Comments on: The Unexceptional, Unsurprising Success of America’s Bully Class http://btownerrant.com/2012/03/28/the-unexceptional-unsurprising-success-of-americas-bully-class/ Where Commoners Rant Tue, 18 Dec 2012 23:55:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Bobby V http://btownerrant.com/2012/03/28/the-unexceptional-unsurprising-success-of-americas-bully-class/#comment-837 Bobby V Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:27:56 +0000 http://btownerrant.com/?p=4014#comment-837 Much of American culture is based on dominance. I would like to say that this especially true for contemporary American culture, but I don’t really believe it. I just wrote and deleted two different paragraphs trying to contrast contemporary qualities of dominance with historical qualities. I can’t do it; in the end it just seems the same. Maybe in the past a veneer of etiquette and civility made dominance and submission look a bit different. Self control is one of those passe virtues that Americans have pretty much dispensed with – believe me, I attended a middle school band performance last night and the behavior of a large portion of both children and adults in the audience was amazing. I think maybe in situations where people depend on smaller social groups – whether that’s small towns, neighborhoods, trade associations, or whatever – they are freer to be less self absorbed. Interesting to consider that the elevation of the self does not produce greater freedom.

You’ve probably already seen the following BBC documentary, but if you haven’t, I HIGHLY recommend it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhxfArTAcfM

“The Century of the Self”

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