Why have the Majority Of Americans become so very much in favor of Feudalism?

[Moonwalk]

15. Agree entirely. It's the trickle down mythos, right? The kindly king will trickle down his....

--wealth, greatness and such on down to his servants. It is a kind of magical thinking central to us humans and not exclusive to the U.S. (read Remains of the Day for a brilliant examination of this sort of psychology), which is why democracy has to keep fighting against it. It's like when fans cheer on star athletes and teams, vicariously winning through them. The downside of this, of course, is that such magical thinking requires that we look the other way when the one we serve fails or falls down or does wrong (see: "The Emperor's New Clothes&quot . We have to pretend they're innocent no matter how evident their guilt, otherwise we not only lose that vicarious hero we were living through, but, vicariously fall with them. So we end up supporting systems even if it is demonstrated that they don't work (like trickle down economics).

True democracy is a hard thing. It is counter-intuitive to how humans want to think because we, first, have to decide who will represent us rather than letting the strongest (meanest, biggest, etc.) tell us that who will represent us. Second, we have to elect people to represent us on more than our usual, simple inclinations--not just because they're elegant, handsome, rich, successful and therefore, we think, must be worthy. We have to actually listen to them and see if they have good ideas and know how to do the job. We have to be employers, not employees--they work for us, not vice versa. Last, we have to accept that once they do represent us, that they are not magical representatives--we have to trust them as our man/woman in the field making judgement calls we can't, but they aren't infallible, and we can ignore them because they *are* our representative. If they look bad, we look bad (see George W. Bush--the British can disavow any embarrassment by the royal family as reflecting on them because said monarch was forced on them. Not so the U.S.; we picked our president and therefore he reflects on us). We have to keep our hand in when it comes to democracy.

Democracy takes work. A lot of work and energy. No wonder that feudalism is so much more tempting. It's far easier to just assume that there are people "born" to rule and we don't have to bother with elections; that said aristocrats will do all that's needed and right and trickle on down their wealth. If everyone just blindly trusts them and lets them do what they know how to do.