Life is a harsh reality

2004-11-29T03:45:00.000-08:00

Life is a harsh, I learnt that many years ago... but what really gets me is how one just starts to believe again and -WHAM- you are made to remember (the hard way) what you want to forget.

But far be it for me to whine about this - this being my first (and should I forget about it, my last) post, I wanted a discussion on human nature, so that its easily related to by all.

My point for mentioning the cynicism is that we humans are incredibly self-orientated. And why ought we not be? For all we know nothing is real but what we are; perception is untrustworthy, as shown by modern day versions of this philosophical weave of thought started by Heidegger. But it is exactly this self-orientation that leads us to what is known as "the crumbling of society". Granted, society has been crumbling for a long time, and were it not for a brief resurgence bought about by the 'prudish' Victorians we may be further down that track where the concept of freedom has been so corrupted that it evolves into chaos. Even now, as we look around us at the world today, the short-sightedness and apathy of individuals accumulate into the force that will sooner or later destroy the world.

Greed, Vanity, Avarice - these all seem clear-cut 'bad' qualities, right? Unfortunately it is Ignorance, Stupidity and the concept of 'self' that is probably more damaging. Consider this: If everybody was greedy then we have the economist's view that all action is motivated by reward. Sounds like capitalism to me. Yet, if everybody was ignorant, unwilling to know more just because it hurts to think, then we have a herd of sheep, following our 'leaders' who must know best, ie a certain Northern Continent comes to mind... In regards to this it is probably not because people are actually stupid, but that it is more comforting for them not to know about the truth as... the truth hurts. It always does.

What about the concept of self then? Well, because of that little problem of perception mentioned above, humans are essentially selfish. Now some might say that there are self-less people, paragons of virtue who defeat my claim. In response consider that even those who act prosocially do so because of some intinsic reason - Christians are good because its their religion to be good (note I only use christians because its common enough so most people know what they are), Locals on the street will help tourists because it promotes their country and besides, it makes them feel good - Something little such as giving directions to a tourist gets me the reward of feeling good about myself as well as my "good deed for the day". Even the storybook version of the hero who sacrifices himself to save another/the world is a variant on this because the intrinisic values of the person in question makes this selfless act valuable to them.

Notwithstanding that most people aren't selfless heroes, I'm going to proceed with the assumption that humans are motivated by selfishness. As a result, this can provide a good reason for why society is crumbling - Apathy. Since caring about an issue that doesn't really affect me is going to waste precious time and energy I could be doing other things, I'm going to leave it to the other people to think about it. This might be useful, except that if everyone thinks that way then only those who care about an issue will do anything about it. This usually cuts down to two camps - those for and those against. Three results are possible: 'For' wins, 'Against' wins, Stalemate. Regardless of what result, society is shaped by those that want a change, and care enough to make a change, for even a stalemate cannot last forever. People who did not care about this then have the gall to complain about it later. What is even sadder is that the only way that this can be prevented is by having a mass-media hue-and-cry that is remniscent of old communist propaganda campaigns, only more sophistacated and harder to detect.

So what do we have in the current world? Due to an in-built weakness in the human processing system we have a society where those who wants to manipulate society can do so and democracy is a farce because of the stupidity of the masses. In this respect it becomes a free-for-all between the powerful and the less powerful to control the fate of their community. Meanwhile the common person does nothing because they either don't know, don't want to know, don't care, or are too few to do anything about it. In the end, those with the power and inclination can control the world, while those who are deluded into thinking that they have wealth are satisfied with the little that they have, either because they believe the lies fed to them by those in power that they are already well off, or because it is painful for them to realise that they in reality have little. Not a cheerful sight, is it?

For those who are sociology students my arguments are probably childishly simple. Psych students may understand more of what I say, and Politics students may want my head. I must say now that yes, I am a university student, and has far too much time on my hands. Furthermore I have read George Orwell and I did study philosophy in a previous life so don't comment on that. Finally if you ask what one is suppose to do with the gloomy picture that I have presented then I say this: If you want a happy life then live your life as if you never read this post and continue on the way before. If you want to do something then become one of those who do care and try to resist societal destruction. If you really want to do something then go out there and gain power - then you can be one of those in charge! Remember though that being in charge means more stress and proabably a shorter lifespan...

PS I find that I like ranting. Possible future rants (if I have the inclination to do so) will be on 'Why the rich gets richer" or "How media is just mind control". Note that I am very tired as I type this and is not really researching but typing from memory so my info is likely heavily plagarised from others or lacking in references. I would welcome any counter arguments though.

-Cy

For my ego

Life is a harsh reality