The whole brunt of the media and the government is to encourage people to be highly competitive and totally selfish and uncaring of others. It’s escalated and there is a basic indifference to human fate on the part of authoritarian systems, which I believe exists not in a faraway country necessarily but here and now in this country. *
Which country he is talking about and does it matter? What matters is whether modern Epicureans should buy into this attitude or not?
* Harold Pinter , the playwright, quoted in the New York Times, October 7th, 2007
I have failed to find any evidence in the published literature to show that Epicurus encouraged his followers to be “highly competitive and totally selfish and uncaring of others”. I think, however, that it is a feature of some American “christian” communities that pay lip-service to Jesus. It seems that just saying you believe in Jesus gives some people license to to be as greedy and selfish as they like. One thing you can say about the mindless consumerist shoppers of the UK (the only other place I know well) is that at least they don’t even claim to be religious. Indeed, if asked, might well tell you that Jesus was leader of a pop group. Lack of a pastor and a Sunday service, however, does not seem to make them better or worse people than their counterparts in the US.
“Competitive and uncaring of others” has been the zeitgeist since Thatcher and Reagan. Epicurus would NOT asgree. People have been steeped in it and probably dont even notice. We all need an external Enemy to bring us to our senses – how about climate change?!
Oh, there are plenty of external enemies. The current American government, ably assisted by the ubiquitous right-wing media, ensure that Americans are kept in constant fear of terrorism, immigrants, Iran etc. Regrettably, although many people are only too concerned about global warming, it has a lot of competition in the anxiety stakes. Watch sales of SUVs – when they start going down it will be a signal that the American public is starting to think seriously about global warming . Till then, please don’t ask Americans to sacrifice goddam thing.