so·cial Dar·win·ism
noun
the theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals. Now largely discredited, social Darwinism was advocated by Herbert Spencer and others in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was used to justify political conservatism, imperialism, and racism and to discourage intervention and reform.
Narcissism is a danger to America.
The head sociopathic Cheeto and his many followers lack empathy, and are destroying the bonds of civil society.
If there's no hope, no ideas of progress, or goodness or civility between people, what "glue" is going to keep society going? Social Darwinism isn't going to bring forth societal cooperation but societal hatred and infighting.
With the destruction of the ADA, and other rules all meant to punish us, and not make life any better, life here is going to get harder, meaner and nastier. Hopefully during the mid-terms there will be some push-back and some hope of the system self-correcting but if that doesn't happen, this place after three more years of this probably won't resemble anything of what it used to.
More and more I see people discussing leaving America. I considered this. Sometimes I am not sure I want to stay in a place that is culturally and socially becoming such a sink-hole. Even this sick, I want to have my latter years to have some meaning and connection.
Life seems to becoming just brutal and nasty. Social connection is so hard to get. People seem AFRAID of one another. That's one thing I noticed around here. While we had to sign another lease and I have so many medical needs to think of, this place still remains a social wasteland to me. Hey I see it as someone with major differences. They smile and are friendly but if you are "too different", you are closed out. No one wants to be close. I live in the land of shut doors. I miss having in real life friends, it's hurting me. I have to fix this somehow. It's like everyone is on the "mute" button, show too much passion, and it's like they want to shut you down.
Being disabled is a giant barrier to emigrating. I found a loophole that could take us back to my husband's parent's original country because they never became US citizens. Problem is my husband is not fluent in German, he knows some but not enough to function. He was born here. We don't have money for travel, to the EU. I know nothing of the culture there. Canada sounds like a far better option but they shut their door to the disabled long ago. Of course the conservative set would scream, "Love it or leave it!". If you are older, and can't afford plane tickets and immigration lawyers, you are stuck. I have considered this though, if Republicans destroy Social Security or Medicare, to the point I cannot survive, I would write a plea to Canada for refugee status. Some of us dream of living in more sane places where social cooperation is considered an asset to society.
That said, we are probably here for the duration and should do what we can, to stop the growing insanity, cruelty and evil that is taking over this place. The soul of America has become rotten. Just look at the endless shootings. While guns are a problem--I am more moderate on gun control thinking they should do something about all the assault rifles that are taking over our streets and so easily attainable, the real problem is narcissism and sociopathy.
This place is producing sociopaths by the dozens, young people with no connection to others, who are breaking down, cracking up and then shooting the place up. Ever notice most of the school shooters were raised by indifferent or engulfing abusive parents or were the "outcasts" of the school? They are crushed by constant bullying and by parents who only want to see them "achieve" and don't see them as people. What's happening there? They play violent video games, they are not taught sharing, caring or given connection to others. Then another sociopath teen goes on a killing spree.
Mental health care here is a joke, and being cut down to nothing. Most people can't even afford a therapist. Americans seem to be going crazy, everyone's on edge and shutting down. One thing the young people are under constant pressure too, with constant messages of "don't be a loser", the ones who face social censure, and rejection are cracking up, most turn in on themselves as the suicide rates skyrocket, but some are turning the anger and rage outward! So while the adults go fight, the kids are imploding and that's the elephant in the school room. The shooter and others like him made their choice for evil, so he is responsible, but this sick system helped form him. Again we see the ignorant and the delusional ignoring the endless warning signs until the next school shooting. His obvious severe mental conditions where he heard voices, was ignored. No one helped or intervened.
While taking away easy access to assault rifles may curb the increasing death rate, nothing is going to fix this until some inherent inner problems are dealt with. A society based on hyper-competitiveness, that advances narcissism and sociopathy is not going to become a peaceful society. A society with no care for it's severely mentally ill, who uses prisons for asylums, isn't going to protect innocent people from those who would harm others, and will only be there to clean up the mess afterwards.
The civil order is breaking down. If kids can't even go to school without worrying about being blown away, how is that going to affect things? Already one sees the cracks forming in the civil order. People don't trust each other, your own class mate may be your future murderer.
I was on a board, where some people from my old town hang out. It's a politics board where they discuss local happenings. I don't go there that often, but just stop by on rare occasion, I moved away 11 years ago after all. There's a few others who post there too who all moved away from the same small town, who I have contact with too. My old small town was very rural, extremely religious and conservative. What scares me is reading posts there, is you can see almost a micro-cosm of conservative religious right small town America now, and the picture is not pretty. It's sociopathic. The vast majority STILL all support Trump. Where I live is too conservative now but it's a good thing I never moved back there.
One post discussed the local senior and disabled building being taken over by bed bugs and with the heat not working in the dead of winter. This is a problem here too. If anything has delayed my own entrance into the subsidized housing world, bed bugs is it. From what I can tell it's a giant problem state wide and they have hit the inner city and now even subsidized housing in small towns. The local senior tower here got taken over by bed bugs. I knew someone who personally had to flee and give up her apartment.
What I noticed however was a weird attitude the "conservatives" had towards the freezing and bug-bitten people on that board. They asked, "Why don't those senior and disabled people stand up for themselves or form a building organization?" I thought well, their leases may get ripped up. I posted on there, that their bad politics and people like Ben Carson are cutting so much funding that low income housing is being impacted. They got angry. When cracks form in a society, the vulnerable are the ones who feel it first. Republicans obviously have a hard-on now for destroying disabled people's lives. Otherwise why attack the ADA, 28 year old law that has withstood the test of time? They do it because they can. They go for the jugular of those they see as the weaker.
My old town was very poor, when we were working class there, and my husband was working in newspapers, there was a lot of people far poorer then us. It has something like a 30% poverty rate. That's rural America in many places. While poor for our state, our state had a few other even poorer counties.
There were multiple homeless people and people living in houses that were more like shacks. We had a boarding house downtown, that rented rooms to poor people. One woman called my old county and one north of it, the Appalachia of our state. She was accurate. That old co-op we volunteered for almost became a day and evening shelter for the homeless and very poor of our town. Many people had to leave when we did. I was back in the town in 2011 for a visit, and it looked even worse off.
I asked others, "did things improve?" after gaslighted people on this message board told me that things had improved since the Recession, and they told me, "No way, if anything things are worse". One grocery-store manager wrote that "no one wanted to work hard" and "many wouldn't pass drug tests". Sadly the hatred of the poor had grown. It was like almost the whole town had read J.D. Vance's book Hillbilly Elegy and taken it to heart. It was bad enough while I lived there, but the attitudes had grown more cold and judgmental. Years ago I wanted to move back, I missed having community, friends and people I could talk to. While some nice people remain there among those with the horrible outlooks, today the town would not be a good fit for me. This community it's far harder to talk to people, but I worried about the growing meanness to the poor. We had slid down a few notches economically, did I want to bear the brunt of those attitudes? The answer was no. The fact doctors had left town and medical care was dubious there, made that decision for me, not to go back.
What scares me about that old conservative town, that is even worse, is how they decry young people. With narcissistic elders like this offering no help, and only sabotage, and glee over suffering, hopefully the flood of the young even for their own protection will leave small towns like this who have only judgment to offer. Sometimes I get sick of conservative Baby Boomers, who go on about the "snowflakes" and the "entitled", they seem almost pleased that young people are poorer now and failing to get lives. I know people have gotten mad at me for supposedly adding to the generational strife, and yes there are good Baby Boomers out there, but there's some adding to that sociopathic reputation. It troubles me. I never had children, but I certainly don't want anyone younger then me to have a shitty life. Look what happened to me, I know poverty in one's 20s can lead to permanent poverty. With some of them it's almost like they are happy over their own children's failing. Well a sick society that pushes competition to the extreme, I guess the constant comparison for some, are applied to even their own children.
Social Darwinism is even applied to their own off-spring as well. If you "don't make it", you're a loser, but we will make it as hard as possible for you to make it. I saw one lady I used to know there, who owns a farm and her husband a small business with no mercy for her own children, who claims they are financially "better" off, then she was when she was young. She wrote that young people, nodding to her own children who ranged from Gen X to millennial age and were long out of the house, that they don't know the value of "hard work" and are "lazy". There's no mercy even for their own off-spring. Sadly what I faced with my own narcissistic upbringing has only been increased for millennials. It is interesting some young people posted and said, "We have to get out of this town." I would tell them if you are around people who do not support you or your efforts, that is the wisest choice of action.
Then there's always the "its no one's job to support you especially the government" types. I guess they see government as only there to make war or something like that. It's funny how conservatives always cheer for the police state, and crack-downs but when it comes to any improvement of anyone's life, they start whining about "limited government". Even there, before Trump, there used to be such a thing as sane and moderate conservatives who were just more fiscally conservative, and were not religious. There's no love lost for the disabled. Entering political debates as a disabled person can be hell, I sometimes step out. They start bitching about "entitlements" and "how people are sucking off the government tit" That was all over this community board. They sure hate people on welfare, they have a special disdain for them. One liberal guy I used to know from the old music and art co-op, looked up cites, that showed the town has one of the highest participation rates in food stamps. Of course, it does, the place is poor!
This is those without empathy operate. Life is a zero sum game, where health problems and money problems are not understood. Some seemed to think magically jobs could be picked off trees. One person absurdly wrote, "there's plenty of jobs that pay 30 dollars an hour in our town". I wrote, "LOL", and said "who? A few auto mechanics, doctors over at the hospital and business owners?" Wouldn't I rather be able to breathe outside and not have pain? Empathy is gone. Even for people who work full time, who may be paid minimum wage, their consensus is that "they have made some bad choices in life that led them there."
All welfare people are seen as "cheats" and they cheered for Trump's food box, because that would keep the poor from buying "junk food". They complain about the "societal leeches" and those"refuse to work". Some concede that many places don't pay livable wages forcing people on welfare, but then have the attitude that "they didn't work hard enough". Everyone that wants a phone or even Internet to apply for a job is "entitled". It's dog eat dog competitiveness. The working class and middle class small town conservatives really has been fully indoctrinated into complete poor-shaming and lack of empathy for anyone that struggles. The irony too is that these are the most religious. It's like in their own struggles instead of caring, they embrace Social Darwinism, and cry to all who drown, as they tread water, "You have gotten what you deserve!" Fox news makes them obsessed with fraud among the poor as well. By the way, I never have lived in the south, so I am sure attitudes are even worse there.
One thing I find ironic, is some posted in panic that this extremely large store in their community that sells clothes, food and other needed commodities had been taken over by bed bugs. It is a store I had to go to a lot during my sojourn there. It was more then one person too, expressing extreme outrage. I did not know if this was rumor or hearsay, but given the damaging effects of bed bugs, it was frightening to read.
For me, if this was true, this was a sign of outward rot for the rot in some of their souls. I imagined carpets of bed bugs joining the abandoned houses, and pot holed roads and thought, the outside will resemble the "inside" more and more. Human being's ability to deceive themselves is pretty extreme. When I moved away from the place, there was 11 empty houses across the street from my apartment building, the roads had giant pot holes, the poverty was observable, and still people denied it. I had grief over the dying small town that once was my home, but now I have grief over what they have become.
There was shuttered businesses all over the place. Corruption grew there too, and there was some major scandals among major town institutions where people embezzled money. The place probably is on the edge of becoming a ghost town within the next generation. I guess there's a special blindness that develops in narcissism, they aren't too keen to even "see" what is going on. I see that here too in this county sadly, as the rich and conservative, say "There's plenty of jobs and people just don't want to work", as the stores shut down and the would be photographic ruin-porn increases in number.
Lack of empathy doesn't bring joyous surroundings and doesn't bring progress. Their politics suck. Lack of empathy is destroying America, on multiple levels. Perhaps nations rise and fall when there's too many narcissists. And Social Darwinism brings people to delusion about their very lives.
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