The American Disease
... was once the American Dream.
I don’t believe that the United States of America really exists. 50 states exist, but what binds them together besides laws? What is their common cultural heritage, the American identity?
Beyond baseball and eating turkey on Thanksgiving, there is the American dream; the dream of finding enough money and status to live a carefree life with a loving partner and children in a safe suburban neighborhood behind a white picket fence. A dream that is no longer realistic to attain for a majority of young Americans. The boomer generation sits on the housing market, while technology is gatekeeping the job market and the dating market.
The American dream is becoming the American disease. Individualism was the main philosophical movement that shaped my generation thanks to MTV, Hollywood, and the rest of American pop culture, before Facebook and OpenAI. According to this philosophy, each of us is a superstar and we can and should do whatever we want, whenever we want, no matter what anyone says.
Predictably, this anti-Christian, consumer culture way of living is no longer working. Instead of individual liberty, freedom and success, we find polarization, extreme wealth inequality, and addiction to mass surveillance and brainwashing devices. The idea that we shouldn’t care what anyone thinks as long as we “win” and get the largest piece of the pie for ourselves is the American disease, and too many countries are infected with it. I predict that those countries who have a culture of community over personal gratification will thrive in the future, while those countries who cling to individualism will descend into madness.
The American disease implies that the rich have zero solidarity with the poor. Men don’t care for the struggles of women. Women have no patience to hear about the struggles of men. The political right and left are divided beyond possible reconciliation. Big businesses couldn’t care less about small consumers, because there is nowhere else to go. Polarization runs deep and wide across social layers and group identities. That’s the natural end-state of a culture so focused on individual achievement that teaches people the whole world begins and ends at the tip of their noses.
Still, the US is the place where dreams come true. But with a small addendum: it happens only for a very small and specific part of the population. For everyone else, there are trillion-dollar industries tailored to make it seem like their dreams can come true as well. That is why the individualistic consumer culture has survived for several decades – the vague promise of massive success and lasting fulfillment – and also why American social media and AI services are popular.
The US is not only a factory of dreams; the country has a dream-like quality to it. It’s like a vapid great land in the sky, so elusive and fleeting it feels like all the flashing light could dissolve any moment like mirages in the desert. The US status as the world’s center of capitalism makes it that much more connected to the nothingness of existence. The American culture seeks meaning and culture in winning, in the grandiose, in big hand gestures, and in pushing the limits of the possible. But beyond that, there is no cohesion or solidarity.
There is no genuine freedom or democracy in a kingdom built on slavery and advertisement. That’s what the angry old man with the orange spray-tan face and yellow hair is saying in essence. Everything that matters in life can be measured in power, money, status and relations (not necessarily relationships). That is the American dream, the American disease, and the logic of individualism.
Mr. Trump has revealed that many Americans are vile human beings who take too much pleasure in brutality and hatred to ever respond to challenges with civility and diplomacy. Their nature prefers fast food and pornography over substance. The games they play around money, status, and endorphins have become so embedded in culture and feel so immersive, that they are mistaken for the ultimate reality of all things. The American military, technology, universities, beachfront houses, and everything else the US stands for is flashy and awe-inspiring, because it’s meant to cover up a gaping hole of nothingness. Herein lies the uncomfortable truth: the US never really existed. Now we know.