Does Europe have a Thanksgiving equivalent?
Nothing so major. Slighter earlier there is a thing called a harvest festival but that’s just for the Christians I think because I never saw it again after I left the Christian school I was at. Someone pointed out something I’d never really noticed about American traditions of Thanksgiving and Black Friday in that it’s customary to remember one is supposed to be thankful whilst tolerating ones family and then the next day, embracing low-priced electronics.
I would say that ultimately America has one real source of universal tradition. There are, of course, smaller subcultures among the American population that do genuinely adhere to different guides, but the majority of American citizens do what commerce tells them. They don’t do it consciously but they do follow it anyway – everything from conversation to social / civic concerns.
No, and “commerce” is not an entity of agency. It is hard to point the finger. Commerce isn’t an entity of agency? Maybe a clarification of terms then. Corporate culture?
There is not a singular being behind the wheel of commerce. Commerce is not a dictator. There is a singular meta entity. Just as a flock forms and behaves as a body, the rules of commerce entrain the behaviour of the respective individual components. Ultimately, there is no autonomy in commerce. A business cannot take a principled stand irrespective of the commercial environment can it?
We think of the world as composed of individuals. That’s an emotionally and aesthetically pleasing point of view, but not functionally true for the larger part, or am I misguided? Many say that there are no gods, but emergent meta entities have always been involved in animal as well as physical behaviour. There are multiple fields of said meta entities, and I have actually begun today’s topic ‘Dancing the Spiral of Life’ if you were wondering.
It’s risky for a business to take a moral stand, but sometimes it works out fine. I think business is on the cusp of taking moral stands. They can take a moral stand when they tune into the gravity of the living imperative. Humans didn’t invent these meta entities. They just distorted them though they didn’t start out distorting them. We generally consider ourselves to be beings who think for ourselves. That is a half truth at best.
If it stays on topic, may I bring in an idea I have been kind of mulling over for a little while on this? Certainly. A couple of hundred years ago, the British Empire outlawed slavery for moral reasons. Legally, they changed the status of slaves from commodity to contraband. This was a moral drive because it was making a fortune. Do you think the same idea could become part of the collective moral consciousness to do the same with the oil industry. I do.
Not so drastically, but with specifically targeting efforts towards ending the creation of “disposable” items from permanent materials. As I am from England, it took a while to learn about my country’s history and I slowly came to understand that other nations do not perhaps view us as we view ourselves. This is standard for all nations, I should guess, but I do think that the presence of wars over this stuff makes it enough of a universal moral abhorrence the same as slavery.
I just found out that Haiti was the only slave uprising to succeed. But they were shunned by the US and European countries so they were hurt economically. They were forced to make reparations to France (their owners) for a huge amount of money (basically paying for their freedom) and it’s taken over a century to pay off the debt. So we are directly responsible for their poverty.
The world is layered, like our brains are though much more deeply. People tend to stay at the surface in their attention.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~