Re:Finland's homeless crisis nearly solved. How? By giving h...
by cmurf on Thursday March 22, 2018 @04:25PM
(#16652399)
The book of Job really should have never allowed prosperity theology to prosper, and should be a lesson why it's absurd.
Re:Finland's homeless crisis nearly solved. How? By giving h...
by gt_ on Thursday March 22, 2018 @04:09PM
(#16652243)
It sure seems that way but we also see the same tendencies in many other disconnected cultures. It’s widely associated with consumerism. Do you think that’s a misconception? I don’t. I am really far from being an expert but I grew up around a lot of I think was protestantism aftermath. I get the impression Puritanism was a culture founded on demonizing symbolism by way of different symbolism, which making it ripe for commercialism thanks to simplistic abstractions of pride and honor and whatnot. Protestantism/Puritanism in the US seems like it was an optimized for agrarian life, which from my POV sounds pretty dismal. It was latent with judgement but not irreverent to social commitment; in many ways the opposite. I think it’s nature made it particularly vulnerable to consumerism in so many awkward ways. I think the stubborn social roles have persisted to an extent because they are still serving the existential purposes they originally served. Something many don’t realize is these tendencies are only amplified under the pressures of poverty. It looks like a paradox from the outside but on the inside, it’s a psychological survival tactic, which I relate to the isolation and precarity of agrarianism. But I can’t imagine it being so incredulous if it were not exploited and reinforced in consumer culture, ridiculous pop politics and advertising.
I might be wrong about some of this. It’s been a difficult subject to learn about.
I think you slightly misstate it: they view poverty and homelessness as an outward evidence of moral failures (particularly, an insufficient work ethic) and (often, though this view is sometimes found divorced from religious judgement today) divine disfavor, not as moral failures in themselves.
This has been traced back (both by people who view this attitude positively and by those who view it negatively) to various elements of theology of various strains of Protestantism that shaped American culture, particularly the Puritan concept of “visible saints” whose outward signs were wholesome living and material success.