Living up to your name with this comment doomsider ;). I like your bonobo example, shows theres often other ways to handle things. Theres a lot to that comment, so i’m going to try to pick the key ideas in each area and directly address them.
Fascism used so broadly becomes woolly. Certainly you could describe MBS’ Saudi Arabia as a fascist regime by following definitions. But it doesn’t get at the whole picture of that Authoritarian Monarchy. For example because there is no organised ‘opposition’ as such to suppress. Be it trade unions, opposing political parties. So calling everything fascist hides useful differences that helps understand how people across the world have freedoms or are oppressed in different ways.
The suffering the US has caused? Its a lot, but USAID saved millions as well, always weigh in good things done by a people, it may amount to nothing, but its intellectually dishonest to ignore. The key is were the US actions that caused suffering more or even with Mao’s Great Leap forward, the Bengal Famine, many more examples abound. The only unique suffering the US has ever caused is the nuclear attacks on Japan, and that was chosen in part due to the perceived larger loss caused by a US and allies ground invasion. What could have happened to the East Asia region if Stalin’s Russia were more involved? I think more suffering.
Europe is an interesting case from the 1700’s, and certainly earlier than that, to compare to. Because its there that you have the most well known to the Wsstern mind progenitor to the Nation State model we live in today. Its not really the enlightenment that changed attitudes, plenty of people couldn’t give a fig about a lot of the enlightenment ideas, and went on their merry way suppressing, murdering and extracting the wealth of other parts of the world. Every European country is guilty of this througout that time, just like the US. The key point though, is they didn’t do it in Europe. Because there was a rules based society between those peoples, war was ongoing but organised, this is why the European Aristocracy completely freaked out when the French Revolution then Napolean happened, because it threatened to flip that rules based system the contolinent worked on.
Systematic extermination has happened in many societies, the sack of the city of Troy might be a famous old example, the Rwandan Genocide is a new example. So systematic extermination of a population isn’t unique to the US.
So hopefully the violence and greed of humanity can be put to rest as a uniquely US trait.
The real reasons for uniqueness though, you are right, come from the scale and abundance of the US.
But its not ideological, its what I touched on with the French Revolution. The worst of crimes happen when the rules guiding the society are somehow suspended. And this is what happened with the US over and over again in different contexts.
Below are some examples of the worst crimes where the rules guiding a society have for some reason been suspended, in this vacuum of instability is the most dangerous moment.
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Bengal Famine 1943, in the course of the British total war effort (suspension) Churchill directs the required food supplies out of India.
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Rwandan Genocide 1994, assassination of the President and resulting power vaccum and disarray (suspension) led to militias hunting down the Tutsi minority.
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French Revolution, Estates General (suspension), storming of the Bastille (suspension) ,King Louis flight to Varennes (suspension), Thermidorean Reaction (suspension), Coup of 18th Brumaire introducing Napoleon (suspension), the White terror (suspension). The whole period from 1789 to the restoration is littered with suspensions of varying degrees, and like with all historic comparisons France makes an excellent comparison to the US.
The suspension of the guiding societal rules is why canny commentators looking at the US are so intent upon the court system. If that breaks, then all bets are actually off. But the Orange Babboon’s regime has been knocked back significantly more than they’ve won, so its hard to argue the courts are pliant, even with the Supreme Court’s favourable ideological bias.
Conclusion:
Its not a barbaric ideological group of elites, although they may be there and present, its the moments in time and place where a suspension in the guiding rules of people are suspended.
We won’t agree of course. Everything you’ve said other people in other countries do as well. The point about the monkeys and history is to show that these are underlying social factors, not something unique to US people alone.
For a better future the US should see themselves in and of the people of rest of the world. Recognising aspects of themselves in others, then seeing how things are done differently is a primary way to making a better world, exceptionalism, even if virtuous, threatens to get in the way of that. I don’t believe for a second you don’t already know this though our conclusions are just different.
Anyway, you’ve an interesting perspective. In your sharp critiscism of the US leadership I feel like theres also a demand for things to be done differently, and a genuine outrage that these people committing the atrocities we’ve been referring to in your homes name.