steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
The last time I looked we are animals, with a thin cultural veneer of isolation from our genetic disposition.
In the day the Grateful Dead was very much a tribal phenomena among its followers-devotees. In many ways pop music has replaced religion, people quote lyrics as theists do scripture, and elevate musicians to a mystical prophet status, as with Bob Dylan.
Repeating I said religion is one manifestation among many.
It is easy to see it on religion if you are secular, much harder to see it in yourself. It requires introspection.
It certainly does, and I'm sure you will be happy to know that authority worship, conform-or-die, might-is-right, exclusivity, punishment of outgroups, discouragement of questioning, etc., etc., all the stuff that makes religion the tribalistic, inhumane poison that it so often is, and truly, deeply is in the U.S. at the moment, are not in my repertoire of responses to the world around me.
But, like you suggest in your post, although in an opposing direction, if you don't think like that, how would you recognize any other way of thinking or perceiving the world?
The leaders of Russia, China, and North Korea are all personality cults. The Chines refer to top executive as 'the leader'.
Skilled politicians and clerics can use the understanding if dynamics for good or evil. In pop music and movies there is plenty of self destructive messages. In Clapton's live version of the song Cocaine the crowd is cheering cocaine!!! ciconine!!
There were a number of figures in the 19th and early 2oth centuries. Messmer for one.