America’s Delusions of Grandeur

Superficial charm, grandiosity & self-importance.

Chris Hedges, 

It is the cult of self that is killing the United States. This cult has within it the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance; a need for constant stimulation; a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation; and the incapacity for remorse or guilt.

This is also the ethic promoted by corporations. It is the ethic of unfettered capitalism. It is the misguided belief that personal style and personal advancement, mistaken for individualism, are the same as democratic equality.

It is the nationwide celebration of image over substance, of illusion over truth.

And it is why investment bankers blink in confusion when questioned about the morality of the billions in profits they made by selling worthless toxic assets to investors.

We have a right, in the cult of the self, to get whatever we desire.

We can do anything, even belittle and destroy those around us, including our friends, to make money, to be happy and to become famous.

Once fame and wealth are achieved, they become their own justification, their own morality. How one gets there is irrelevant.

https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/112/cult-self.html