How can we use the example of America in a positive way?
Question from the Internet:
“What does it mean to be an “American”? Is it a superior or inferior model for a human being to be?”
Arguably the most powerful and most ruthless corporation in human history was the East India Company. Besides being a trading company, this organization fought wars and colonized and exploited the whole subcontinent.
When we look at the flag of the East India Company and the United States flag, we can see a very strong resemblance. And we can take this as a symbol.
It does not matter what ideas or goals the United States of America was founded on. It has become a “turbo,” qualitatively much improved and much more effective version of the British Empire and the East India Company.
The US — as a giant corporation — has achieved total world dominance — especially since the “end” of the Cold War — using highly developed and effective tools — from trade to media and entertainment, from politics to military pressure — to gain control basically over the whole world, until recently.
So from our inherently egocentric, selfish, and exploitative point of view, we can consider the “American model the most superior form of existence. It is no surprise that basically all individuals and nations thrived and still thrive towards the “American Dream,” even when it has already turned into a nightmare.
From our inherently self-serving, self-justifying, egocentric, and individualistic point of view, America — at least how it was supposed to be and how Hollywood portrays it — is heaven.
The problem is that from nature’s point of view, considering that we all exist in nature’s finely balanced and mutually integrated system, America is the last stop, the dead end in the instinctively selfish and exploitative human development that is built on constantly growing and excessive overconsumption, quantitative growth, personal and individualistic greatness and profit and ruthless competition where we actually enjoy succeeding at the expense of others.
There is nobody to blame for this. Until now, human history has been a blind and instinctive affair, everything automatically unfolding through the drive of our human ego with its insatiable desire and craving for control and power. America and everything surrounding it simply “happened”; it had to happen so we could realistically and tangibly see and experience where this instinctively selfish and egoistic development takes us. America — just like Hollywood — shows us what we can achieve through the human ego and how this also turns into our self-destruction as we are incompatible with nature’s system and its laws.
We can look at history so far as a “cosmic education” demonstration, so now, when we are supposed to consciously take our own development into our own hands, we could already know what to avoid and how not to exist and develop forward. We also know that all ideologies and societal systems we tried — including Communism, for example — are also futile and destructive, and we also know that our faith systems are also incapable of building a better world for us.
Now we have the necessary knowledge and experience to know that we cannot turn back, but we have to start a completely new path.
This time we have to start a development above and against our inherently arbitrary, selfish, and exploitative ideologies, philosophies, and religions. We have to finally realize and accept that since we are born from nature, and we are still integral parts of nature’s system, we need to follow nature’s laws and principles.
We have to start a conscious and purposeful human development which is about methodically adapting ourselves to nature’s strict and unforgiving laws that sustain and govern the general balance and homeostasis life depends on.
Thus while America and everything else we have built and achieved so far turned out to be harmful and destructive, they provided great help and experience, so now we can learn from the negative examples and move on to the future on a positive path.