_________________ cb and WS:
[WS:] That is not how I read the article. I do not think that he argues that people are "genuinely tired or angry." Au contraire. His argument is that people are delusionally over-confident in their own selves and what they can accomplish "on their own" - and as a result see the institutions and society as an impediment of their own will and capacity. Consequently, they tend to listen only to those who cater to their inflated sense of ego (mainly right wing demagogues) and ignore other messages and even common sense. Reaganism is a product of that mentality, not the cause. I also thing that this is something new - a product of consumerism on an unprecedented scale.
Wojtek
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CB: OK. yes. Reaganism was and is the clever organizing and fomenting of this mentality into a political majority in the US for the last 30 years as a counter-reform movement against the New Deal, Great Society, Civil Rights movement and "60's rebellion". Reaganism is substantially identical with the main ideas of the Tea Party. "Distrust in government" was a central theme of Reaganism at the start. Look at the "list" of the Tea Party's and fellow travellers' values that the author gives.. Straightup Reaganism.
Of course, whacked out rugged individualism is as American as apple pie. Actually, it is as bourgeois as moneyloving.
A main critique of this article would be its suggestion that the Tea Party's themes are new to American politics in the long or short run. It's not for nothing that they went back to the Boston Tea Party for their name - an unusually deep historical allusion for modern Americans.
The good thing is that the Tea Partiers seem to be screaming because they seem to think they have suffered a setback; and some of what they are doing is turning on Republicans in a Republican party that is thoroughly rightwing; so it seems it could be a split of the rigthwing, of the Reaganite coaltion. A crisis for the rightwing would seem to be both danger and opportunity for the left. But it is a contest. Sure hope there is a relatively silent majority/ truly moral majority who will wake up and oppose this rightwing effort at resurgence.
Also, what a bunch of phony ass complaints the Tea Partiers and associates have. It's like Reagan's pretense of running against government, and being against government while the head of the government. America is the greatest country in the world , but its messing over the Tea Partiers. What a totally bullshit line. This is just a little ways from the absurd KKK line that white people are now the most oppressed group in America.
Taking your thought on American consumerism a step further, Wojtek, the US government has played an enormous role in making Tea Party-type Americans , Joe the Plumber , Sarah Palin and friends, the richest mass of people in the history of the world; and that "phatness" is not only because of Americans' productivity , but because of the booty gotten by American imperialism from the rest of the world. What a bunch of spoiled, fat brats.
Take the health care thingy. These creeps should be mad primarily at the health care company "elites", not the Federal government ! What fake "populism"/anti-elitism". On taxes, they should be for "tax the rich'/tax Wall Street".
^^^^^^^ Individualism
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Individualism Topics[show] Autonomy Capitalism Civil liberties Classical liberalism Democratic capitalism Do it yourself Eremitism Existentialism Ethical egoism Humanism Hedonism Individual Human rights Individualism Individual rights Individualist anarchism Laissez-faire Liberalism Left-libertarianism Individual reclamation Libertarianism Liberty Methodological individualism Negative liberty Objectivism Positive liberty Private property Self-actualization Self-interest Self-ownership Self reliance Subjectivity Thinkers[show] Antiphon Aristotle Aristippus Epicurus Ralph Waldo Emerson Friedrich von Hayek Thomas Jefferson Immanuel Kant Laozi François de La Rochefoucauld Michel de Montaigne John Locke William Godwin John Stuart Mill Friedrich Nietzsche Emile Armand Ayn Rand
Robert Nozick
Adam Smith Herbert Spencer Lysander Spooner Max Stirner Georges Palante Henry David Thoreau
Oscar Wilde Renzo Novatore Han Ryner Ludwig von Mises Zeno Albert Camus Concerns[show] Collectivism Statism Social engineering Mass society Herd mentality v • d • e Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual".[1] Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so independence and self-reliance[2] while opposing most external interference upon one's own interests, whether by society, or any other group or institution.[3]
Individualism makes the individual its focus[4] and so it starts "with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation." Natural rights and freedom are the substance of these theories. Classical liberalism (including libertarianism), existentialism and individualist anarchism are examples of movements that take the human individual as a central unit of analysis.[5]
It has also been used as a term denoting "The quality of being an individual; individuality"[6] related to possessing "An individual characteristic; a quirk."[7] Individualism is thus also associated with artistic and bohemian interests and lifestyles where there is a tendency towards self creation and experimentation as opposed to tradition or popular mass opinions and behaviors[8][9] as so also with humanist philosophical positions and ethics.[10][11]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualism
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