“I have enough food *because* someone else is starving.”
“I am safe *because* someone else is in danger.”
“I am respected *because* someone else is despised.”

this may sound like an absurd caricature but I can assure you that I have met numerous people who think this way!

— ƨꭋɘƨꭋɘvdo (@obversers) June 16, 2021

Most people think this way, I believe. It’s what capitalism as we practice it tells us, and liberalism is worse even than conservatism in a lot of ways regarding their reinforcement of this ideology. All is a zero-sum game, in our current mythology. If you have something it must’ve been taken from someone else; otherwise, how did you get it?

Yes, the world doesn’t work and doesn’t have to work this way, but in believing it, we have made it so in many cases, and are worsening this. It’s possible to have a world that lifts everyone, but no one seems to really want this.