Solipsism and the American Dream

solipsism is a philosophic concept. unlike existentialism it is easy to understand what the term means. solipsism means that the only thing I can know is that I exist. outside of my mind, everything I see, feel, taste, touch or think about is filtered through my mind's eye. solipsism concludes that I can not know anything is real once it goes through the various filters of perception.

existentialism is philosophic concept which is not easy to understand. existentialism says that everything is meaningless and all that exists is the moment you are in. you are responsible for your own actions, but none of the decisions you make matter. one choice is just as good or bad as another, because good and bad are concepts which people have created and has no meaning or purpose or reality. our thinking of good and evil causes the idea of good and evil to exist, but it has no reality outside of our thinking. some people think this idea frees people to see the individual's social contract more clearly, others think it leads to immorality, and that is a good thing, because morality is just so much bullshit. in any case, you can see how difficult existentialism is to understand. brilliant ideas are clear. perhaps the best that can be said is that it is a grift made up by people who liked to drink, take drugs and entice people into violating their own personal code of sexual ethics.

ethics is also a philosophic concept. but in total ethics are very easy to understand. "what is good, and what is not good, do we need anyone to tell us?" is the question that sums up ethics.

just the same, people argue about when it is ethical to go to war. they even argue about what is a war. once they decide that systematically killing people may be considered war, they may agree that the people being killed are bad people, or supporting bad people which makes them just as bad, or perhaps they just happened to be standing next to the bad people, which is just too bad for them. then, in the United States, we argue about which people we should go to war with, rather than so much rather we should go to war at all. after all, we all know there are plenty of bad people in the world. not counting US, Pogo helped US get over that. the dream is fed by optimism, not doubt. we know we exist, we're not so sure about you, but we imagine that if you don't do what we want, then you are bad. maybe that is selfish and childish. maybe it is sophisticated. I prefer to think of childhood as Jerry Jeff sang the words of Rodney Crowell:

"You can hear a screen door slammin', hey let's run a foot race to the creek
Where you see clear down to the bottom of the deep end
Dependin' on where you stand, how you look, and what you want to see

Monkey vines, swimmin' holes - weren't they always around the bend
And that rope we used to swing on, now it just hangs tattered by the wind"