Sounds like the author is having an existential crisis moment. I recall reading Sartre's Nausea and there was a scene where the protagonist is riding a bus. He focuses on a bolt in the seat or some other trivial object and is overwhelmed by the idea that someone put that bolt there. IIRC, this is at a point in the story where the protagonist is having a bit of a mental break. That is, it is emblematic of the exact kind of malaise the author of this piece is experiencing (or was experiencing when they contemplated their privilege at Thanksgiving dinner).
In my experience, this kind of thinking leads to nowhere other than the nausea mental state described by Sartre's novel. It isn't my fault the modern world is structured around me any more than it is my fault that the Earth is perfectly suited for the kind of life that exists on it. I bear exactly the same responsibility and blame for both of those circumstances.
A better line of thought is the boring old chestnut of encouraging compassion for the suffering of others.
I’ve been trying to watch all of the Oscar nominated movies before the academy awards. I’m down to the documentaries now, so I’m watching the documentary “American Factory” about a Chinese company that bought and refurbished an old GM plant in Ohio that had closed down. The camera crew followed around the Chinese workers and the American workers. The difference you see, over and over, is that the Chinese workers have this underlying belief that they are nothing by themselves and that they owe everything - their success, their focus, and even their lives - to the company and, by extension, the government/society. This results in factory workers who work 12-hour shifts, 28 days a month, forbidden to joke around with one another, and still praise their good fortune to be there. If you look back over the history of the Chinese cultural revolution, it started with this mantra: “you accomplished nothing. Society accomplished it and you were there.”
>If you look back over the history of the Chinese cultural revolution, it started with this mantra: “you accomplished nothing. Society accomplished it and you were there.”
It started with "let's purge our enemies," but the Chinese state has pushed the success of the society over the individual for millennia now.
It seems like there might be happy medium between the idea that your accomplishments are insignificant and the idea that you're a Ayn Rand action figure.
Maybe most citizens of 1st world nation states are beneficiaries of an incredible network of mutual support we call society and stand on the shoulders of many who came before... and yet deserve some recognition and reward for individual effort.
A lot of our "accomplishments" are indeed meaningless even when averaged into a society.
A few are important, such as healthcare.
The ultimate drivers are politics and high technology (research) to which the common person has no access. (Even academia is limited.) The top half percent does.
Being recognized for being average sounds like a participation award or paraolympics. It's insulting to those who are not and are pushing state of the art.
Let's face it, the worth of an average life is low because it is really readily replaceable and not in short supply. Some number of average folk is necessary to run economy that the actually important few can push everyone forward - which they sadly lately do not do often, instead exploiting their privileged position.
Instead of building laboratories and schools we build factories to produce literal garbage and waste the environment... Shops to sell the aforementioned garbage so that someone can profit. Create circular service jobs so that more people can afford services, and especially get rich off it, not create opportunities for advancement and betterment. Etc.
I generally agree but would like to add the old notion that being unhappy in a bad situation is normal. Feeling upset at a violent status quo even though you're not the direct target of that violence is normal and evidence of empathy, which is good. Ultimately we need to come to terms with the objective reality that not all problems can be solved individually: some require collective action and solidarity.
Is it? This seems like something distinctly modern, and enabled first by the mass media and now by hyperpresent images and video on our phones.
Modern = past 1800 or so, with newspapers and the printing press and widespread literacy.
I’m trying to think of past examples and religious ones are the main ones I can come up with.
To be clear, I’m taking you to refer to an abstract violent status quo, where the violence is present but not tangible. (Unlike past status quos where you might readily see brute physical force directly rather than in video)
It's just visibility. People have empathized with unfortunates (called as such and not blamed for their problems) locally a long time ago too, some were unhappy there are a lot of poor and other wretches. It is what has driven some of the accomplishments we take for granted nowadays.
The relative lack of visibility of people with those problems is rather increasing the lack of empathy. What you do not know you cannot empathize with properly.
In my experience, this kind of thinking leads to nowhere other than the nausea mental state described by Sartre's novel. It isn't my fault the modern world is structured around me any more than it is my fault that the Earth is perfectly suited for the kind of life that exists on it. I bear exactly the same responsibility and blame for both of those circumstances.
A better line of thought is the boring old chestnut of encouraging compassion for the suffering of others.