Why We Hate Us

Most people feel allergic to the prevailing or public culture. 4 B's: b.s., boorishness, beligerence and balkanization. We don't hate ourselves or eachother but 'we' hate the collective 'us'. Our society has lost the confidence to impose any standards on ourselves or to demand anything from our higher selves. Our politics is based on the myth of a polarized, red vs. blue country. We largely agree on our collective or cultural problems. There has been a vacuum because of a decline in tradition answers to questions of meaning. Filled by a narcissism disguised as personal liberation. Baby boomers are unique in a way a the first people to willingly leave the place of their community belonging. 'When people live among strangers they tend to get pretty squirelly. I don't think it's a lot more complicated than that. The single greatest ingredient in human happiness ... is the sheer volume and quality and quantity of warm human relationships. You get those relationships in stable, organic communities.' We lost a sense of authenticity with the loss of a 'social inheritance'. Failed existential recipe is the idea that the honest person chooses a lifestyle for themselves. The fundamental assumption is a variation on the self-made man idea. In the past that could only exist within a community and within traditions of beliefs and morality. Happiness doesn't come from within but from relationship with others, in community. We now have to earn our social capital. There is a great hubris to the idea of making our own meaning without a community. "

Summary of An Age of American Self Loathing, NPR podcast of author Dick Meyer's talk on his book Why We Hate Us.