I admit it. I’ve become a cynic

waterfield wrote:

There are two qualities I detest in people. Cynicism and a sense of being elite. I now have both.

We are at a figurative civil war the only difference being we are not-as yet-shooting guns at our enemies. Donald Trump is not the problem. There will always be someone like him who appeals to a populist movement like the tea party. In the past we’ve been able to circumvent the issue (i.e. Ross Perot, etc)So how did we get to where we are now? At its core is this: Intelligent people have slowed down and stopped having kids. Ignorant people have increased their birth rates.

I don’t see a way out.

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Well, i dont think you are cynical enough.

Could ‘selfishnness’ be as big a problem as ‘ignorance’?
What if one huge bloc is mainly ‘ignorant’ and the other is mainly ‘selfish’ ?

And yes, ‘How did it get this way’ is always a good question. It didnt just happen over night.

w
v

The elitism you complain about is easy to fix. A good starting point is reading, asking questions, and fighting against unsatisfactory conclusions.

I don’t know if you’re joking or serious with this quotation: “At its core is this: Intelligent people have slowed down and stopped having kids. Ignorant people have increased their birth rates.”

But the “core problem” is a lot more than ignorance. A lot of the support for Trump is motivated by anger and fear. Part of that anger and fear is (rightfully directed, IMO) at a stupid and corrupt Democratic party that refuses to acknowledge its deep flaws.

A good starting point for moving this country forward is understanding some of the problems that have created Trump instead of just asserting that it’s ignorance.

Here’s a couple of interesting passages about the “great” Democratic savior and president Bill Clinton from Wendell Berry.

“For the past six decades, except for remnants of the New Deal, the government has done nothing for farmers except to quiet them down by subsidizing uncontrolled production, which really is worse than nothing. But this ‘policy,’ in the minds of the dominant politicians, signified that they were ‘doing something for agriculture’ and so relieved them of thinking or knowing about agriculture’s actual requirements. For example, the Democratic platform preceding President Clinton’s first term initially contained no agricultural plank. My brother, John M. Berry, Jr., who was on the platform committee, was dismayed by this innovation, and he said so. He was then told that a plank was being drafted. when he saw the result, he laughed.”

“In 1995 President Clinton spoke to an audience of farmers and farm leaders in Billings, Montana. He acknowledged that the farm population by then was ‘dramatically lower…than it was a generation ago.’ But, he said, ‘that was inevitable because of the increasing productivity of agriculture.’ Nevertheless, he wanted to save the family farm, which he held to be ‘alive and well’ in Montana. He believed we had ‘bottomed out in the shrinking of the farm sector.’ He said he wanted to help young farmers. he spoke of the need to make American agriculture ‘competitive with people around the world.’ And so on.

He could not have meant what he said, because he was speaking without benefit of thought. And why should he have thought when he was not expected to do so? He was speaking forty or fifty years after politicians and their consulting experts had abandoned any effort to think about agriculture. ‘Inevitable’ is a word much favored by people in positions of authority who do not wish to think about problems. When and why did Mr. Clinton in 1995 think that the inevitable ‘shrinking of the farm sector’ had ceased? in fact, ‘the farm sector’ had not bottomed out in 1995; there is no good reason to think that it has bottomed out, at less than 1 percent of the population, in 2016. And how could he have helped young farmers except by giving them the protections against the free market that my brother had recommended three years before? Mr. Clinton was talking nonsense in 1995 because he did not have, and could not have had from his advisers, the means to think about what he thought he was talking about. The means of actual thought about the use and care of the land had been intentionally discounted and forgotten by people such as themselves.”

waterfield wrote:

zn wrote:

The fact that most people don’t have the slightest idea of how a bill gets passed in congress has nothing to do with Democrats or Corporations. I’s ignorance. The fact that more than half our population refuses to wear masks has nothing to do with democrats or corporations. Its pure selfishness and a lack of care for others. The fact that a huge part of our society still does not believe in man made climate change has nothing to do with the Democratic party or corporations. Its ignorance. The fact that there exists an ever increasing number of people who refuse to vaccinate their children has nothing to do with the Democratic party or corporations. Its ignorance.

At some point we have to stop deflecting our own ignorance by blaming the big targets and look to ourselves and ask -how did we become so ignorant. Otherwise we are trapped into being helpless victims of overpowering forces.

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Well, I respectfully disagree. Those things all have to do with a Capitalist-System that has failed American Citizens. And yes, the Dems AND Reps ARE that system. Together. They make up the system.

So again, for the umpteenth time — I blame systems that shape individuals.

You just blame individuals.

You will say ‘individuals make up the system’. And i will say, the system shaped the individuals…..

Anyway. Its bad.

w
v

waterfield wrote:

…So I ask myself why is that? When I do that I always seem to return to my admittedly “Hitlarian” notion that the wrong people are the ones that are having the most kids.

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Well, this is something i didn’t know. I’m not saying it addresses your notion. Just something I thought was interesting.

link:https://qz.com/1125805/the-reason-the-richest-women-in-the-us-are-the-ones-having-the-most-kids/
The reason the richest women in the US are the ones having the most kids

t’s one of the best-established relationships in economics: as women’s education and income levels go up, the number of children they have goes down.

But something happened to the American family over the last three decades: that downward slope became a U-turn. Women in families in the top half of the income spectrum are having more kids than their similar-earning counterparts did 20 years ago. Women from the very richest households are now having more children than those less-well off. Less than 28% of 40- to 45-year-old women in a household in any income bracket below $500,000 per year have three or more children, according to data from the 2011-2015 US Census, while 31.3% of families earning more than $500,000 do.

Money has always given wealthy people the option to pay for things that make it easier to have large families: childcare, a bigger house, help with chores at home. The ability to welcome as many children as ones likes into a family and afford them generous opportunities (while still pursuing one’s own career and interests) has to be one of wealth’s greatest perks. But a deeper look at the data shows that increasing abundance for families at the top is built on declining opportunities for those at the bottom.

More income and education used to lower fertility precisely because it raised the opportunity costs of having a child. Women lost a lot economically if they cut back on work to attend to an expanding family, so they had fewer kids and invested more in those they had.

But as wealthy people’s income rose faster—much faster—than poor people’s, it became that much easier for the wealthier to hire low-wage workers to help them care for their children, according to an analysis of the US trend at the UK’s Centre for Economic Policy Research. US families in the top 25% of the income distribution have spent drastically more on childcare since 1990, while those in the bottom quarter were generally priced out of the childcare market, opting instead to leave children with relatives and neighbors.

It’s part of a larger trend of wealthy families investing increasing amounts of time and money in their children’s education and development. It’s also given women at the upper end of the socioeconomic spectrum more choices. In 1990, a woman with an advanced degree was more than twice as likely to not have children as a less-educated woman, the authors found. Today well-educated women are just as likely to be mothers as anyone else.

“When inequality grows, people who have higher incomes can afford to hire people with lower incomes more easily,” said David Weiss, an economics lecturer at Tel Aviv University and a co-author of the paper. “As soon as you can do that, rich women can hire help to take care of their children and simultaneously have a career.”

Inequality has given women the freedom to “have it all”—but only for those who already have a lot.

waterfield wrote:

wv wrote:

’m not saying it addresses your notion. Just something I thought was interesting.

It doesn’t because I’m not saying poor people are having more children. I’m saying the raw selfishness and lack of interest in current issues has to do with parents-wealthy or poor. IMO those parents who are unable to give to their children the elementary nature and value of civics are the ones producing far more children. And in order for democracy to work it needs an informed and curious public. It doesn’t work well if we are for the most part ignorant on the issues in front of us. And corporations will always have their way with the ignorant.

Well, I agree with wv that this is a systemic failure, not an individual failure. I blame this factor – this ignorance and apathy – on the media, and in particular to the dismantling of the Fairness Doctrine. There is a straight line from there to these conditions. Another major driver, imo, is the profit motive in the news media. It is no accident that the consumers of NPR/PBS are the best informed – factually – on current affairs, and the FOX and MSNBC have the most misinformed audiences. Sensationalism will draw more viewers for longer periods of time, and in depth reporting on issues is discouraged by the profit motive.

I don’t think you can separate Americans from the media stew they grow up in. Their ignorance, apathy, and short attention spans are deliberately cultivated and exploited.

nittany ram wrote:

Zooey wrote:

I don’t think you can separate Americans from the media stew they grow up in. Their ignorance, apathy, and short attention spans are deliberately cultivated and exploited.

And I don’t think there was a time in American history where that wasn’t true. It may be worse now, but the powers-that-be have been massaging the message since the beginning. Part of it is that many people today realize that things are not always what they are told, but to them the lies are only coming from the group they don’t identify with. They cling to and vehemently defend the propaganda that fits their own word view, and dismiss out of hand any alternatives as fake news.

The saturation level is much higher now, both on TV and the radio, and the message is more consolidated. And I think the message is more proactive now rather than reactive.

waterfield wrote:

But they didn’t create that vehicle. To deny this just smells of agenda driven opinions.

Well lines like that sound agenda driven too, if you want to go there. It’s the old “because my opinion is the truth, your different opinion must be driven by suspect motives” routine.

People aren’t “denying” YOUR truth. They see things differently than you. Which is something worth discussing.

When you meet the god who can tell us which side is infallibly right, be sure and introduce him or her.

Me personally? So this is how I see this stuff. I see all generalizations about human nature and “the way people are” as constructs and fabrications. Near as we can actually tell, “human nature” is open-ended and deeply influenced by culture and history. Different “this is human nature” concepts are basically slogans in different, competing bumper sticker wars. The fact that all sides BELIEVE their perceptions of this are actually truths is just another part of the competing bumper sticker wars.

waterfield wrote:

You guys are all wacko. It seems so evident to me that the big boogeyman (corporate culture) feeds on and uses the unintelligent, uneducated, ignorant, to accomplish their own goals. But they didn’t create that vehicle. To deny this just smells of agenda driven opinions.

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Well keep in mind, W, I am not saying the Corporations dummed down the public ON PURPOSE. I have never once talked about a Corporate CONSPIRACY. Or a Capitalist CONSPIRACY. Sometimes i think, that you think, I am talking about some secret cabal of rich people who sit around deciding how to make the masses ignorant.

I have no doubt there ‘are’ a gazillion conspiracies among the powerful in all parts of the political spectrums. But thats a separate subject and no-one is ever going to have much evidence of that.

I’m just saying, if you have an entire system based on profit, then the profit motive is going to…oh….’Snowball’ for lack of a better word. As Corporate-capitalism consolidates its gains, and as fewer and fewer giant corporoations own more and more and more and more…THEIR message dominates more and more and more.

And what is their message? You tell me.

w
v

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noam:https://billmoyers.com/content/noam-chomsky-part-2/
….BILL MOYERS: Are you suggesting that there’s a conspiracy’? That there are people who gather and decide we’re going to eliminate unions’? That we’re going to eliminate popular participation in political parties’? We’re going to do this, we’re going to do that? Is there a conspiracy’?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, my point is, in fact, exactly the opposite. I mean, I think, and stress again, that these are institutional effects. These are the ways the institution functions.

Let’s go back to the chairman of the board. There’s no conspiracy in the world of managers to try to raise profits and market share. In fact, if the world of managers didn’t pursue that program, they wouldn’t be in business any longer. It’s part of the structure of the social system, and the way in which the institutions fw1ction within it, that they are going to be trying to maximize profit, market share, decision-making capacity and so on.

BILL MOYERS: Doing what comes naturally.

NOAM CHOMSKY: It’s not that- you might say it comes naturally, because they would never have gotten to that point unless they had internalized those values, but it’s also constrained. If they stop doing it, their stocks start to decline and so on and so forth, then somebody else- it’ll be bought up and so on. Now, pretty much the same is true of these other institutions. If some segment of the political system- suppose we had an authentic political party reflecting the needs of the special interests, the population, it would no longer be supported. It would be denounced by the information system. It would be condemned for being anti-American or subversive and so on. It would not even have the minimal resources to keep functioning. And since we don’t have a network of popular structures to sustain it, it would disappear.

BILL MOYERS: You’ve said that the primary function of mass media is to mobilize public support for the special interests that dominate the government and the private sector. That’s not how the media see it. They claim, we claim that our news judgments rest on unbiased, objective criteria. That’s how we see it.

NOAM CHOMSKY: But, in fact, the chairman of the board also sees what he is doing as service to humanity.

BILL MOYERS: I mean, are we like a lobster in a trap- we can’t see it close behind us?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, the point is that no one would even make it to a high decision-making position in the media, whether as columnist or managing editor or whatever, unless they had already internalized the required values.

BILL MOYERS: Internalized?

NOAM CHOMSKY: They believe them. There are a number of things you have to believe to make it to top managerial positions. You have to believe that the United States is unique in history in that it acts from benevolent motives. Benevolent motives are not properties of states, whether it’s the United States or any other one. It’s meaningless to talk about it.