Funny how the yellow bit never, ever reaches 50%. Funny how 74% think the US is the best country in the world (“along with others”). During Trump2.0. And by funny I mean sad.
Tbf The american public has been bombarded with propaganda since birth but still thinks it’s free. Very bad education, and lot’s of entertainment and fast food.
That’s because there’s two kinds of freedom: negative and positive freedom.
Negative freedom is the “freedom from”. It’s the “I can do what I want and face no consequences, nobody tells me what to do” type of freedom. A man starving alone in the desert has perfect negative freedom. Nobody tells him where to die.
Positive freedom is the “freedom to”. It’s the “Thanks to society and corporation I can do things that would have been impossible to kings just 150 years ago” type of freedom.
These two types of freedom often contradict and often to increase positive freedoms, negatice freedoms need to be sacrificed.
The highway code is a good example of that. Thanks to the highway system, you can drive whenever, whereever you want to, at speeds that were straight-up impossible 150 years ago. No king of that era could travel as fast and without relying on anyone else as an ordinary citizen can today.
The only reason we can do so though is because there’s a huge list of laws that govern in detail what you cannot do on the road. I can safely travel down the highway at high speed because I am not allowed to do so on the wrong side of the road.
Now remember which type of freedom right-wing politicians invoke over and over again and which one they want to sacrifice for it.
I didn’t get taught that. Unless you count a school exchange and witnessing it firsthand… Although it didn’t strike me as too bad back then (90s, Atlanta), the country was still kind of likeable and cool back then. Before I started learning more about history and before obnoxious 'muricans started being everywhere.
Yeah, it was probably at some particular schools. I forget where I read it, tbh. Still, it’d make a great addition to any curriculum, and not just about the USA but about any country that uses unusual propaganda to steer its population a certain way.
Except that nowadays rightwing populists everywhere would fight such a curriculum with teeth and nails. We need a general education about smartphone / social media usage & algorithms, but by the time kids are old enough to follow such a class, their brains are already mush :(
Funny how the yellow bit never, ever reaches 50%. Funny how 74% think the US is the best country in the world (“along with others”). During Trump2.0. And by funny I mean sad.
Tbf The american public has been bombarded with propaganda since birth but still thinks it’s free. Very bad education, and lot’s of entertainment and fast food.
That’s because there’s two kinds of freedom: negative and positive freedom.
Negative freedom is the “freedom from”. It’s the “I can do what I want and face no consequences, nobody tells me what to do” type of freedom. A man starving alone in the desert has perfect negative freedom. Nobody tells him where to die.
Positive freedom is the “freedom to”. It’s the “Thanks to society and corporation I can do things that would have been impossible to kings just 150 years ago” type of freedom.
These two types of freedom often contradict and often to increase positive freedoms, negatice freedoms need to be sacrificed.
The highway code is a good example of that. Thanks to the highway system, you can drive whenever, whereever you want to, at speeds that were straight-up impossible 150 years ago. No king of that era could travel as fast and without relying on anyone else as an ordinary citizen can today.
The only reason we can do so though is because there’s a huge list of laws that govern in detail what you cannot do on the road. I can safely travel down the highway at high speed because I am not allowed to do so on the wrong side of the road.
Now remember which type of freedom right-wing politicians invoke over and over again and which one they want to sacrifice for it.
For generations.
Sad indeed. The propaganda machine is strong
Don’t Germans get taught about American exceptionalism in schools or something like that? That’s so cool from an academic POV.
I didn’t get taught that. Unless you count a school exchange and witnessing it firsthand… Although it didn’t strike me as too bad back then (90s, Atlanta), the country was still kind of likeable and cool back then. Before I started learning more about history and before obnoxious 'muricans started being everywhere.
Yeah, it was probably at some particular schools. I forget where I read it, tbh. Still, it’d make a great addition to any curriculum, and not just about the USA but about any country that uses unusual propaganda to steer its population a certain way.
Except that nowadays rightwing populists everywhere would fight such a curriculum with teeth and nails. We need a general education about smartphone / social media usage & algorithms, but by the time kids are old enough to follow such a class, their brains are already mush :(
Just gotta remember who is dumb enough to answer polls: https://youtu.be/Y4vpw6MfRlA (older actually relevant Joe Rogan bit)