I often ponder on the fate of mankind, I am pretty sure of the direction it is heading, but it really doesnt have to. Does my limited theory of mind capability cause my frustration, or is it because of my logical nature? At first glance the answers may seem obvious. But is it really that simple? I suspect it takes more than just a simple answer.
Why do fear and evil appear to be made for each other, and does all fear stem from being unable or unwilling to understand?
Is dependance as a result of ignorance the product of a consumerist society?
Why is emotion and reason so conflicting, surely opposites attract?
Are alot of people too lazy to think or are they just too scared?
How far will the desire for materialistic gain go before it is too late?
What is worse, a fear of living or a fear of dying?
Why does society in general value short term gain over long term goals?
Is hardship the only way to enforce perspective?
Could fascism potentially secure the future of mankind as a thriving species if morality was viewed from a perspective beyond the lifetime of a mere individual? If not, why not?
Why is communism so brilliant on paper yet so bad in practice?
Is democracy really as good as it sounds, surely it fuels a web of lies and deceit?
Do creativity and conformity directly oppose each other?
If current and past political models do not work as effectively as they should, why hasnt one been developed that does?
Is it mortality that results in selfish thinking, and will this actually aid the downfall of civilisation?
Personality aside, what really defines an act of evil? Intention? Outcome?
About Me
- Beastinblack
- Recently discovered I have aspergers syndrome. After years grinding myself down I finally have an answer to my shortcomings and my talents. I have the following traits: rubbish at: eye contact, small talk, maintaining conversation with NT's, get annoyed by: background noises ie people chewing, cars in the background, people talking in the background, extreme lights, heat & touch, changing situations,! never had: the knack for reading between the lines, the ability to see other people's point of view. good at: Music (I can play the cello, drums, and bass guitar), attention to detail, loyalty, deep thinking about the planet, cosmos, music, shapes, objects etc, and talking about them! secondary conditions: paranoia, anxiety, low self esteem. My goal is to find myself, accept myself for who and what I am and start the journey of self discovery. I believe it is the only way in order to face the world and make the most of it. My intentions tend to be misunderstood due to poor communication. I can be described sometimes as a moaning old git who acts like a five year old :) Oh yeah I love motorcycles.
1 comment:
These are good questions! Many of them, I have asked and thought about a lot, too, so I think I'll have a go at answering a few that I've made some headway on.
Is dependance as a result of ignorance the product of a consumerist society?
I am not sure it is consumerism so much as runaway division of labor that causes it. Now, I do think the two things are somewhat related --- only a society that has extensive specialization and division of labor can even have a consumer class separate from the people who make things --- but there've been complex (though not what we'd call consumerist) societies where classes of people have been entirely dependent for their survival on other classes of people. Think of feudalism: without peasants growing food, the nobles and knights would starve. Similarly, because peasants couldn't afford/were forbidden to possess or learn to use arms and armor, they were at the mercy of bandits unless protected by a sufficiently powerful lord and his knights.
A little interdependence or division of labor makes sense, since there are only so many tasks a person can do well. But if you get too specialized, and the people you're depending on for the things you can't produce yourself are too far removed from you and your local community, you become a lot more vulnerable to disruptions in trade and shipping, and less able to cope with problems as they arise. And runaway division of labor can also, I think, lead to class inequity if one type of task that one group traditionally performs becomes valued over another set of tasks a different groups perform. (Look at feudalism again, and patriarchy).
Why does society in general value short term gain over long term goals?
There are a lot of potential answers to this one. There's an answer based in evolutionary psychology that I think has at least some merit: for most of our evolutionary history, we have not had to deal with long-term consequences because we haven't had the power to alter our environment so dramatically. Also, as nomadic hunter-gatherers, we didn't usually depend on one major food source, so if we depleted one resource, we could either rely more on others or move someplace else fairly easily. But this explanation is incomplete because, a) humans *HAVE* been radically altering their environments and depending on one or two staple food sources for around 10,000 years now, which is enough time for evolution to respond to this new set of conditions, and b) some societies have learned to make decisions based on long-term consequences, like the Iroquois who based their decisions on the likely effect on the seventh generation thereafter.
When appeals to human nature fail entirely to explain things, look to culture. Our culture's values include individualism, which kind of enforces a more truncated vision by making one's self, and one's own lifetime, the frame of reference for most decisions, and the profit motive, which screens out all considerations (and constraints) that don't directly lend themselves to making money. I think acting quickly, and deciding quickly without a lot of agonizing thought, are outgrowths of the profit motive, since taking your time often means losing business to a quicker competitor. I'm also going to invoke division of labor again: the smaller and more specialized your role is, and the more extensive and specific your training, the less likely you are to think much about things beyond your tiny little field. Since we have a class of people whose job it supposedly is to make big decisions for our whole societies, we allow ourselves to ignore those issues and let the politicians sort it all out.
Could fascism potentially secure the future of mankind as a thriving species if morality was viewed from a perspective beyond the lifetime of a mere individual?
No.
If not, why not?
Two reasons. One, most of the problems that threaten our existence are ecological, and ecological problems --- even ones that are global in scope, like climate change and overpopulation --- play out very differently in different places. For a centralized world government to be in charge of responding to those problems would practically guarantee that the response would not be effective, and would probably make things worse. Two, no matter how all-powerful a state is, it will still be run by humans, who you acknowledge in other questions are irrational, shortsighted, greedy and selfish. That guarantees that no central plan will ever be carried out exactly as written, so vesting all power in the central planners (and entrusting them with human survival) is therefore unwise.
Why is communism so brilliant on paper yet so bad in practice?
It works fine for groups under a certain size. Small, face-to-face communities of friends, neighbors and relatives can often pull it off just fine. For bigger entities, like nation-states, the cooperative ethic fizzles out, as it also can in small groups for a whole lot of reasons. But I think the biggest problem with communism is the problem of scale. Communism is supposed to be an egalitarian, classless political and economic system, but with a nation-state you guarantee centralization, bureaucracy and hierarchy, all of which are incompatible with actual, small-C communism.
Post a Comment