The following is an incomplete thought.
There is the confusion of character and luck. I've been struck by this, for example, in the thinking of my students... but I can't quite figure out if it is more closely related to their being Korean or to their being children. I suspect both factors may be involved, at some level. There is something childish about thinking this way, but there is also a strong cultural trope in the Buddhasphere, related to notions of karma, which tell us that one's luck is tied to one's moral character, which is a result, in turn, of the idea of accumulating merit (and/or demerit) across multiple lives.
Recently, this thought crystallized for me, though, in relation to some writing about Trump. Trump appears to espouse this conflation of luck and character, and in general, it seems to be a way of thinking that is on the increase in American culture. Hence, Trump's condemnation of McCain as a loser, for example, since McCain had the bad luck to be captured by the North Vietnamese.
An economics and political blogger named Chris Dillow labels this type of thinking "feudalist," and although that is true, I'd simply say it is "pre-modern," since it underlies all kinds of caste-based systems, from untouchables in India to know-nothingism and the eugenics movement in America.
Speaking of which, I'd like to label Trump's new movement "neo-know-nothingism" - it has a nice, hard-to-pronounce euphony.
[daily log: walking, 6km]
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