Americans used to know fascists when the saw them. No more.

[Cyrano]

I guess there are generations of Americans to which the names Hitler and Stalin are just some bad guys who lived back when and "did some horrible stuff." Perhaps the world has moved on and people like Trump are just a different flavor that appeals to many Americans. Perhaps Darwin was wrong. Maybe we humans are receding into a past in which science is witchcraft and knowledge is an inherent evil.

Those are my thoughts of the day. I guess I'm feeling hopeless and depressed. Or maybe I'm feeling that the world has changed and that ignorance and cruelty are the new norms. If so, it's not a world in which I care to dwell.

For all the theories about what happened, I feel that the world has turned into a very ugly place run by know-nothings, and totally corrupt people.

Perhaps we are going through a dark period of evil and will come out better on the other side. Or, perhaps humanity was an evolutionary "mistake" and will destroy itself. Whichever is true, I doubt that most of us will be around to see how this epic ends.

"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst." Most of us are not prepared for the insanity we seem to be facing.

[Newest Reality]

1. Try some stoicism.

Marcus Aurelius spent most of his time on a battlefield. I am sure he dealt with far more brutal people than we are. Yet, he had a philosophical shield that served him well and kept his mind and life in order.

We can do that to, rather than yield to the caprice of constantly changing circumstances and the prevalent brutes of our time. Rather than being idealistic, we can change the one thing we have true control of: our own mindset.

There are many short videos on stoicism on YouTube, (and books). Our personal philosophy can develop and grow if we see the faults in our own thinking based on our conditioning. This is a good place to start, but only if you would rather improve yourself and be an inspiration rather than just sink into cynicism and depression.

I suggest you consider some ways to bolster your mental states and improve your outlook.

[secondwind]

2. Thanks for posting this!!!

[TuxedoKat]

4. Yes, thanks for posting this!!!

Bookmarking for later.

[Cyrano]

5. Thanks for the positive suggestions, Newest Reality

I'll get past this. But every sane person is entitled to a period of anger, outrage, and the belief that the world is fucked up beyond repair.

Nonetheless, I can't, at present, seem to shake the thought that Darwin was wrong and that we are headed into a very dark past.

[Newest Reality]

6. I understand, Cyrano.

It is good to get it off your chest and express your sincere feelings first, rather than suppress them.

Then, you can be aware of them. Being aware of them is a great step since you can do something about it if you care to. I think that is how we can distinguish ourselves from the ignorant.

"You cannot transcend what you do not know. To go beyond yourself, you must know yourself."

"We are slaves of what we don't know;of what we know we are masters."

- Nisargadatta

[uriel1972]

8. Darwin was wrong on some points,

But he didn't subscribe to the Lamarkian ideal of inevitable progress. Implicit in Darwinian Evolution is the concept of change over time, there is no guarantee of progress.

Like stoicism it is pragmatic and practical, it deals with reality as it is, not as what people think it should be.

I have formulated a little explanation of the three Cynical philosophies. Cynicism and its children, Epicurianism and Stoicism. Greatly simplistic, but it conveys the essence of each.

CYNICISM: the World is a shitty mess, let me show you.

EPICUREANISM: the World is a shitty mess, I'm going home to my garden.

STOICISM: the World is a shitty mess, here's your shovel.

[Nay]

11. I subscribe to this Stoic magazine (it's free) and find it, and the website, very helpful.

https://thestoicgym.com/sites/default/default/popup/tsg-magazine.html

[Newest Reality]

12. Nice one, Nay!

Thanks for that great resource.

It is very beneficial to expose ourselves to a philosophy like that in these tumultuous times.

[SKKY]

3. It's always harder to admit when it's your own...

...I just think a good part of the country wants, and feels better, about having an authoritarian figure lead us. That, or there are voters who are so entrenched in their policy of choice, they can't seen the forest from the trees. No shit, I have family members that voted for Trump only for the reason that he won't touch the 2nd amendment. They don't care about Medicare, Medicaid, or that he's basically fleecing America, or that they're about to lose what little public assistance they get. Don't touch their guns. That's really all they care about. It's sad, but it's true.

[PirateRo]

7. I'm sorry but that hasn't been my experience

My experiences as a kid were confusing. On the one hand, there was my family, recently arrived to this country and in the other were a spate of older gentlemen who enjoyed conversation in a public park. That conversation wasn’t very varied, but it did include a number of references to how we should have fought with “them” rather than against them and how Churchill was either wrong or a fool, frequently both. On the plus side, it helped spur my interest in American history, which started by my researching the word Churchill, but the downside was pretty bad. This was the late ‘60s.

Fast forward to about circa 1994 and here I am in conversation with a fellow about dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. I frequently wondered why it wasn’t used in Europe first but this guy had a ready answer. It wasn’t that that war was over and the Nazi were defeated. His answer was that they dropped the bomb in Japan because - and here he stopped to search for words, admitting he did not know how to put this - they didn’t look like us.

So, it’s not that they can’t recognize a fascist, they ARE fascists, they just don’t see those qualities as negative about themselves, or they don’t see themselves as so extreme or fill in your own rationalization. They do, however, see themselves as the hero of their own story, as we all do, but instead of protecting those least among us, they protect themselves against those that look differently from themselves. It’s quite difficult to convince someone they are the bad guy in their own story. There’s a great Jessica Jones episode that deals with the subject in some detail.

Oh, and those men in the park? My grandfather kicked all their asses in chess, having played his entire life against Jose Raul Casablanca and at shuffleboard, having been an esteemed member of the Havana country club. Had there been a pool table or poker table, he would have smoked them there as well. You just couldn’t beat this guy. That went in for a few years but the other men slowly died away and he spent more time at home.

[JHB]

9. Victory in Europe day: May 8, 1945

First atomic explosion (Trinity test): July 16, 1945

In other words, two months after the war in Europe was over.

Don't put too much stock in what that fellow told you in 1994.

[PirateRo]

14. The bomb was ready as the war in Europe wound down

That was my argument about why it wasn’t used then. I mentioned that in the original post.

His argument, his view of events, was this difference between people. I didn’t put any stock in what he told me. It underscored for me how he thought.

I don’t want to draw an inference from one person to the group, but I keep seeing examples of this same kind of thinking repeating. Point it out and they become very defensive. Some become defensive in a scary quick fashion, too.

[musclecar6]

10. To me

The whole issue rests with the fact that we wound up with a ConMan who bullshitted the American people into falling for his line of shit just like the Chevy or Ford car salesman does for some unsophisticated buyer and sells them a car for way more than they should be paying and they don’t even need a car to begin with. The idiots who did buy this guys line of bullshit don’t realize how dangerous he is because he talks to them on the same level that they operate featuring all the hateful biases that he also shares so they think he’s their BFF and don’t realize this is a modern day Hitler they’re dealing with and how terrible their lives will be if he gets ultimate power over them.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

13. In my experience as a white guy, the only "group" of...

... other white people who are consistently Democratic are scientists and the better-educated. It's reflected in the exit polls too.

Only about 6% of scientists identify as Republicans in a Pew poll from a few years ago.

"Revenge of the Nerds" got it right. Lol!