What is the god of this world?

[Risen]

What is the god of this world (American society)? Is it money? Is it materialism?

 

[Pixelholic]

What definition of god are you using?

There are a lot of parts of American society that are dogmatically ideological but I would say fall short of actual worship.

The biggest dogmatic ideology would probably be American Exceptionalism. That the US is the greatest bastion or freedom/democracy/liberty/capitalism/etc. and is entitled to being the dominant force of global politics. This ideology has been the dominant force guiding American culture since at least the 50s.

When (not if, when,) it comes crashing down it will probably be replaced with some kind of European like existentialism (we'll get to be post-empire Britian then.) Or something else entirely different might happen but it will make the societal trauma of 9/11 look like nothing.

 

[ragashree]

Easy one

It's Mammon:

Mammon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Oberon]

The American God? I'd say the Self. We are the most navel-gazingest, self-absorbed, self-indulgent society I've ever seen, and we're getting worse.

 

[Tiltyred]

The Corporation.

 

[Arthur Schopenhauer]

The god of this world is man.

 

[Ginkgo]

The American God? I'd say the Self. We are the most navel-gazingest, self-absorbed, self-indulgent society I've ever seen, and we're getting worse.

Have you heard The Secret?

Lol.

 

[Metamorphosis]

The belief in something for nothing. (The problem with democracies in general)

 

[Lark]

I'd say the state too, people over estimate its powers big style, on both the left and the right, although I'd say on the right wing its the market, they take the whole invisible hand business of out of date economic philosophers pretty literally.

 

[Tantive]

Our sun

 

[Mole]

The Word

What is the god of this world? Is it money? Is it materialism?

We worship the word.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Yes, the word was God, but God died in the 19th Century with the invention of the electric telegraph, followed by radio, the telephone, television and the internet.

But still we worship print because when they took us by law from the warm bosom of our family to a cold institution to teach us to read and write, they never told us we wouldn't be able to stop.

Look at us right now - we can't even stop reading this.

We worship print with our eyes, and we are deaf to poetry, to the spoken word, because print privileges the eye.

Under print, the eye dominates all the other senses - print forces us to live under the Eye of God.

And the God of the Ear, and the God of the proprioceptive sense - the God of dance, and the God of the warm muzzle - the God of the spoken word - the God of poetry, have been betrayed.

Print is the hot medium that has led to revolution and civil war, and today the highest compliment we can pay someone is to call them, "Hot".

Print exploded us into the world, while the electronic media are imploding us into ourselves. And so we seek to understand our inner selves with MBTI.

The God of the word is dead and is starting to smell, so we can't even bear to call ourselves religious anymore, so we call ourselves, "Spiritual".

Yes, the God of the word is dead; and the God of the internet, the noosphere, is rising above the horizon.

And here we are, sisters and brothers, worshipping here every day, miraculously outside of time and space, pure spirits, spiritual but not religious, angels of the noosphere.

 

[slowriot]

Lady GaGa

 

[ajblaise]

This combo pretty much covers it.

 

[Arthur Schopenhauer]

We worship the word.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Yes, the word was God, but God died in the 19th Century with the invention of the electric telegraph, followed by radio, the telephone, television and the internet.

But still we worship print because when they took us by law from the warm bosom of our family to a cold institution to teach us to read and write, they never told us we wouldn't be able to stop.

Look at us right now - we can't even stop reading this.

This is where I stopped reading. I should have done it earlier...

 

[Risen]

This is where I stopped reading. I should have done it earlier...

I stopped after the seventh "WORD" to rest .

 

[Abstract Thinker]

We worship the word.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Yes, the word was God, but God died in the 19th Century with the invention of the electric telegraph, followed by radio, the telephone, television and the internet.

But still we worship print because when they took us by law from the warm bosom of our family to a cold institution to teach us to read and write, they never told us we wouldn't be able to stop.

Look at us right now - we can't even stop reading this.

We worship print with our eyes, and we are deaf to poetry, to the spoken word, because print privileges the eye.

Under print, the eye dominates all the other senses - print forces us to live under the Eye of God.

And the God of the Ear, and the God of the proprioceptive sense - the God of dance, and the God of the warm muzzle - the God of the spoken word - the God of poetry, have been betrayed.

Print is the hot medium that has led to revolution and civil war, and today the highest compliment we can pay someone is to call them, "Hot".

Print exploded us into the world, while the electronic media are imploding us into ourselves. And so we seek to understand our inner selves with MBTI.

The God of the word is dead and is starting to smell, so we can't even bear to call ourselves religious anymore, so we call ourselves, "Spiritual".

Yes, the God of the word is dead; and the God of the internet, the noosphere, is rising above the horizon.

And here we are, sisters and brothers, worshipping here every day, miraculously outside of time and space, pure spirits, spiritual but not religious, angels of the noosphere.

I think this is interesting. All of it, but especially the bold.

That's a nice bit of prose, mate.

I like the way you changed the tone a couple lines in and mixed vernaculars throughout. A kind of language "timeline," and the last concept is a new one. Cool.

 

[Coriolis]

Instant gratification and baseless self-esteem

 

[sLiPpY]

What is the god of this world (American society)? Is it money? Is it materialism?

Audacious mendacity.

 

[Journey]

It's a Who not a what--the great I AM.

 

[5231311252]

"The ego is not individual. Ego is a social phenomenon - it is society, it is not you. But it gives you a function in the society, a hierarchy in the society."