Defending the Truth

The American Cultural Hero-System

Who am I? Of what value is my life? The child, when asking these questions, is saying that s/he wants to be recognized as an object of value. S/he wants to know how well s/he measures up as a hero.

Freud saw that the underlying foundation for these feelings and ambitions was the “utter self-centeredness and self-preoccupation, each person’s feeling that he is the one in creation, that his life represents all life” he tallied all this up and labeled it narcissism. Nietzsche saw this healthy expression as one of the “Will to Power” and glory.

This represents the “inevitable drive to cosmic heroism by the animal who had become man.”

Culture provides the vehicle for heroic action directed toward strengthening self-esteem. The task of the ego is to navigate through the culture in such a way as to diminish anxiety, and the ego does this by learning “to chose actions that are satisfying and bring praise rather than blame…Therefore, if the function of self-esteem is to give the ego a steady buffer against anxiety, wherever and whenever it might be imagined, one crucial function of culture is to make continued self-esteem possible.

Culture’s task is “to provide the individual with the conviction that he is an object of primary value in a world of meaningful action.”

The cultural hero system whether religious, primitive, or scientific is “still a mythical hero-system in which people serve in order to earn a feeling of primary value, of cosmic specialness, of ultimate usefulness to creation, of unshakable meaning. They earn this feeling by carving out a place in nature, by building an edifice that reflects human value: a temple, a cathedral, a totem pole, a skyscraper, a family that spans three generations.”

How does the American culture perform its task?

I claim that the maximization of production and consumption is the principal means for the satisfaction of self-esteem for its citizens. It is through the active participation as a member of a community that strives constantly to maximize the production and consumption of goods that the American citizen best satisfies his or her drive for “cosmic action”.

We are all captives of our cultural systems. Whether the cultural system dictates the stoning of one’s sister for destroying family honor or a system that finds cosmic heroism through a process that maximizes the rate at which we consume our planet.

Quotes from “The Birth and Death of Meaning” Becker

Americans culture is based on social Darwinist value related to our capitalist system. The higher net worth is the value of the person. But in reality we go through several competing sub systems of value as we grow. We place self worth in numerous traits according to the value they return in different stages of our lives. For example in school popularity is a value, physical power is a value, sports ability is a value and so on. Recently youth revert to spectacle to bring attention to themselves such as taping a beating of another youth purely for the value of spectacle.

All of the above is based on I am better than you. In adulthood a persons self worth is often judged and valued by three main traits of wealth, power and knowledge. Persons in these position are granted titles of Sir or Madam and an open acknowledgement is made that this person is of higher value than I. A doctor, lawyer, professor, law maker, bank manager, a scientist, a inventor and on and on are respected if they have gained their position on their own merit. But other wealthy people, like Paris Hilton are not respected for their wealth because they haven't earned it directly.

Persons making drastic moves from one level to another of value without earning it often race to return to the former level... examples are lottery winners... they win three million dollars and are back where they were when they won the prise within a decade in more debt than they were before the winning.

Oddly, the American culture in the last three decades has placed value on diversity. They change the rules in universities and lower qualifications to introduce diversity. I cannot explain this phenomenon when throughout American history of its culture individual accomplishments have been the value of the person. If someone can explain why diversity is welcomed in our culture please do so.