Think for Yourself
Anderson, South Carolina

For more than four centuries Euro-Americans have prided themselves on their individualism, autonomy, and independent thinking. Many made austere dangerous journeys risking life and limb to cross the North Atlantic in the name of freedom of thought and religious practice. In reality, Americans have been as entrapped in collective group think as any culture throughout history. The American collective has been victimized by conflicted group think which encourages independence of thought, word, and deed at the same time promoting almost draconian adherence to group norms of fashion, beauty standards, social behavior, and religious belief and practice, the very things promoting a modern era exodus from the old country.

Daniel Quinn has developed quite a following for those interested in understanding how culture actually programs collective group think. In his disquieting Beyond Civilization, one gets the idea we really are products of our culture and not the independent progressive thinkers we think we are. Almost none of our thoughts are original.

One of our fundamental cultural beliefs is this - that civilization must continue at any cost and must not be abandoned under any circumstances. Implicit in this belief is another: that civilization is humanity's ultimate invention and can never be surpassed. Both of these beliefs exemplify the cultural fallacy that one's beliefs are not merely expressions of one's culture but are intrinsic to the human mind. The effect of this fallacy is that it's almost impossible for the people of our culture to entertain the idea that there could be any invention beyond civilization. Civilization is the end, the very last and unsurpassable human social development.

There are deeply embedded beliefs (memes) that color our experience, attitudes, and behaviors. Our culture believes dark burnt skin is beautiful and fashionable – an icon of prosperous lives of leisure. Five centuries ago, dark skin was seen as a stigma of hard life lived working the fields. Today millions willingly risk highly-lethal melanoma in order to get deep tans, causing extreme premature aging; melanoma has become epidemic. Tanning beds and tanning oil are as much part of American culture as drive-through pharmacies.

For most of the twentieth century we have believed owning new cars essential to one’s sense of well being and station in life. Automobile manufacturing was America’s largest industrial sector, only recently replaced by the medical/industrial complex. Millions of individuals put themselves in financial bondage, believing new car ownership essential to self worth. The realities are net worth for these individuals was severely compromised by capital purchases of expensive automobiles, notorious for their rapid depreciation. It’s an easy exercise to buy high-end car for ten cents on the dollar or even less.

A powerful cultural meme says new cars are far superior in every way to ones a couple years old, even if they lead to bankruptcy. An acquaintance bought a Mercedes with 8,800 miles on it for less than 10% of its value, because it had clock time on it. It violated a powerful cultural meme about why things have economic value. The car was absolutely as new. The meme declared it nearly worthless. Bankruptcy judges are now declaring millions of us to be worthless.

As America continues radical adjustment to macro-economic reality, cultural memes have proven powerful means to maintain economic enslavement of millions. A profoundly powerful economic meme is that it absolutely takes two incomes to maintain an American standard of living. Only two days ago I received a letter declaring the strength of this meme. Mothers stayed home rather than work, and family vacations were to the nearby river or mountain campground. Now it takes two incomes to raise a family. There is no such thing as affordable housing on one income... you know the rest.

The rest of the story is this – it simply is not true. If one wishes to live in 5,000 square foot Georgian brick palace with Palladian windows, keep a couple of BMW’s and an SUV, and a plasma screen HDTV in every room, and pay $250 a month for unlimited data access on smart phones for every member of the family, travel overseas every six months, it might take two incomes to maintain the requisite cash flow. Those around me complaining most about money have cell phones, cigarettes, cable TV service, subscription Internet access, new cars, ad infinitum. They also have jobs. Despite what the media says, ninety percent of people still have jobs.

There are families about me proving the fallacy of the two-income myth. Men earning ordinary incomes in ordinary jobs living in ordinary middle class houses have proven it possible to achieve spectacular financial independence and freedom on one income. Their wives stay at home, participate in community volunteerism, make afternoon snacks for their children, performing many of the services normally hired out by two-income families. At one time I provided financial counseling to hospital employees. Using a spreadsheet, I demonstrated to a woman she would actually gain economic ground if she resigned at once and stayed home, quit paying $650 for day care, maintenance of a second vehicle, dry cleaning for business suits, lunches, ad infinitum. She laughed in my face. She still works there and has since gone through divorce, partly provoked by financial issues. In my work with the county depression task force and those in recovery, financial issues are always near the epicenter of adjustment issues for these victims of unwritten cultural rules defining self worth.

These cultural memes are so powerful as to bring us, who are ostensibly individualistic, autonomous, and independent in our thinking, to believe it a better ‘investment’ to pay athletes and entertainers millions, to trap our mothers and wives into working jobs they loathe in order to pay for smart phone subscriptions, cable service, 1080 plasma HDTV, bonus rooms above the three-car garage, internet access, and RVs for tail gaiting, so we can watch those athletes and entertainers ‘earn’ their millions. Look at the salary scale of any of our institutions of higher learning; we will see what matters to us most - $22,000 for a masters prepared lecturer and $2 million for a coach without a degree.

Most mothers really would rather be in the park with their children than windowless cubicles in corporate towers. Cultural memes now put a powerful pejorative spin on being ‘just a house wife.’ Many of these women would never say out loud what they are really thinking. I wish they would.

To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity; To give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise.