America in 1991, today and tomorrow
Sep. 9th, 2023 07:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ionelvI had a few thoughts about America's future while reading this LARB exchange between Codrescu, Crăiuțu and Brădățan about American immigrants and America's evolution since 1991.
The exchange between them is a good read, although I wonder what they would have said were it not for their sunk cost fallacy (very common in immigrants from behind the Iron Curtain) and "fript cu ciorba" phenomenon. I find the whole idea of self-identifying as an American, Romanian, Ardelean, etc, a big trap and sink of energy, a mirage that only leads one away from self-actualization. Over-identifying with one's country of residence (or birth) feeds strife (that often leads to war) and even stokes smoldering genocidal tendencies within any aggrieved (usually) majority subgroup.
For humanity's sake, I hope we eventually learn to live peacefully with each other and do away with ultrapatriotism, artificial borders, skin-deep race illusions, proselytizing religions, social castes, greed, and us vs them mentalities.
As for America's future, I foresee lots of chaos and economic gloom in the coming decades with little upside potential, e.g.
a fizzling economic power overtaken by a fast-emerging China and that does not know how to deleverage its sky-rocketing debt burden (with incalculable long-term negative effects in US),
increasing bananization and increasingly skewed power distribution (given the increasing influence of a vampiric MICC and maniacal billionaires).
If America is to survive, something big needs to change and I mostly see dark clouds on the horizon, foreshadowing storms that will only worsen things (without even counting the slow-boiling impending climate catastrophe or the [morally legitimate] newest front of its perpetual war which will surely evolve into the much anticipated US-China War).
The exchange between them is a good read, although I wonder what they would have said were it not for their sunk cost fallacy (very common in immigrants from behind the Iron Curtain) and "fript cu ciorba" phenomenon. I find the whole idea of self-identifying as an American, Romanian, Ardelean, etc, a big trap and sink of energy, a mirage that only leads one away from self-actualization. Over-identifying with one's country of residence (or birth) feeds strife (that often leads to war) and even stokes smoldering genocidal tendencies within any aggrieved (usually) majority subgroup.
For humanity's sake, I hope we eventually learn to live peacefully with each other and do away with ultrapatriotism, artificial borders, skin-deep race illusions, proselytizing religions, social castes, greed, and us vs them mentalities.
As for America's future, I foresee lots of chaos and economic gloom in the coming decades with little upside potential, e.g.
- increased polarization and declining standard of living wrought by a schizophrenic power seesaw between
- the party of lawyers and mega-corporations that (mostly) pretends to care about the little guy, and
- the party of those that want to own the libs while sucking up to billionaires and religious nuts,
- the party of lawyers and mega-corporations that (mostly) pretends to care about the little guy, and
If America is to survive, something big needs to change and I mostly see dark clouds on the horizon, foreshadowing storms that will only worsen things (without even counting the slow-boiling impending climate catastrophe or the [morally legitimate] newest front of its perpetual war which will surely evolve into the much anticipated US-China War).
