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I don't argue that she was criticized. I just say that the problem described in the post—protests about games and comparisons with other countries—is irrelevant. In addition, for some reason, the topic starter included "evil capitalists" in the post. Maybe I didn't describe it very well because I'm using a translator. Personally, I see this literally as a problem of the golden billion. Maslow's pyramid is just an example.
Let me explain in more detail. Surely everyone was told as a child what successful future awaits them. How everything will be wonderful. Boundless horizons. Hardly any parent wouldn't want this for their child. But reality isn't like that. It doesn't guarantee not only earnings but even life. Harsh truth. Therefore, all these sufferings in the spirit of: "cursed capitalists are profiting from us, let's protest more. If something happens, will we protest even more?" seem very funny to me.
Especially for the USA, because the post was clearly written by someone from there. Guys, capitalists in 1996, if I'm not mistaken, provided your country with a lot of jobs at chicken factories just by giving one country free chicken under monopoly conditions. But luck doesn't always turn its face.
So as it was sung in one Russian song:
We galloped merrily on wooden horses, We marched in war against the foolish adult world. We led an army of songs and toys together, We were very brave children.
But one day, in every child’s heart, it suddenly became empty, The fairy‑tale thread was torn. We got there, and it turned out there was simply no one to defeat. There are no adults here except us.
Time ran out, the veil fell, and everything that had so drawn us, that has always been inside us.
I'm OP and didn't explicitly call out "evil capitalism" by name, I don't think. I don't think capitalism is particularly evil, it's just locus of propaganda that allows the system to parasitize everyone else. SInce everyone defends the system by saying, "capitalism is good!" people attack the system thinking "capitalism is bad!" But the problem is the system of aggregating power to a few that potentially exists in EVERY society.
Like, yeah, this idea that we just get rid of "capitalism" and welcome in a new Utopia is really silly. Most people won't state that theory outright, but it's clearly underlying their thoughts:
People suck. Societies suck. And I think it always has been that way and I think it will always be that way--at least eventually. I think the best thing to do is fight for the PRESENT and forget about the future.
I love your song, btw. What's the title? I regret selling my bayan.
Edit: Ah, yes, I have more to say, just agreeing with you. I remember watching the Muppet Movie, the original one, as an adult--though they all have a common theme--and realizing how TOXIC it is. It firmly plants in everyone's head that they can literally be a star.
Several years later, Tyler Durden in Fight Club said it out loud: We we were all raised to think we could all be movie gods and rockstars; but we can't. We were lied to. And we're pissed off. {or something like that}
I think kids raised in the US today have been told: go to school and go to college MINIMUM. What they are finding when they graduate is the economic situation is horrible and now they are PERMANENTLY in debt. I think it's natural to be angry about that, to be put into a position of financial slavery by society...
But also you're right--expectations have a powerful effect on people.
Edit:
But I also want to talk about existential depression, which I have. Everyone believes in SOMETHING--which is why Maslow is full of shit. That is to say, at bedrock, EVERYONE has a purpose or a meaning, something they cling to so they have a role in the world and hope for the future. For a lot of people it used to be religion, for other people it might be their career, or their family, or politics (see the myth of progress above). It's extremely powerful and pervasive.
But at some point, you might lose your anchor. If you built your life and your children, they could die. If you built your life around your career, you might become disabled. If you built your life around faith, you might become an atheist (rare). And at that point, you have to ask yourself, what is the point of being alive?
That's the existential crisis.
This is casually treated by a parade of comfortable white men. Camus basically just said to laugh it off. Isn't it absurd!? we're supposed to say. Easy enough when your life is full of material comfort and social belonging as a top professor in academe. But what if you're poor, what if you're alone, what if you have no purpose in the world, no accomplishments, no celebrations? What then? Existential philoosophy has very little to offer people who suffer.
One of the reasons religion is so powerfully felt among the poor and the struggling is that it offers JUSTICE. They suffer now, so they will be rewarded later. The wealthy have pleasure now, but will burn in hell later. To see that they live in an unjust world where what they want is denied them is emotionally unbearable for most people, so they fall into religion.
Thanks for the convo. I enjoy your perspective.