"The Haze" - My observations on a uniquely American religion

[MagneticTowels]

This was keeping me up at night, so I had to write down my thoughts somewhere.

Time and time again, I see Americans just repeatedly falling into this bizarre pattern of thinking divorced from reality. I've dubbed it "The Haze".

What is The Haze?​

It's difficult to define. As far as I can tell:
It's a false religion, a perverted form of Buddhism mixed with occultism.
It has its own message, devotion, sins, heaven and hell.
It seems to be confined to the United States. No trace of it in Europe, Africa, Asia, the rest of the Americas, or Oceania.
It is generational. It skipped the Lost, G.I and Silent Generations, then took over the Boomer Generation, skipped Generation X, took over the Millennial Generation, then skipped the Zoomers.
It is so powerful, members can isolate themselves fully from reality.

Message One of The Haze: On Success​

1. People are successful.
2. They are successful because they are Good People(TM).
3. What makes them Good People(TM) is the fact they are successful.

Right off the bat, The Haze employs circular reasoning. It also instills a guilt complex in members. If you're not successful, it's because you're a Bad Person(TM). Bad People(TM) deserve nothing but scorn!

Message Two of The Haze: On Society​

1. Societal ills are caused by one or two dials not set correctly.
2. Strife between groups is caused by pigheadedness. Just change people's minds to cure it!

Message Two is equally insidious. It allows truly bad, immoral people to develop a sense of self-righteousness. This eventually leads to cancel culture and witch hunts.

Message Three of The Haze: On Reality​

1. You can abrogate the laws of reality by being a Good Person(TM).
2. Emotion is the fuel of the body.
3. Everything is your own fault.

Those are its fundamental messages.

The effects of The Haze cannot be overstated.

We see "Inspiration Porn" with a single disabled person being able to overcome their disability, and we assume that the disability is nothing severe. We remove protections and accommodations for the disabled who can't overcome their issues, since they're Bad People(TM) who deserve it.

We see the proliferation of Toxic Positivity online leading people to ruin when that positivity fails to alter reality. We see the Just World Fallacy employed everywhere.

We see the proliferation of Incels, apostates from The Haze. They know, from their own miserable home, academic and dating lives, that The Haze lied to them. But they were counting on it being true.

We see societal Zoochosis growing worse and worse and worse, but we do nothing, since The Haze teaches us that the solution is very simple; stop being wrong.

What created The Haze, and why did it skip certain generations?​

Here is my theory.

The Haze is the result of the death of religion in the U.S, combined with life seeming too safe.

War on Two Fronts​

Let me explain; The Haze clearly skipped the Lost, G.I and Silent Generations. You never saw any of them espousing Haze views.

The Lost Generation fought in World War I when they were young. They had the horrors of human cruelty and the fleeting, unfair nature of life burned into their developing brains.

The G.I Generation went through the Great Depression and then fought in World War II when they were young. They too had the horrors of human cruelty and the fleeting, unfair nature of life burned into their developing brains.

The Silent Generation witnessed World War II when they were young, and then witnessed the rebuilding of society, and all the painful lessons humanity had to learn.

Why did The Haze attack the Boomers? Because they grew up in the pocket of post-World War II prosperity. They never felt the need for God. LSD was more fun for them.

How did Generation X break the hold of the Haze?
They experienced 9/11.

Why did The Haze make a resurgence with Millennials? That's when Anime and the Internet were setting up false realities for them.

Why is The Haze struggling to infect Zoomers?
Because social media allowed them to witness the sickness going on in society.
The Haze enters remission when misery becomes impossible to ignore in one's formative years.

Nietzsche's Lament​

You don't need to follow any certain religion to know that life is unfair, society is systemically sick, and we need divine intervention to make it through every day, because they all say that. This has been in humanity's collective consciousness since the first religions. But in the U.S, God is dead. Our generations forget fundamental truths and just go with whatever they believe they can control. Since the Dunning-Kruger effect keeps them from realizing just how little actually is under their control, they become prey for The Haze.

So, what will happen to Generations Alpha and Beta? I don't believe The Haze will have any control over them.

The country deteriorates further and further every single day.

Life gets harder and harder.

The middle class is pulled deeper and deeper into the pit of poverty.

U.S infrastructure is aging with no way to maintain it.

Politics has proven itself to be an utter farce.

This won't end well; whether the outcome is Great Depression II, Civil War II, Revolutionary War II, or World War III, there won't be any way to ignore reality.

No Haze clouding their vision.

 

[Foghotten]

No man it reached me when I was young and it kinda sucked dick actually

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

I think you're pointing out many real symptoms but err in identifying the root as specifically American, generational, Buddhist, occult, or caused by too little misery
I'll share my thoughts on the matter

The way I see it, the common thread is much simpler. People start treating reality as if it were subordinate to consciousness. That is, a wrong presupposition that reality bends just because someone has the right mood, the right status, the right narrative, or the right self-image
Sometimes that looks like "positive thinking", sometimes "good people succeed, therefore success is proof of goodness", sometimes "society would be fixed if everyone just had the right attitude", etc.
Success is caused by causal factors, like choices, knowledge, ability, discipline, timing, inheritance, luck, market conditions, institutional interference, and so on. None of these are proof that someone is metaphysically "good", the same way failure is also not proof that someone is "bad".

Where I disagree most with what you said is the implied cure. I don't deny that hardships like war, poverty, social decay, and trauma can help break some illusions, but they certainly will not make people rational. In simpler terms, pain is not a substitute for epistemology. A miserable person can be just as detached from reality as a comfortable person. Accordingly, I disagree that divine intervention or civilizational collapse can serve as the antidote. Rather, I'd prescribe the very plain recognition that reality comes first, consciousness identifies it, and wishing/fearing/praising/blaming/voting does not change what is true or false

 

[Vect]

It's called the saeculum. That is to say, civilization, renews, matures, stagnates, then falls. It happens everywhere across human history. It's the blindness of presentism and the limits of human lifespans that perpetuate it. There was an article in A&H posted not long ago that suggested that longer human lifespans increased the perception of stagnation.

It is the curse of those who live in the present to bemoan the seemingly inevitable doom of modernity.

 

[Tablet County]

I think you're a pretentious faggot, OP.