Many clarifications have already been proposed Donald Trump's success and the unwavering support of voters for him despite rampant scandals and criminal charges. any of these explanations look credible, but I have not yet seen individual mention to the phenomenon most important: Trump is the perfect personification of external values.
According to any psychologists, our values focus around 2 poles: “internal” and “external”. Persons closely attached to interior values They value empathy, intimacy and self-acceptance. They are usually open to challenges and changes, curious in universal rights and equality, feel the request to defend another people and the planet of nature.
However, people focused on external values attract prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth. They are powerfully motivated by the possible of individual reward and praise. More objectify and exploit others, behave arrogantly and aggressively; and underestimate the impact of their actions to society and the environment. They are not very curious in cooperation and community. For those who are above all external values, frustration is frequently aggravating, discontent, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour.
Trump is the incarnation of external values. From the tower on which he wrote his own name in gold letters to exaggeration his own property; from endless tirades on "winners" and "lost" to cheating on golf; from utmost objectification of women, Even your own daughter, after being obsessed with the size of your own hands; from the rejection of public service, human rights and the environment to utmost discontent and rage, non-weak Even during the presidential term.
Trump represents external values to a greater degree than any another public individual in fresh years.
No 1 is born with any values. They are shaped by the signals and reactions received from another people and the customs of society. He's working them too. existing political culture. A individual who lives in a cruel and greedy strategy normalizes and internalizes specified conduct, adopts the applicable principles, and translates them into his own external values. This in turn allows for the improvement of an even more cruel and greedy system.
If people live in a country where no 1 suffers poverty, where social standards include kindness, empathy, communityism and freedom from poorness and fear, there is simply a tendency for them to profess interior values. This process is named Policy feedback – feedback in politics. It can besides be called “axiological effect of the collapse” [because the cog-accident mechanics forces movement in only 1 direction—the crowd.] In the planet of values, this effect works on a social and individual level: religion in external values is frequently due to uncertainty and unfulfilled needs, and the application of external values leads to even greater uncertainty and a more severe sense that our needs are not met.
Since he came to power Ronald Reagan, by honking about the hard division of society into “winners” and “lost” and the state began neglecting always larger groups of Americans and Americans, depriving them of public support, United States policy created susceptible ground for external values.
Democratic organization Presidents after Reagan besides took a large part principles of neoliberalism. The crash effect worked. However, erstwhile democratic parties, labour parties and progressive groups initially mention to external values, they always hurt each other. Research provesthat the closer people decision to the "external" end of the spectrum of values, the more they are willing to vote for right-wing parties.
However, this change reaches deeper levels of culture than politics. For over a 100 years, Americans have been more zealous than most another nations to worship external values. celebrated American dream After all, it is simply a dream of gaining property, ostentatious usage of it and escaping from restrictions in the form of another people's needs and requirements. Both in politics and Popular culture It is accompanied by toxic myths about success and failure: wealth – no substance how gained – is an end in itself.
This communicative is inspired by the ubiquitous presence of advertising, commercialization of society and the growth of consumerism, as well as media obsession with fashion and fame. Marketing of complexes, especially regarding appearance, and creating fresh needs copy in our psyche a bottomless gap that we can effort to fill with money, fame or power. For decades, dominant cultural themes in the United States – and many another countries – have acted as an excellent incubator for external values.
The classical sign of this change is the individualization of guilt. On both sides of the Atlantic, it began to take an utmost form. In the UK Parliament just passing through Amendment of the Criminal Code a evidence of penalties for those sleeping in the open air. If this is considered to be disorderly or harm to property, they will be subject to arrest or fine of up to £2.5 thousand. In accordance with Article 61 of the "damage" Act, they besides include... an ugly smell.
It is hard to decide on which side to start criticizing specified a law. I mean, individual with £2.5,000 in it wouldn't sleep in the street. The authorities offer these people prison targets, but not housing. However, the most crucial thing is that the bill blames and punishes people for poverty, which in many cases results from state policy.
We're talking about turning society right. We're talking about divisions and polarization. We're talking about isolation and intellectual wellness crisis. However, these trends consequence from changes in values. This reassessment is the origin of many dysfunctions. The remainder are symptoms.
When society values status, money, power and dominance, frustration is always born. For apparent reasons, not everyone can be first. The more economical elites take, the more everyone else will lose. And for the resulting disappointment, individual should be blamed. In specified a culture, it will not be glorified winners: these villains who desire a kinder planet will be blamed, where wealth is shared equally among all, where no 1 forgets where human communities and the planet of nature are concerned.
The voters of external values will vote for a candidate who embodies them – individual who seems to have what they want. That individual is Trump. The U.S. crosses the trail, and the remainder of us follow.
Trump can win again – and if he wins, let us be looked after by heaven. His eventual triumph will not be held solely by the racial resentives of aging white men, manipulating cultural warfare or algorithms and social bubbles – although these are highly crucial factors. After Trump they will be valued by society of values, hidden so profoundly that we can forget them.
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George Monbiot – writer and environmental activist. He publishes in the Guardian. Last year his book was published by the Publishing home of Political Critics Regenesis. How to feed the planet without devouring the planet.
Article published on the blog author. In English she translated Aleksandra Paszkowska.
