A key insight or dreconceptualization
ideologie prestiżowe

Luxury ideology (a. prestige elevating ideology)

"Are we the baddies?" (opinion)
Our culture, including popular culture, is saturated with the guiding principle: "humans and their civilization are evil incarnate." This countercultural trend/virus seems to attract all sorts of beautiful spirits and rebels. I would even venture to say that the presence of this thread (striking this chord of the progressive worldview) is a fundamental element for a film or literary work to be considered a bearer of "truth" or aspiring to bestseller status.

We see this thread in the well-known legend of Pocahontas, one iteration of which is the recent film Avatar (2009, directed by James Cameron). The theme of "humans and their civilization – the evil ones, elves, and other non-humans – a true civilization of ancient wisdom and nobility" is rehashed to the point of nuisance by Andrzej Sapkowski, author of the Witcher series, in almost every philosophical conversation between the characters:

"Your larger cities," complained the dwarf, accompanied by the parrot's screeching curses, "as one man, you built on elven and our foundations. You laid your own foundations for smaller castles and towns, but you still use our stones for the facades. And yet, you keep repeating that it is thanks to you, humans, that progress and development are taking place."

I myself was immersed in such visions, and until quite recently – under the overwhelming influence of literature and films. For fans of the Witcher saga, Geralt, I can propose an experiment: reading the entire saga with the goal of "propaganda against human civilization, enslaving and murdering civilizationally superior beings" (this is probably racism, but directed self-reflexively, so "legal"; see more on p. 280). Only far, far away, in the final volume of the saga, do we learn that the noble elves – murdered for being different by the "xenophobic human wilderness" – themselves took over another world, committing a holocaust of humans, whose remnants served the elves as slaves.

The beautiful vision of a tribe living in harmony with nature includes, among other things, the renunciation of worldly goods (no artificial fertilizers and – mentioned earlier – dental care), living in harmony with nature, generosity and selflessness, combating climate change, unlearned wisdom, etc. These and other characteristics are attributed to the Germanic people – they come from Tacitus's treatise (c. 55–120) titled Germania… and are simply a form of criticism of Roman society at the time.

The insertion about atmosphere is a little joke of mine. It has an easily decipherable purpose. It points to the following eternal pattern:

Just as there are prestigious products and brands (e.g., BMW, iPhone), so too do "prestigious ideologies."

Prestige feeds both thunderous, haughty authorities and listeners who can savor the feeling of being at the forefront of morality and progress. Disgust and contempt for one's own group are a timeless tool of influence, as they provide a narcotic sense of elite status, while authorizing the lecturing and contempt of those with inferior views. A perfidious moral authority, if it can imbue its victims with a sense of hierarchical superiority over the "rabble and the dark ages," can manipulate them into any activity, including outright betrayal and genocide (»VII.7.D).

The vision of a miraculous life in the bosom of nature ignores the appalling barbarism in which a significant portion of primitive peoples lived, which resulted, among other things, from limited ability to produce food and—generally—access to resources necessary for survival. These deficiencies led to cannibalism (widespread worldwide), human sacrifice (similarly), the Flower Wars in South America, and slavery, common in all cultures.

Such idealistic visions provide moral force and arguments in disputes over the right to possess territory and, therefore, the resources within it. For this reason, they are a significant tool of influence in politics and geopolitics (see p. 547). In the case of the Aboriginal peoples of North America, popular rhetoric includes the phrase "whites stole the Indian lands," which is rudely countered by documentation of wars between tribes and confederations of tribes. During these wars, the territories were subject to constant "population exchanges"8 – long before the arrival of Europeans.

In Western countries, the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) has been hailed as the prophet of the vision of savages as "peaceful children of nature."9 This vision is exemplified by the moving speech of Native American activist and actress Sacheen Littlefeather, who accepted the Oscar for Best Actor in 1973, replacing Marlon Brando. This occurred during the infamous Wounded Knee Occupation, a protest against government treaty violations and acculturation openly pursued through the instruments of racism and institutional discrimination. This included, among other things, the destruction and disregard by government agencies of traditional clan structures—incompatible with the advanced cultural software of modern society (see essay VII.3).