A Very American Suicide

(This is the first ever guest entry on this website. I am making this exception because its author is unable to speak their mind publicly for fear of their safety. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are 100 percent in agreement with the views of this blog, its parent company, and its subsidiaries.)

America is committing suicide. Right now, all around you, everywhere you look. This is not hyperbole. This is a statement of fact.

It is a myopic, narcissistic suicide. Born out of an individualism which is so absolutist in its self-regard that it denies the existence of other people, or at least their right to continued existence.

Here is the internal narrative that dictates this state of affairs: “I am the only thing that matters; what I want is the only thing that it is valid to want; what you want is so unimportant that is is not worth discussing. I see you, but I am not convinced that you exist in any significant way, except as a potential blocker to what I want. This is your only real importance. Your assertion of personhood is irritating to me, because it gets in the way of what I want. Which is more money, more power, more self-gratification, at any cost, by any means necessary. The end always justifies the means, and if this means your end, that means nothing to me. My rights trump your rights, always, molehills to mountains no matter. I am not open to discussion of my position. I will become angry if you attempt to discuss this with me, then if you persist, I will kill you, because you are getting in the way of what I want. How dare you disagree with me.”

How small the individualist is, stood inescapably alone, succumbing to a Stockholm-syndrome-esque self-abasement.

The method of this suicide is as follows. Internal narrative #2: “I do not recognize that I am part of a society, even though I am wholly dependent on society for my continued existence. My actions, whatever they may be, are justified, because they are what I want. To shed any residual guilt I may have, I will deny evidence as conspiracy. I am, by design, so poorly educated that this does not trouble me at all. So I will not wear a mask in public, and I will not socially distance, because to do so inconveniences me, and I do not want to be inconvenienced, and what I want is the only thing that matters.”

The very antithesis of “one nation, under God,” of “love thy neighbor.”

To borrow from Mirbeau, this is the poisoned and mortal wound at the heart of what we still refer to as our nation. But this is not a nation, and it is not capable of performing as one. This is a collection of individuals who abhor any suggestion that how they behave should be impinged upon one iota in the name of respect for or empathy with others; a collection of sociopaths.

And then we all fucking died of masturbatory self-obsession and collective stupidity, and no one rescued anyone because no one else existed, and the Darwin Awards took down their website, because nothing’s gonna top that. Ever. USA, #1.

I think of this as a metaphor for how I handle personal issues.