1090
americans are selfish
(quokk.au)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026
1090 points (100.0% liked)
Flippanarchy
2283 readers
200 users here now
Flippant Anarchism. A lighter take on social criticism with the aim of agitation.
Post humorous takes on capitalism and the states which prop it up. Memes, shitposting, screenshots of humorous good takes, discussions making fun of some reactionary online, it all works.
This community is anarchist-flavored. Reactionary takes won't be tolerated.
Don't take yourselves too seriously. Serious posts go to !anarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Rules
-
If you post images with text, endeavour to provide the alt-text
-
If the image is a crosspost from an OP, Provide the source.
-
Absolutely no right-wing jokes. This includes "Anarcho"-Capitalist concepts.
-
Absolutely no redfash jokes. This includes anything that props up the capitalist ruling classes pretending to be communists.
-
No bigotry whatsoever. See instance rules.
-
This is an anarchist comm. You don't have to be an anarchist to post, but you should at least understand what anarchism actually is. We're not here to educate you.
-
No shaming people for being anti-electoralism. This should be obvious from the above point but apparently we need to make it obvious to the turbolibs who can't control themselves. You have the rest of lemmy to moralize.
Join the matrix room for some real-time discussion.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
It's not "All americans are selfish". However, there is a case to be made that the culture itself promotes such a behaviour. The mindset seems to be that an individual tries to get on top of everyone else, that achieve the american dream. And this appears to be instilled since childhood.
Capitalism is not an american exclusive either.
I strongly disagree with that. The American dream is that you get ahead through hard work, etc, but it's not at the expense of others. It's not winning the rat race. It's creating something of value from your own hard labor. It's carving a farm out of the wilderness, it's not being under someone else's thumb, it's starting your own business and providing something of value.
Now I'm not saying this is always true, but the fantasied American Dream (TM) isn't about pulling down others, it's about rising up yourself.
I’m with you, but it also reminds me of the George Carlin quote:
I agree that is how the Dream is sold, but the reality of capitalism is that it is founded on exploitation. One person can rise above others because the system is pushing them down. And in order to justify that inequality, we have the ideology of American Individualism, which says to always take care of “number one” first. So people who are born into privilege get told that they deserve it, and that people who don’t have it are undeserving because of some moral failure.
The very system breeds the ideologies of selfishness. It doesn’t matter if some Americans are different, on a societal level, we are crazily selfish.
Every nation has had some degree of a superiority complex at some point in their history, but while most nations dialed down over time, the US has dialed up. A lot of that are reverberations from Cold War propaganda.
I see that complex in a hand full of other nations and they're all either at war or preparing to go to war. It's disgusting and terrifying.