Basic Cultural Assumptions

 I listed some things last night and eventually got around to some practicing. Apparently I'm not supposed to play one reed more than an hour, so I played one for almost and hour then switched to another one. Fortunately the little reed holder I have holds two reeds so it's easy to play one, then clean it and put it away and get out the other. 

This is the time of year when everyone withdraws and gets through the dark, rainy weather on their own, and might see each other again in April. I've got a bunch of things ready to pack and ship but there's a big rain storm parked over this area according to the radar map and it may or may not have moved on in time for me to go to the post office etc. 

Of course cold/wet weather is only one of many reasons for people to withdraw from each other. I've mentioned that this area, the San Francisco Bay Area, is one of those "You're not here to make friends; you're here to work" places. That's the standard mantra of any US work site, and here it applies to all 24 hours of the day. 

Since the US is a Calvinist country, the basic assumptions are far different than most places. And by "most places" I mean not only the "West" but places all over, Asia, Africa, hell even among the Eskimos. 

Since according to Calvinism, everyone's on their own as to whether they get to Christian Heaven, and even then, it's up to their God and not anything the individual has any power over, helping anyone else is foolish and wasteful. You're one of the Elect or you're not. How do you tell who's one of the Elect? That's easy - they're rich. And the cursed? They're poor, of course. 

So the basic cultural assumption whether you're an African cattle herder or an Eskimo fisherman or a French person whose family's been Catholic since the Roman Empire, is that if a family member could use a hand, you help them. The family member in need, will get back on their feet and if your positions are reversed, will be able to help you. 

This is not so in the US. Kids are thrown out of the house by age 18, and in most cases there's no college or trade school fund and in most cases the kid who's been thrown out may have to do shitty work no one else wants to do, like clean animal kennels, and live in a tiny room but they are already living better because their pay check is their own and they can eat food, as much as they want, every day. (Yes this was my situation.) 

If anyone, family or close friend (this last a stretch since Americanism pretty largely prevents having close friends) is in need, you tell them to go fuck themselves as the Americanism goes, and if you can you make their situation worse. It's good for them, is the reasoning. 

This is why, as I kept saying to Ken and his family years ago, well before 2016, that I wish I'd known what I know now and when I was young and able to do a lot of work, I'd gone to France as a "wetback" and put in my time picking grapes or whatever, behaved myself, and become a French citizen. Because Calvinism never got far in France, they actually give a shit for each other, and this is why when American style class warfare is tried against the common people there, they fight back. 

Now Americans, being good Calvinists, don't know they're Calvinists. Their hyper-individualism and psychopathy is baked into the culture. It's like those unspoken rules that being unspoken, are more rigidly followed than rules that are spelled out. It's considered natural here that everyone's in a mutual "Fuck You" to everyone else. 

The only way out of this is to escape the Anglosphere because the UK, Australia and New Zealand, Canada are a little better but not much better. It's only from reading a lot online that I know that the UK is considered sort of the Florida of Europe. New Zealand is more car-centric and has more cars per capita than the US does and that has to have taken some real effort to accomplish. "Only slightly less America" is not a goal to strive for. 

It *is* a shade less impersonal and psychopathic back in Hawaii, if only because it's about 2/3rds Asian. It's still part of the USA but might be a more survivable part.