in essentially all of them. From ~7:00 in the video I linked: "The problem for politics of the rise of individualism is that it can't deal with it. Politics requires you to say to people as a political party, come with me, join with us together and we will use that collective power to change the world. But to do that you have to accept that you are part of something, you have to surrender yourself to something. And for the radical movements, that was a disaster. But more than that, it was a disaster for politics generally. Because political parties fell away. So what then politicians they were then faced by is the fact that they didn't have mass support so they couldn't do the main thing that mass democratic politics rose up to do which is to be your representative, your bridgehead into power." Later on in the video: "I do think that one thing that's going to come back onto the table is religion. Because I think the real weakness of the modern systems of managing us as individuals is that it cannot deal with our own mortality... The sense that when they die something will go on and they will be part of something that's going on... In the modern rational, efficient, utilitarian, technocratic world of managing the individual - [the world] cannot give you any consolation." I don't see how politics could answer that.

fullshark 5y ago

What is cultural infrastructure in other countries? Is it just religion / worship?

sasaf5 5y ago
Thousands of years of history, local legends unaffected by foreign religions, carefully maintained genealogy trees, archives of state decisions from eons ago etc... To be fair with the US, they have formed a pretty neat legend around the founding fathers and the constitution. I would consider that cultural infrastructure.
rayiner 5y ago
It’s not just religion. In Bangladesh, where I’m from, there’s a whole bunch of social norms and practices enforced by your mom talking about you to your aunties and your dad talking with your uncles. In fact, my family was quite non-religious, but we still had all this cultural infrastructure. Two concrete examples. Families have strong involvement in marriage. This isn’t just “here’s your spouse take it or leave it.” It’s a process by which people who have been married a long time and coach a young person about what qualities to look for in a marriage partner. (I remember my wife remarking 8 years into our American-style marriage that she was surprised by how inconsequential her dating preferences at 25 turned out to be. “Who cares what kind of music your husband likes at 2 am when the baby is crying?”) There’s also a lot of active coaching in marriage. I remember my dad being dispatched by the aunties to fly to another state to coach a young couple going through a rough patch.
aerosmile 5y ago
It would be the concept of "tradition," which means very different things in the US and Europe. First and foremost, there's the pure frequency in which that term is used. Good luck spending a day in Europe and not being exposed to one tradition or another. It's kind of cute in a superficial way (the way that people dress up for balls in Vienna), and very counter-progressive in others (the way that doctors are more respected than programmers). I would also wage to say that the pure interpretation of the term is a bit different. In the US, using the term "traditionally" in a sentence could have a positive connotation (eg: "traditionally, we celebrate new launches with some drinks") or a negative connotation ("those traditional companies are usually lacking in technology"). In contrast, invoking the term "tradition" in a sentence in, let's say Germany, would be to describe a near-religious ritual that cannot and must not be changed or even questioned (eg: "for Oktoberfest, people dress in traditional outfits that include lederhosen and dirndls.") I struggle to think of a frequent context in Germany in which the term traditional would have a negative connotation. All this is to say that tradition is a wonderful thing if your circumstances lead you to invoke as little change as possible. But for those seeking social mobility and other types of change in their lives, I would argue that traditions can be very negative.

timoth3y 5y ago

> Freedom and individualism (however shallow) is emphasized. It's really not though. By Western standards, America is a very conformist country. You can see this in how schoolchildren are required to pledge allegiance to the flag, to the slow acceptance of gay rights, to controversy over saying over "Happy Holidays." I deeply wish America was a country that supported individualism in the sense of supporting and even celebrating the right to live your life as you see fit. All too often, however, it seems that this love of "individualism" only surfaces when someone needs help or asks for cooperation. That's not individualism. This simply selfishness.

silverpepsi 5y ago
"By Western standards" as in you can point to other countries that are clearly more individualistic or do you mean by the measure of Western philosophies of the concept of individualism??
- timoth3y 5y ago
  I don't think there is a philosophical agreement on what constitutes "individualism", so I won't try to speak to that. However, for the purpose of this discussion, we are talking about a society's relative tolerance of individuals choosing to live their life the way they wish and a relatively weak emphasis on social conformity. I'm sure someone has done proper quantitative research on this, but offhand, I think the Netherlands would score pretty high. P.S. I used "Western standards" to differentiate from developed Asian nations like Japan, Korea, and Singapore which are more conformist.
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buzzert 5y ago
> slow acceptance of gay rights Huh? Many US states legalized same-sex marriage before other Western democracies like France, New Zealand, Germany, etc. What exactly was slow? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage