Confidence
Confidence
I came to America with a very positive attitude towards its people (naively optimistic, you might say). It wasn’t long before that confidence was shaken by personal experience. My confidence steadily eroded over the years (I name no names) with professional philosophers the main culprits. It culminated in my experiences of a decade ago. I watched American philosophy try to destroy itself, and do a pretty good job. The first election of Trump dealt it (my confidence) a severe further blow. His recent triumph has dented it beyond repair. To me it has been a growing disillusionment. I see it all as a pattern, a predictable decline, enthusiastically executed. All that remains is for me to watch from afar as America proceeds to destroy itself—for no reason whatever. I will gain grim satisfaction from this, and some gallows amusement. This is one immigrant’s story.
Please elaborate as to how Trump’s two elections injured American philosophy.
It is not clear to me whether your sentence, “I see it all as a pattern, a predictable decline, enthusiastically executed” refers to America or to American philosophy, but I think you mean both. If so, please elaborate on the connection between the two.
They didn’t: the “it” referred to my confidence not American philosophy (I just clarified this).
I do mean both: the connection lies in American culture and the American character–the stupidity, hysteria, violence, etc.
It took Freud a month or two for disillusionment to set in; then he returned to Vienna and you know who. He was not the greatest psychologist who ever lived, but was a pretty shrewd observer.
All that glitters…
I don’t know who.
Cheer up Colin, it seems terribly grim, but I think all of the issues and madnesses of the Trump era are building up like the oily white head on a humungous red, nasty spot (or a big pluke – as we like to say in Scotland). The Democrat’s mistake was to imagine it needed squeezed, did so too early and ended up making it sore and red. However, now it’s going to be left to its own devices and it’s going to explode over the whole rotten political system. Once it has splattered everywhere, you have to imagine that things just might get better. Of course, I’ve always been a very naive person, but I think there are plenty good American souls ready to fix the mess (Dem and Rep), mind you – it might take centuries, but they’ll get there in the end.
Incidentally Dick van Dyke is pretty optimistic….. that he wont live to see the whole 4 years, though I’m actually pretty optimistic that good old Dick will.
Strangely enough, I am quite cheerful, because I’m looking forward to the comeuppance. But I feel for the people who will meanwhile suffer the most.
They probably voted for him.
I’d like to see Trump get his comeuppance too, just like Macbeth got his, but is this a just world? Do you have specific scenarios in mind?
Quite a few–he hangs by a thread.
It appears Trump will declare a national emergency on day one- that thread might break on that day one, indeed or shackle us and our liberties like a chain. The scenarios are limiitless and a few positive- if you saw this coming you have a pretty good theory of mind for Trump and I’m impressed.