Success

Americans are obsessed with Success, but are also determined to not think about it - at least consciously.

They think about it, in the strangest way - in their unconscious minds, individually and collectively. And the result is chaotic and destructive. A situation that for them, seems perfectly natural - because this means they are successful!

For us to think about what is going on with them, we have to consider what they are doing, and then try to explain their strange behavior.

This is going to be difficult, because they do not want anyone understanding them! This is the last thing on earth that they want - because they believe they are somehow, horribly defective!

They have been told this, all their lives. Not directly, in so many words - but indirectly, in the way other people treat them. They get the distinct impression, that they are somehow inferior - and they are not supposed to ask why - so they don't.

They believe what they are supposed to believe - including the instructions to not question this.

I can see this creeping into Costa Rican behavior. They can see Americans have more money - and this must mean that they are, somehow better.

In fact, this is what the Evangelicals are telling them "If you want to be successful, like us - you must be like us!" And Ticos are doing just this (changing themselves, for the worse) without thinking about it.

To Be, or Not To Be

Shakespeare said this eloquently - and it translates well into Modern English. No one considers this unimportant - but almost everyone overlooks it, as an embarrassing question.

We have a wealth of insights into the Modern Condition - but they are useless, when most people have ceased To Be, and lost interest in them.

Jared Kushner

Wikipedia

I have been hearing a lot about this guy, but didn't know who he was. So I did the sensible thing and looked him up.

I almost wish I hadn't. This Wikipedia entry is so long, and detailed.

Jared is part of the chaos that surrounds the President, and he contributes to it.

This is from the New Yorker Jared Kushner’s Conflicts of Interest Reach a Crisis Point.

The America Breast and the French Bosom

delancyplace

I know just as well as you do that back home in the States if a girl's got a delicate, elfin 32 she has no choice but to commit suicide. If she has a tender, swell­ing 34, she can, however, enter a nunnery. If hers is a warm and promising 36, she may resign herself to spin­sterhood. But with a generous 38, there's hope -- she can take exercises. On the other hand, with a cumbersome 40, Hollywood is bound to find her. And with anything over 42, national adulation is assured. We not only have our clothes and cars confused, we have our girls and Guernseys, too. They need the same gallon content to win the Blue Ribbon.

Crazy People Are Bad Programmers

I have just got a heavy dose of the thinking of one of these guys, who is teaching a programming course, and the experience has shaken me. It was like going back to Silicon Valley in the Nineties, when such craziness was prevalent - and no one noticed it.

The only way I could cope with it, was to leave the country, and live in Costa Rica. But the same craziness has followed me down here.

What do I mean by crazy? The only way to do this, is by pointing at crazy people, and saying "Like them!" 

But when you are surrounded by them, this is difficult, and even dangerous. People do not like being seen for what they are. They want to be seen for what they think they are - when their thinking has been badly compromised.

How was it compromised? Lots of people have answered this - each in their own way. But they all agree on the defining event - the Industrial Revolution, that changed who we were - permanently.

This was caused by the discovery of The Machine, in the form of the Steam Engine. And later, the Internal Combustion Engine - that powered the Automobile. And, holding all this together - The Market, that made everything possible. All this created a new culture, with new people in it.

All this was madness, and mass madness, at that. And everyone in it said, as loudly as they could "We are not crazy! And anyone who says so, must be dealt with severely."

This was enough to make most people, pee in their pants. They were so scared.

The Screen, that has Become our Reality

The Movies

This began as the Screen the Movies were projected on.

It was coated with tiny glass beads that made it highly reflective. The image (and the sound) were on strips of film - containing many individual images, that were displayed, one after the other, rapidly enough so the viewers saw moving images. That is why they were called, The Movies.

It was an illusion, that created a world - that people liked better, than the real one. And they never thought to question it - or its effect on them. And they quickly assumed, it was the real world. And that their world conform to it.

In the Thirties, this became a technology much used,  by the Nazis. The Germans were always the first to use any new technology. And this technology created self-deception on a massive scale. They became the first mass society - because the movies could be mass-produced easily.

Television

This technology also used a screen. on the front of a large vacuum tube. Where dots of light (pixels) were displayed rapidly, one after the other. That were also perceived as moving images. 

People didn't have to go to the movies to see these images - they could watch them at home, on their own television screens - for free! It didn't take long for people, the world over, to become TV addicts. 

The impact on the world's populations was unbelievable. Everyone in the world wanted what they saw on their TVs. And they wanted it now! 

The Computer

This also had a screen, the same one used by Television. And it also created an illusion, but an interactive one - the Computer could respond to input from the user! 

If they wanted to see naked, dancing woman - a click of a mouse provided them. 

It didn't take long before they could do even better things - buy whatever they wanted, online. 

The TV screen was replaced by a Solid State screen - billboard size, or phone size. Soon, everyone had one, tucked into their pants pockets. They could talk to it, and it could talk to them. 

The world had changed, entirely!

Having the Right Ideals, is All that Matters

This is what my religious family believed in, back in the Fifties. They had high ideals (in their opinion) and they expected everyone else to give them a superior status because of them.

Other people did not have to look very hard, to see what their ideals really amounted to - but were too polite to say anything.

In fact, my family did not bother with what everyone else believed, or did not believe. They knew they were superior - and they had a great future ahead of them. And never noticed, when their future never happened.

When I went to the U of Illinois, I realized how foolish this was. But I was the only one in my extended family, of about 100 people, who realized this.