Self: As I see it, the USA expends too much of its moral energy to satisfy its desire to punish the sin of (a largely myth-based) laziness, while taking no effort at all to identify, prevent, or shame anyone for the sins of greed and selfishness.
And I find this extremely ironic, given that so many Americans pay far more lip service to the virtues of "hard work" than they actually give to doing hard work themselves. Yes, there are workaholics (some of which are just, honestly, pathological), but is it not true that, if given the chance, most of us would prefer to work half as many hours for twice the salary and then just decide how we want to spend our extra time and money (even if it involves things that could be considered "work" - fixing our cars, working in the garden, reading/learning, etc.) ??
Posted Feb 26, 2011, 4:52 PM UTC · edited
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Tribalism. If you are not the same as my gender, ethnicity, religion, political party, socioeconomic level, sports team, location, education level, sexual orientation, etc, then there is something wrong with you. Whereas the Democratic Party is more inclusive, many times the noisier wing of the Republican Party--the Christian Right--declares a certain position to be the only moral one (often you must be white, heterosexual, Protestant Christian, conservative, and have money, not unlike their hagiograhic version of the Founders) and we must return to their idyllic vision of the past to solve all of our problems.
Where many conservatives tend to be backward-focused in trying to recapture "what was", progressives tend to focus on what is and what might be.