For More, or For Less
People, its seems, rationalize their behavior so that they don't feel too bad about living the lives they live. Whether you are a very bad person, or a very good person, there are things you do which you don't want to think about, and you find a way to define you life and actions such that you don't need to think about the downside of your behavior.
This is all perfectly natural, and really there's no problem with it.
The overall picture of us humans getting along on this planet can be expressed simply as: the way all of us generally get along either has a beneficial outcome for a majority of the people, or it has a negative impact on a majority of the people.
The latter, it seems, has always been the case.
So here we are, as we have always been, not getting along and not helping each other out. Par for the course, right?
Well.
It isn't our nature to be more interested in helping those we know and who are like us for no reason. Time has enforced upon us so many deep animal behaviors we can't possibly separate ourselves from them entirely, and thus we remain human and do not turn into creepy unfeeling beings.
This animal behavior has served us well for millenia, and it does yet- however, this nature is the same thing that modern society seeks to curb, tame, and contain.
Society has laws which tell us not to kill, steal, rape, and generally act like a wild monkey.
Religion has rules which tells us to marry, to procreate with those we married, not to steal, not to be an ill-tempered git, to be kind and giving and turn the other cheek.
These are all rules designed to make an animal into a person. They serve many purposes, but in general, they are beneficial.
It's odd, then, when supposedly educated people can be called upon to go against their religion, go against their social rules, and be convinced of something by how it makes them feel (afraid).
So, here we are with our fancy rules and large brains and history of still generally treating our fellow man like crap and supporting the general ill-ease of our fellow man.
How grand are we?
You can take the position that you really do mean well, but can't save the whole world, but truly, exactly whom do you suppose will believe you?
So here is where it gets ugly. The world has changed faster than previous generations have ever had to tolerate. There are now more new things to know than any man could possibly hope to master in 100 lifetimes. We have studied our world and ourselves so well we can now do things completely unimagined only a few years ago. People specialize in subjects so narrow and precise it's hard to imagine you can make a career out of it.
The system we live in has become our enemy. Corporations spend millions of dollars trying to figure out how to make you pay attention to something for a few seconds longer, in the hopes that you will maybe buy it. They spend millions of dollars lobbying to assure that they can continue to pollute they way they always have, so they can contiune to manufacture that item affordably- for you. They bribe and connive to keep that thing legal and prevent regualtion of it...
Through the interaction with the public, the legal system, and the economy, the corporation has evolved to be the equivalent of a sentient, evolving, social cancer.
Wherever you have a weakness, it is there to exploit it.
Wherever you have a doubt, it is there to assure you're just distracted by something else.
Wherever you have a fear, it is there to enforce it.
If there is anything poised to take over our country and ruin it, it is the horrible multinational corporation.
If there is anyone who stands to profit from the horrible global mayhem our war is currently generating, it is the horrible multinational corporation.
And lastly, if there is a thing more scary than terrorists, killer bees, storms, floods, aids, sars, and global warming, it is a horrible multinational corporation which owns all the television stations, newspapers, media outlets, major printing presses, and is also beyond the true punitive reach of any legal system and not bound to the laws of mortality, like we are.
The global cancer evolves, and very soon we may find how incurable and terminal it truly is.
So, more, or less?
Are we here to continue to act like animals because we are unable to escape our own physiology and psychology, or are we someday to push forward that extra inch in the world and assure that 50.000001% of the people have some kind of well-being?
The world's corporations will certainly be there to assure you that it's a bad idea. That the first few people who tried it suffered a horrible fate. That people of other races and nationalities took advantage of them and imprisoned them and sodomized them and sold them into the sodomized prisoner slave trade.
I do go on at length.
I suppose I should know better. You either already know this, or stopped reading a long time ago because I am full of crap.
Do we continue to just schlumpf along doing what we have always done just because that's what we're encourage to continue doing?
I guess I am just angry at the fearful and ignorant I have to share this world with.
You fearful and ignorant are ruining my day.
I am momentarily taken away to a little scenario where some dumb herd animals find themselves in a pinch, follow their herd instinct, and it fails them and they are butchered in a way that only a hollywood cinema can portray.
It's really no different, I guess, than the butchering delivered to the world by corporations. I am not a cow, but I am stuck in their sights because of all the slobbering lommoxes around me.
Thanks.
posted by Will Von Wizzlepig @ 11:18 PM
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