I’ve noticed many of my values differ from what I see in mainstream American culture. See how yours differ too.
What I call mainstream may differ from what you call mainstream and at times I deliberately overstate the mainstream American view to parody it.
| Category | “Mainstream” American view (oversimplified) |
Josh’s view (oversimplified) |
| Jobs | Horrible way to waste your time. A necessary evil we have to endure. | A source of challenges to overcome and people to collaborate with. |
| Exercise | Torture. You inflict it on yourself for a few weeks after New Years, then forget about it. | Fun way to pass times with friends. Rewarding source of discipline that gives to everything else in life. Maintains appetite, focus, sleep, mood. |
| Science | No idea what it is, but people who do it are weird. Often dangerous. | Exploration of nature based on curiosity, experimentation, and honest reporting of results. |
| Cars | Freedom! | Dirty, pollute, congest cities, isolate people from each other. |
| Disney | Creators of cute, family-friendly animations. | Control hungry, mean to employees, devoid of taste, teaches kids myopic values. |
| Vegetables | Annoying things we’re supposed to eat for some reason but we don’t like. | Delicious! |
| Sugar | Delicious! | The unhealthy part left over when you take the healthy parts out of food. |
| Gays | Weird people with threatening behavior. Why do they have to get in our faces? | Neighbors. |
| Consenting adults in private | Should be regulated. | Not my business. |
| Religion | Foundation of morality. Foundation of everything. | Not my business. |
| Alcohol | Dangerous destroyer of lives | Scotch is a pinnacle of civilization, wine a delicious accompaniment to a meal, beer a delicious beverage. In general, a pleasant way to bring people together. |
| Free market | Foundation of American business. | Interesting ideal, unrelated to much practiced in American business. |
| Sex | Dangerous, life-threatening activity. | intimate, enjoyable, often fun way to interact, share vulnerabilities, get closer. |
| Entrepreneurship | Far-off dream. Would love to do it if only came up with that perfect idea. | Amazing first exposure to business. Ideas worth pursuing are everywhere. |
| Copyright | How else can artists be paid for their work? | Constitution balanced creators’ interests with society’s. Corporate interests have shifted balance toward themselves. Now used to make creators into gravy train for corporations at the expense of culture. |
| Obesity | Normal | Imbalance between eating and exercise. |
| Obesity epidemic | People are lazy. | Inevitable result of allowing meat, dairy, sugar, drug, advertising, and other industries to control government regulations and subsidies. |
| Microsoft | Paragon of business success, enabler of personal computing. | Multiply-convicted monopolist that thwarted otherwise faster growth of personal computing through anti-competitive behavior and lobbying. |
| Apple | Paragon of beautiful design. Makes computers that make you creative. | Designers of planned obsolescence. Wants to be like Microsoft in business. |
| New Age | [Is there a mainstream view of New Age? I only know it makes a lot of money] | Feeble minded |
| Money | Must get it! Determines your value as a person. | Medium of a type of social exchange. As long as you earn more than you need, not that big a deal. |
| Stuff | Must have more! | Try to acquire less and get rid of non-essentials. |
| Nutrition | Huh? | Foundation of delicious and healthy diet. |
| Population growth | Most important goal of humanity | If unchecked, one of main dangers to civilization as we know it. |
| Discipline | What’s that? | Foundation of personal development and rewarding emotions. |
| Meat | Food! | Not food. |
| Chocolate cake | Why on earth would I not eat it if it’s there? | Unhealthy but tempting. Effective place to practice exercising discipline. |
| Patriotism | Good and right. We’re the best! | Like racism. |
| Recycling | Why don’t those self-righteous do-gooders stop telling me what to do? | If you can’t reduce your consumption or reuse something else, your most effective alternative to polluting other people’s environment. |
| More versus less | More | Less |
| Physics | What’s that? | Basic understanding of how our world works. |
| Energy | Woo-woo mysterious stuff we’re all made of. | Force times distance. |
| Conservation of energy | Huh? | One of the most fundamental principles all laws of physics follow. Related to everything we do all the time. |
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