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I used to think back in the day that authoritarians couldn't take over in the modern world because everyone knew better, especially in some western countries where they broke away from it and built entire countries based on rights and freedoms. I know it's coming from a place of privilege and I always thought I took that into account when thinking about these kinds of situations, but I didn't realize I could be that fucking wrong and in so many different ways. I didn't realize that the reason why it's able to happen was because every single company and institution, especially the ones that the people rely on, will literally do whatever the government wants without even second guessing it all in an effort to save their own ass. I didn't realize it was naive to think people could be better than they used to be. I'd see things like the Civil Rights Movement in the US and women getting the right to vote as prime examples of how good people can be when they get together and that we we're "growing up" as a global society despite its flaws and outliers.
This all disappoints me in a way that I have never been disappointed before and it genuinely makes me lose my faith in humanity in its entirety. And the fact that it's all coming from the oldest generations in the world is so infuriating. They took their biases into the future and instead of learning from it they decided to teach the next generations to be shitty to each other all over again. The fact that we live in the information age apparently makes no fucking difference when people just ignore the information. Literally feels like there is a perpetual feeling of disappointment and anger that I feel with every fiber of my being and I don't like that feeling. Sure, there are good people in the world and I love people and will always continue to do my best to make the world a better place, but I have absolutely no faith in humanity as a concept at this point. I feel like a tired old man at the age of 30.
In some authoritarian structures, this is true. At least in the short run. In Russia, if you play ball with the government, you'll be largely protected against hostile forces in the crooked and dangerous melee of existing day-to-day in business or media, because you're on the side of the boss.
In Trump's structure, there is absolutely no safety in any direction. And there is doubly none for establishment media. CBS is not going to get a goddamned thing in exchange for their obedience. They'll still be the enemy, and they're still going to get all fucked up (maybe physically in a real sense) any time it suits the mad king's urges. I think they're just doing it because (ironically enough) they don't really have a grasp of what is going on, or maybe are just petrified and don't know what to do and so they're just clinging to the hope that obeying will keep them safe. But it won't. It doesn't change the equation in the slightest. Actually, if you have big money and institutional backing, fighting back like Harvard or Chicago is probably safer, honestly.
I just wanted to say thanks for putting your thoughts out there like that. You hit the nail on the head. You aren't alone in feeling that way, and summed it up in a way that I couldn't quite put my finger on myself.
I used to think that, in general, humanity was good. There are of course bad people, but humanity as a whole isn't bad. Then I saw the world's reaction to covid and had this exact same experience. Humanity is arrogant and selfish. A giant asteroid could be hurling towards the planet with a guarantee to cause the extinction of all humans but if the way to avoid that extinction involves the average person being slightly inconvenienced, we're all dead.
I was the same. I always thought humans were inherently good, but then Trump got elected and a lot of the public took their masks off. I now believe that humans are inherently not good, and that people with compassion are the exception. I am so angry and disappointed with the world. I have lost all faith in humanity.
Humanity is inertia.
This past decade has transformed me into a Misanthropic Anti-Natalist. I seriously want Humanity to go extinct. We are a Nightmare species preying upon, and destroying everything good in this world.