Class War, Race War, anything but the Greater Jihad

08 04 12 - 15:26

Insightful:

Beneath the thin veneer of civilization lies a howling madness, and the average normal human being has the ability to commit genocide during the day, then come home and tuck the kids in at night, or to ignore the pain of a billion people in misery while mowing the lawn or doing christmas shopping.

The Big Lie is that all of the problems of human life are separate. If you compartmentalize them all, you can convince yourself that once you lose that 40 pounds, or get more money, or get your husband to stop beating you, or finally kick that addiction, you'll be a normal happy person like everyone else. And once you get the right politician elected, or win the war, or convert the infidels to your religion, the world will be a happy place.

The problems of life are all symptoms of the same cause. The locks on your doors which you need to keep out burglars, the schoolyard bully, the serial killer, the drug addict, the drug dealer, the billionaire who thinks he's being exploited by the poor, the millions of soldiers fighting for peace, the enslavement or slaughter of entire races of people, and your own unhappiness, all are interconnected. They are all part of one problem.

I wish I could define the problem for you, or offer a solution. Human beings seem to have a basic design flaw. - "The Big Lie"

This article doesn't know it, but it's inherently conservative. Liberals blame institutions. Conservatives blame (some) individuals. Moral character is a prerequisite for existence in a society that is not anarchic and thus third-world in level.

If “black” is bad, then “white” should be as well. If calling someone “African American” is the correct way to identify someone’s ethnicity or skin color, then shouldn’t we refer to everyone using the same convention? I believe my family tree goes back to Ukraine, but anyone who sees me would classify me as “white.” I was born in Florida. Should people start calling me Ukrainian American? Should I be insulted if they don’t? If everyone in the world could answer those two questions, they wouldn’t all give the same answers, and that is one half of the main problem of trying to be politically correct, or trying not to offend anyone. It’s a matter of different strokes for different folks, and you can’t possibly and shouldn’t have to accomodate everyone.

The other half of the problem is that trying to avoid causing offense is a never-ending rabbit hole. What may offend one, won’t offend another. What won’t offend billions, may offend a select few hundred. It’s fairly rational to think that someone somewhere is offended by something that isn’t universally accepted as “offensive,” something that most of us may even say or do every single day of our lives. So, who are we to say that the small, select group offended by our actions that we consider totally benign are wrong in their taking offense, and who are they to say we’re being offensive in the first place? That’s the problem. Political correctness and being offended are all a matter of taste. It’s no different than what television shows you like, or what kind of seafood makes you gag. - "Why You Should Stop Worrying About Offending People," by James Plafke, Geekosystem

People like to blame external forces. Institutions, other people, gods, the weather.

It's not individuals failed a moral test called life, but that they were robbed man, someone stole it all from them.

But most people are mediocre so that's unlikely.

More likely we have some dumb monkeys who evolved from their jungle roots and became Homo Sapiens, but they still act according to their "glorious Simian heritage" and act like children, blaming other things for their own failings.

22 comments

Name

Email (optional field)

URL (optional field)

Comment

What philosophy does this site espouse?

Remember personal info?
Yes, give me a cookie and remember me.

Small print: All html tags except <b> and <i> will be removed from your comment. You can make links by just typing the url or mail-address.