Having for 12 years lived in the former Soviet Union - and for 17
years in America - I have seen a malignancy shared by many citizens
of both countries. I refer to it as the Superpower Syndrome.
The affliction manifests in slightly different forms in the two
countries, but its essence is similar. The afflicted believes that,
because his country is great, he is great just by virtue of having been
born in that country and needs to do nothing whatsoever in order to be
great himself. The possessor of Superpower Syndrome claims
unconditional greatness as his birthright and believes he does not need
to develop more intricate qualities. Instead he derives his concept of
greatness from his concept of patriotism - manifest in tunnel vision,
barbarism, cruelty, ignorance and hatred of everything existing outside
his home.

Having for 12 years lived in the former Soviet Union - and for 17
years in America - I have seen a malignancy shared by many citizens
of both countries. I refer to it as the Superpower Syndrome.

The affliction manifests in slightly different forms in the two
countries, but its essence is similar. The afflicted believes that,
because his country is great, he is great just by virtue of having been

born in that country and needs to do nothing whatsoever in order to be
great himself. The possessor of Superpower Syndrome claims
unconditional greatness as his birthright and believes he does not need

to develop more intricate qualities. Instead he derives his concept of
greatness from his concept of patriotism - manifest in tunnel vision,
barbarism, cruelty, ignorance and hatred of everything existing outside

his home.

and the noble ideals that spawned from these qualities - in the
personas of Jefferson, Franklin and Washington - that made it
possible for there to exist such concepts as liberty and rights, and
without their principled and courageous leadership the people who now
regard themselves normal Americans would be serfs for one or another
monarchy. With cultivated intellectuals having conceived the statehood
of the United States, it is the height of hypocrisy for American people

to harbor anti-intellectual sentiment. Quite simply, if not for the
intellectuals, America would not exist, and its citizens would live in
penury and oppression.

Another question the aforementioned follower asked was, "What's more
important: Free speech or right to bear arms?" My response: That
depends upon the social covenant in which you live. If you live in a
barbaric, lawless society, then guns are more important. When you live
in a real civilization, in which such issues are settled by law rather
than duels, it becomes more important to have free speech. And while
we're at it, allow me to give another practical purpose to culture: To
lift the world out of barbarism and into a civilization. At which point

the need for citizens to carry guns disappears and the stage is set for

real debate and social interaction.

The truly obnoxious feature of Superpower Syndrome - afflicted
individual is his equation of basic barbarism with morality, or
reality, or "American Way." Believing himself to speak for human
nature, he attacks, destroys and demonizes all aspects of human nature
other than ones his country espouses as human nature, while grotesquely

and hideously indulging the aspects of human nature his country
believes to be bottom line.

This indeed merits further discussion. It is apparent to me that
different societies possess different concept of what is human nature
and what is not. I expound further to say that the societies possess
different concept of what is legitimate human nature and what is not
legitimate human nature; with the first shoved down people's throats
since infancy - and the second either pathologized, or demonized, or
prosecuted, or silenced. With the society deriving its legitimacy from
claiming best to fulfill human nature, it is of course people whose
nature (indeed also goals and aspirations) does not fit by the
society's concept of human nature that need to be eliminated, in
order that they do not refute by counterexample the lie that the
society serves human nature and is therefore the most legitimate, most
happy, most morally upstanding place in the world.

Which of course again leads us into the land of hypocrisy. If you
believe you fulfill human nature, then that must apply to the totality
of human nature and not just the qualities you bludgeon into people's
heads since childhood; and if you attack the aspect of human nature (in

my example, the artistic and the intellectual) that other countries
value but you do not, then you have no claim to speaking for human
nature (or for claiming to fulfill it and thus being the best place in
the world). Freedom is about people having a climate in which they can
pursue goals - their goals, ones chosen in an informed and free and
open manner. To beat into people's heads a single set of goals and a
single set of worldview, and then set them off to compete against one
another, is not liberty; it is what I call conman's totalitarianism:
The act of bludgeoning into people's motivational structure the goals
of the society - and, as they remain unconscious of the dynamics in
question, seeing them pursue such goals while regarding themselves
free.

In pursuing the Superpower Syndrome, the afflicted of course harms his
country far more than he helps it. To keep out of one's country the
good ideas of other countries, is to fail to incorporate wisdom,
insight and genius that exists elsewhere and to lead one's country to
fall behind. To keep people from developing the beautiful, the
thoughtful, and the artistic, is to impoverish the experience of the
people and to turn one's country into something hideous and grotesque
while failing to incorporate the best in humanity. To keep people from
developing cultivation (and therefore from creating beautiful work), is

likewise to impoverish human experience. And to say that one thing is
human nature or bottom line, while everything else is not, is not only
ignorant and hypocritical but, in effect, simply disgusting.

It is acceptable to the true human being to live for service of God;
for principle; for knowledge; for freedom; for scientific progress; for

artistic mastery; for producing great works or inspiring and raising
the youth or lifting the world out of poverty. It is acceptable, when
one is a human being rather than an ape, to live for goals that are
noble and real and truly human - goals that are furthermore
meaningful and profound and inspiring. It is not acceptable, when one
is a human being, to live by the code of the ape. And it most certainly

is not acceptable to indulge the hideous spectacle of the ape-minded
running the civilization while crucifying those who have more advanced
motives or have anything to offer that might require an attention span
longer than 30 seconds to understand.

In the totalitarian societies, it is customary for the government and
the society to tell people what they should do. That, I regard as
wrong, but at least understandable. In America I've seen something far
more pernicious: Society telling the people what they should want. Now
I can see no more invasive, no more oppressive, no more totalitarian,
course of action than that. HOW DARE YOU TELL PEOPLE WHAT THEY SHOULD
WANT! How dare you! What the totalitarian societies accomplished
through official oppression, America accomplishes with moral thuggery
and playing on people's ignorance and fears and socially instilled
wounds to their selfhood. "The enemy of the people" is replaced with
"sociopath," "dangerous individual," "commie," and all other forms of
nonsense - and through social manipulation and lying to people
surrounding one and artificial manipulation of social climate and those

in it, are created false artificial consequences of actions and
thoughts that are made to create an illusion of certain actions and
codes of thought leading to evil places - when the only reason they
appear to do so, is a result of artificial manipulation of the society
and ones in it.

This, I refer to as conman's totalitarianism. It is a form of creeping
dictatorship of the masses (indeed of ones most skilled in manipulating

the masses) in a country that claims its ways to be ones of liberty. It

is a form of bludgeoning into people's heads - through different
methods, but especially ones affecting their hometowns and social sets
- the motivational structure that is not only in many ways wrong, but
is in fact grossly limiting, destructive, abrasive and incomplete. And
then - with people formulated and sprawling on a bin - they are set to
compete against one another, while claiming the formulated inside as
though it were their own.

Now I can see no more dishonest, hideous, worthless and despicable
course of action than that. Whether for running a society or for
running a world. America stands on - and derives its moral legitimacy
from - making it possible for people to pursue their own goals. Goals
that they, in order to be their own, have to choose in a free and
informed manner - I repeat, free and informed manner - and not goals
shoved down their throats by communities, or families, or communities
by manipulation of families and societies by manipulation of families
and communities. And anything other than that, is a blow to the
principles on which America claims to stand.

When the Soviet Union fell, many possessors of the Soviet version of
Superpower Syndrome were left in a pretty bad place - a place that
they had of course richly merited. I still encounter Superpower
Syndrome among American people, and that is something that I believe
intelligent Americans ought to combat for the sake not only of
themselves but of America itself. The Superpower Syndrome is a drain
and a blight, not a benefit, for the country, and in destroying the
best that appears in the culture - in prosecuting the very qualities to

which America owes its statehood - in claiming to fulfill human nature
while hypocritically demolishing the qualities in people that don't fit

its concept of human nature - in bloating the stomach at the expense of

all other qualities - in perpetuating, at long last, a conman's
totalitarianism of beating goals into people's heads and then claiming
them free - it not only undermines America's moral legitimacy but in
fact leads to its long-term ruin.

Ilya Shambat.

Having for 12 years lived in the former Soviet Union - and for 17
years in America - I have seen a malignancy shared by many citizens
of both countries. I refer to it as the Superpower Syndrome.

The affliction manifests in slightly different forms in the two
countries, but its essence is similar. The afflicted believes that,
because his country is great, he is great just by virtue of having been

born in that country and needs to do nothing whatsoever in order to be
great himself. The possessor of Superpower Syndrome claims
unconditional greatness as his birthright and believes he does not need

to develop more intricate qualities. Instead he derives his concept of
greatness from his concept of patriotism - manifest in tunnel vision,
barbarism, cruelty, ignorance and hatred of everything existing outside

his home.

The afflicted might believe different things and mouth different
dogmas. The American may say "Money talks, bullsh*t walks"; the
Soviet may have said "he fears me, that means he respects me." The
American may tell his children to say "one nation, under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all"; the Soviet taught his
children to say "proletariats of all countries unite." What both
societies had in common, was the belief that they catered to the lowest

common denominator - and as such were arbiters of reality and human
nature. And both, in pursuit to the aforementioned beliefs,
trivialized, demonized or destroyed everything that is more subtle, or
less easily quantifiable, or requiring an attention span greater than
that of an average TV commercial to understand.

This of course has been the very worst feature of both superpowers. An
American may believe that people who rightly appreciate - and draw
into their lives - the appealing ideas and customs of other
civilization is a poser. A Soviet may have said that the same person
was the enemy of the proletariat. An American may believe that personal

cultivation (as pursued in cultures such as France and Japan) is wussy
or weakening. A Soviet may have said that such things were bourgeois.
Having both received their political systems from erudite, finely
cultivated intellectuals (Jefferson and Franklin in America; Marx and
Lenin in USSR), they both turned viciously and barbarically
anti-intellectual and anti-artistic, claiming the same to be artifacts
of aristocracy rather than a natural human right - a pursuit that
develops the people into the best they can be and enriches,
invigorates, and gives wisdom, color and bounty to the countries and
the citizens of the countries, whatever their income level and
profession.

Which of course makes both hypocrites. It was intelligence, cultivation

and the noble ideals that spawned from these qualities - in the
personas of Jefferson, Franklin and Washington - that made it
possible for there to exist such concepts as liberty and rights, and
without their principled and courageous leadership the people who now
regard themselves normal Americans would be serfs for one or another
monarchy. With cultivated intellectuals having conceived the statehood
of the United States, it is the height of hypocrisy for American people

to harbor anti-intellectual sentiment. Quite simply, if not for the
intellectuals, America would not exist, and its citizens would live in
penury and oppression.

Pursuant this hypocrisy, we have seen quite hideous demagoguery on both

sides of the Atlantic. As the Soviets referred to luxury, sexuality and

prosperity as vices of capitalism, so have American demagogues sought
to portray intellectual, philosophical and artistic perspectives as
being elitist or un-American. Whether or not they are elitist, or
"vices of capitalism," is beside the point. All that the Soviets
attacked in their demagoguery - and all that Americans have attacked
in the same vein - enriches human existence and elevates it to a
level above the "bottom line," however that is defined. Indeed it
gives life its quality and completeness. Furthermore, it gives
expression to the most magnificent in the human being and allows it to
do what it naturally seeks to do: Add color and beauty and quality and
richness and elegance to human existence and make our world an
improvement on nature and not a degradation.

And, lest we forget, it is also this perspective - perspective that the

founders of this country with tremendous courage and inspiration
carried forth in the time of absolute monarchies - that has made
possible for people to believe in a social covenant that allows liberty

and prosperity to its citizens, rather than keeping them, as they had
been always, in shackles. To repeat. The American citizen owes his
place in the world to the erudite intellectuals. For him to be
anti-intellectual, is to destroy the ground on which he stands.

When I was discussing the necessity of culture with a follower of Rush
Limbaugh, his response was, "Does culture feed you?" My response is: Do

you live to eat? Is the stomach the only valid section of human body,
and is it the duty of human being to bloat the stomach and to neglect
all else? Does culture feed you? No, but it does something equally as
important. It lends life richness, quality, color and splendor that
allows you to make the most of yourself and the most of the
civilization. It feeds the mind and the heart in the same way as
business feeds the stomach - and in such it constitutes not only the
expression of the talent and wisdom and goodness within humanity, but
likewise its lasting unfoldment and consummation.

And, lest we forget: It takes culture to instill in people the kinds of

thoughts and ideals that have made possible America. Without which the
average American would, once again, be a serf in some hidebound
monarchy.

Another question the aforementioned follower asked was, "What's more
important: Free speech or right to bear arms?" My response: That
depends upon the social covenant in which you live. If you live in a
barbaric, lawless society, then guns are more important. When you live
in a real civilization, in which such issues are settled by law rather
than duels, it becomes more important to have free speech. And while
we're at it, allow me to give another practical purpose to culture: To
lift the world out of barbarism and into a civilization. At which point

the need for citizens to carry guns disappears and the stage is set for

real debate and social interaction.

The truly obnoxious feature of Superpower Syndrome - afflicted
individual is his equation of basic barbarism with morality, or
reality, or "American Way." Believing himself to speak for human
nature, he attacks, destroys and demonizes all aspects of human nature
other than ones his country espouses as human nature, while grotesquely

and hideously indulging the aspects of human nature his country
believes to be bottom line. An American who wants something other than
acquisition of property, like a Soviet who wanted something other than
security in the totalitarian state, comes under hideous and vicious
attack - not because they are in any objective sense wrong (they are
not), but rather because they violate the respective nation's
ideological concept of what is human - and, by violating the
nation's dogma of what is human (and consequently its pretense of
being the unchallenged provider for fulfillment of human nature)
constitute a blow to the very ideological precepts on which the
country's claim to legitimacy is based.

This indeed merits further discussion. It is apparent to me that
different societies possess different concept of what is human nature
and what is not. I expound further to say that the societies possess
different concept of what is legitimate human nature and what is not
legitimate human nature; with the first shoved down people's throats
since infancy - and the second either pathologized, or demonized, or
prosecuted, or silenced. With the society deriving its legitimacy from
claiming best to fulfill human nature, it is of course people whose
nature (indeed also goals and aspirations) does not fit by the
society's concept of human nature that need to be eliminated, in
order that they do not refute by counterexample the lie that the
society serves human nature and is therefore the most legitimate, most
happy, most morally upstanding place in the world.

Which of course again leads us into the land of hypocrisy. If you
believe you fulfill human nature, then that must apply to the totality
of human nature and not just the qualities you bludgeon into people's
heads since childhood; and if you attack the aspect of human nature (in

my example, the artistic and the intellectual) that other countries
value but you do not, then you have no claim to speaking for human
nature (or for claiming to fulfill it and thus being the best place in
the world). Freedom is about people having a climate in which they can
pursue goals - their goals, ones chosen in an informed and free and
open manner. To beat into people's heads a single set of goals and a
single set of worldview, and then set them off to compete against one
another, is not liberty; it is what I call conman's totalitarianism:
The act of bludgeoning into people's motivational structure the goals
of the society - and, as they remain unconscious of the dynamics in
question, seeing them pursue such goals while regarding themselves
free.

And we haven't yet broached the subject of how the Christian concept
of human nature being evil works into this situation. What I've seen,
once again, is demonization of those aspects of human nature of which
the particular social set disapproves - and manipulation of all human
motives into perpetuation of what meets its goals. Which is of course a

total misuse of religion. If human nature is evil, then that applies to

the totality of human nature - including the aspects that serve the
interests of the social shaper; and if the aspects that serve the
social set are acceptable, then so is the totality of human nature.

In pursuing the Superpower Syndrome, the afflicted of course harms his
country far more than he helps it. To keep out of one's country the
good ideas of other countries, is to fail to incorporate wisdom,
insight and genius that exists elsewhere and to lead one's country to
fall behind. To keep people from developing the beautiful, the
thoughtful, and the artistic, is to impoverish the experience of the
people and to turn one's country into something hideous and grotesque
while failing to incorporate the best in humanity. To keep people from
developing cultivation (and therefore from creating beautiful work), is

likewise to impoverish human experience. And to say that one thing is
human nature or bottom line, while everything else is not, is not only
ignorant and hypocritical but, in effect, simply disgusting.

Quite simply, humanity - true humanity - requires a meaning to its
existence; and that most certainly means discerning modernity at a
level above that of serving the bloat of the gut or the power of the
state. To live for survival, or for self-perpetuation, or for the
state, is degradation upon humanity and its reduction into a
caveman-like status. And it is for this reason that we see the
philosophically-minded in American youth turn to suicide, or drugs, or
other forms of rebellion. If one is given a choice - fit in or die
- with no meaning or purpose beyond that - the choice of any
self-respecting person is: Die.

Fortunately we know that these are not the only two choices possible.

It is acceptable to the true human being to live for service of God;
for principle; for knowledge; for freedom; for scientific progress; for

artistic mastery; for producing great works or inspiring and raising
the youth or lifting the world out of poverty. It is acceptable, when
one is a human being rather than an ape, to live for goals that are
noble and real and truly human - goals that are furthermore
meaningful and profound and inspiring. It is not acceptable, when one
is a human being, to live by the code of the ape. And it most certainly

is not acceptable to indulge the hideous spectacle of the ape-minded
running the civilization while crucifying those who have more advanced
motives or have anything to offer that might require an attention span
longer than 30 seconds to understand.

In the totalitarian societies, it is customary for the government and
the society to tell people what they should do. That, I regard as
wrong, but at least understandable. In America I've seen something far
more pernicious: Society telling the people what they should want. Now
I can see no more invasive, no more oppressive, no more totalitarian,
course of action than that. HOW DARE YOU TELL PEOPLE WHAT THEY SHOULD
WANT! How dare you! What the totalitarian societies accomplished
through official oppression, America accomplishes with moral thuggery
and playing on people's ignorance and fears and socially instilled
wounds to their selfhood. "The enemy of the people" is replaced with
"sociopath," "dangerous individual," "commie," and all other forms of
nonsense - and through social manipulation and lying to people
surrounding one and artificial manipulation of social climate and those

in it, are created false artificial consequences of actions and
thoughts that are made to create an illusion of certain actions and
codes of thought leading to evil places - when the only reason they
appear to do so, is a result of artificial manipulation of the society
and ones in it.

This, I refer to as conman's totalitarianism. It is a form of creeping
dictatorship of the masses (indeed of ones most skilled in manipulating

the masses) in a country that claims its ways to be ones of liberty. It

is a form of bludgeoning into people's heads - through different
methods, but especially ones affecting their hometowns and social sets
- the motivational structure that is not only in many ways wrong, but
is in fact grossly limiting, destructive, abrasive and incomplete. And
then - with people formulated and sprawling on a bin - they are set to
compete against one another, while claiming the formulated inside as
though it were their own.

Now I can see no more dishonest, hideous, worthless and despicable
course of action than that. Whether for running a society or for
running a world. America stands on - and derives its moral legitimacy
from - making it possible for people to pursue their own goals. Goals
that they, in order to be their own, have to choose in a free and
informed manner - I repeat, free and informed manner - and not goals
shoved down their throats by communities, or families, or communities
by manipulation of families and societies by manipulation of families
and communities. And anything other than that, is a blow to the
principles on which America claims to stand.

When the Soviet Union fell, many possessors of the Soviet version of
Superpower Syndrome were left in a pretty bad place - a place that
they had of course richly merited. I still encounter Superpower
Syndrome among American people, and that is something that I believe
intelligent Americans ought to combat for the sake not only of
themselves but of America itself. The Superpower Syndrome is a drain
and a blight, not a benefit, for the country, and in destroying the
best that appears in the culture - in prosecuting the very qualities to

which America owes its statehood - in claiming to fulfill human nature
while hypocritically demolishing the qualities in people that don't fit

its concept of human nature - in bloating the stomach at the expense of

all other qualities - in perpetuating, at long last, a conman's
totalitarianism of beating goals into people's heads and then claiming
them free - it not only undermines America's moral legitimacy but in
fact leads to its long-term ruin.

Ilya Shambat.