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1) It& #39;s not the profound lesson I wanted to learn from all this, but one thing Trumpism + pandemic have taught me is that the US has a much higher percentage than I thought of adults who are simply immature. It& #39;s been astonishing to see people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s act out.
2) I& #39;m of the generation that supposedly never grew up, needs cheap symbolic affirmation (& #39;participation trophies!& #39;), lives in our parents& #39; basement, etc. But in terms of civic duty, there are far too many grown adults metaphorically living in my basement right now. Get out!!!
3) I think an important part of maturity is the ability to make small (sometimes large) personal sacrifices for the greater good. I consider wearing a mask--which is proven to reduce viral transmission--during a pandemic a small personal sacrifice.
4) But even if you& #39;re not mature enough to make that small sacrifice and wear a mask, are you mature enough to go shopping at Target without wrecking a mask display because it offense your political sensibility? https://www.tmz.com/2020/07/05/arizona-scottsdale-woman-destroys-target-face-mask-40k-rolex/">https://www.tmz.com/2020/07/0...
5) In & #39;What is Enlightenment?& #39; Kant famously defined immaturity as & #39;the inability to use one& #39;s understanding without guidance from another,& #39; envisioning a state of intellectual immaturity as dependence on institutions to tell one what to think ...
6) In the US we have the opposite problem: too many of us haven& #39;t developed a concept of motives beyond the self. A lot of people would say it& #39;s the & #39;me me me& #39; culture, it& #39;s selfishness. But I think this is (also) a devastating form of emotional and *intellectual* immaturity.
7) As a material example of what I mean, consider: voting. On one hand people say the US electoral system suffers from too much cult of personality, not enough concern about policy among voters. But ...
8) There& #39;s a deeper, more basic problem than that among the US electorate, of which desire for cult of personality is a symptom: Americans consider voting an exercise in expressing ourselves and our personal interests and desires. I find this ridiculous.
9) A mature electorate sees voting as a civic duty to elect the best people for the flourishing of everyone, not as a chance to further a personal or niche cause. This is a practical approach as well as a moral one, as I see it, because individuals are generally terrible at ...
10) ... predicting how large-scale systems like governments will process their personal, individual issue-fetishes. This is presumably why really rich people donate to both parties: to hedge their bets and gain favor regardless of outcome.
11) I& #39;ll back off the armchair political theory & come back down to earth: Too many Americans apparently haven& #39;t been able to wrap their heads around the idea that sometimes not getting their way is actually a good thing and might yet make getting their way more likely later on.
12) And I think this is a form of immaturity--intellectual immaturity (a flipped version of Kant& #39;s notion) foremost that probably also fosters emotional immaturity, e.g. throwing a tantrum in target over masks. /end
Addendum: Note, for example, the immaturity of Trumpist political speech: Boo Boo Biden is a big loser, Crooked Hillary, Sleepy Ted, Silly Billy, Wooble Wobble, gimme ur lunch money KID!!! I have the biggest hands!!!!!!!!1111
