Being stuck in poverty - about being fooled (??)…

See the posting “Extremism, lobbyism, tea parties an so called ‘spontaneous uprising’, and even more about the American Dream’…” in Swedish with links (in English).

From the article "The American dream is Swedish”:

“Poverty is holding people back for generations. In Sweden too. At the same time it seems as the prerequisites for a person to break with her/his background seem to be better in our country than in other countries in other words! ‘The American Dream’ is rarest (or maybe just a dream) in its own home country.

The social mobility is worst in USA closely followed by Great Britain, Italy and France. High taxes and redistributing transferrings [as in the Scandinavian countries for instance] don’t seem to check the mobility in the society. On the contrary. Countries with more basic security societal systems [as in US, Great Britain, Italy an France?] show a lower mobility and Lind’s report point to that small income differences [instead of big] favor the social mobility[instead of the opposite].

Liberals use to say that if all have the same opportunities in theory, the society is just or equitable. Richard Tawney has called this a ‘tadpole philosophy’. Most tadpoles never become more than tadpoles. In any case they can comfort themselves with the thought that some of them will become frogs and get up on land as successful citizens with private fortunes and memberships in the tax payers association [something we don’t belong to all of us!!??].

But the theory that inequalities are disciplining people to work themselves up on land despite their start as tadpoles doesn’t seem to be true to the reality. And the difference between theory and reality (praxis) is as we know that in reality it is a disparity between theory and reality. Limited welfare, low taxes and strong economical incitements don’t contribute to movement upwards concerning income distribution. People in societies with that sort of politics get stuck.”

Individualism…

Wikström writes further about that the philosophy of life-enjoyment has in turn become idealized, commercialized and exploited. What follows from this is that the one that cannot afford or feels unfairly treated and therefore evidently becomes tired and unenterprising or weak, disappears and is seen as a deterrent example on a human being who isn’t successful.

But the happiness or success myth means that aging, destruction and death are made invisible.

The existence’s fundamental tragic is at risk of becoming denied and concealed by too simple diagnosis made by the speedy answers' prophets; the success ideal can create a despair that becomes twofold heavy because lack of success is described as the individuals own fault.

The individualism is disregarding structural or political factors behind this lostness. Factors like class, ethnicity, and gender – social injustices – are almost vanished in the popular culture’s images of the good life – not to talk about the insight about the need for common forces for changes.

Wikström writes that the more he looks himself around the more he sees a lack. In the strong confidence to the individual’s own ability – the American dream – there is an equally big leaving the weak individuals social and economical needs and justified demands out of account. It is as if weakness and fragility has become on equal footing with stupidity, dumbness. See Alice Miller on contempt for weakness. This means that instead of a common fight, opposition and revolt, many turn their disappointment inwards:

“I have to blame myself. It’s probably my own fault. I ought to think more positively, attend a course, and learn how to style my personality.”

When the solution on gigantic social problems, the lack of equality and political questions are individualized by the popular culture’s the looking in the mirror increases.

More and more people are trying to repeat the mantra:

“I AM happy, I WILL become successful, I AM consciously present, I WILL get through well, I WILL become slim!”

He thinks he can suspect the weeping behind the tight smiles.

When he reads newspapers and is surfing on the websites on the net it is apparent that the spirituality’s interpretors as well as the feel-well-psychology’s self-appointed experts both are an expression of and are exploiting a lost culture.

In parallel with highly normal and serious channels for psychological care in the health care a more and more miscellaneous market has grown. There a lucrative line of business has become created, a profitable niche both creating and profiting on the present age’s confusion.

There is also a culturally created blindness for social tearing down, an obvious ignoring of the common responsibility for weak or old. Sometimes compensated with hearty speech about the good entrepreneurship or that people have to pull themselves together – exactly the things people aren’t capable of. Political ideologies and theologies are forced to fight against this popular culture’s individualistic rhetoric.

Everything is individualized and the blame is put on individuals entirely. How practical!?

See about "the Land of Opportunity" and a report issued by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) revealed the United States has the third worst level of income inequality and poverty among the group’s 30 member states. Only Mexico and Turkey ranked higher in those categories. OECD states in Western Europe, along with Japan, South Korea, Canada and Australia, all recorded better figures than the US, as did central and eastern European states, including Poland and Hungary.

To be continued...