American Myths and Fallacies

A myth is “a widely held but false belief or idea.”  A fallacy is “a widely held but false belief or idea.”  Both words mean the same in the context of this writing.  Let me share a couple myths/fallacies that have been on my mind lately.

The “just world fallacy” is the  “the widely held but false belief or idea” that people who are poor, who suffer misfortune, are deserving of their fate.   This fallacy has become more popular in recent years by what is called the “prosperity gospel.” This grotesque and heretical interpretation of the Christian faith tells its adherents that poor people deserve their circumstances because God has chosen not to bless them with money.  That means, of course, that rich people have more money because God has seen them as worthy.  The just world fallacy tends to see poverty as an individual phenomenon, thus those who believe in a just world lack empathy toward those who just haven’t been able to make it.  It is the individual’s fault (whatever the issue) and has nothing to do with  family or society.  In fact, there is a strong tendency to demonize the individual as “lazy, uneducated, ignorant, or otherwise inferior.” 

This just world fallacy (and it is a fallacy) suggests that we live in a world of meritocracy in which persons who do what is right and who work hard and follow the rules will be rewarded and those who are assumed to be “unrighteous,” lazy, etc.,  will not.  There is on the part of those who presume themselves to be meritorious a lack of empathy and concern for those who haven’t made it (after all they “deserve it”).  This disdain of “the other” who hasn’t measured up and therefore deserves whatever situation they find themselves is expressed in a statement I read on a Facebook post this morning: “The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living are now outnumbered by those that vote for a living.” 

Another American cultural myth or fallacy is the fantasy of “rugged individualism,” a close cousin to the fallacy of meritocracy.  No one is a self-made or self-reliant person despite the stories we’ve read since childhood and despite our egotistical assessments of our own progress.

Let me share a biblical myth, though I’m not sure that it is a “belief widely held” these days:  “We own nothing.  We can trust God for daily bread.  Work is the dignified activity of helping God meet the needs of all people (not just one’s own).  Hoarding is  as unnecessary (ostentatious display of wealth). God’s gifts are for all, not just the big deals or the deserving.  God gives enough; all can therefore live in sufficiency—with neither too much nor too little”  (Exodus 16:1-36).