by LeonDion » Fri 30 Sep 2005, 10:44:38
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')Christianity tells you that the human race is not smart or capable enough to judge on the life of a fellow human, only God can.
And this is why we have such a weak, infantilized culture. One that is disintagrating.
Or maybe people come up with such simplistic answers to problems (like sex criminals) such as the one suggested, BECAUSE we have such a weak, infantilized culture; the only solution such infantilized 'grown monsters' can find, is to 'blow 'em away - ask questions later.'
Perhaps the culture is infantilized because we've had it inhumanly /easy/ here, with the amount of work done by machines. We're so weak and infantile because we're so 'civilized'.
We the 'masses' - catered to by 'mass media', and 'mass culture', need to make few fundamental choices about life. Well, we need to choose our role, but our society has been going on fundamentally unchanged for at least a few generations now. We're not called upon to 'recreate' our world, until a crisis comes in and wipes out the old order. So most learn to accept 'the rules' and do whatever their parents did to become a 'success in life'. When the scenery outside your window remains essentially unchanged from the time of your birth, decades into life, the absolutely most likely reaction is to conform.
Then the evolution of effective media occurs, pushing the debate to the level of the lowest common denominator. Memetics demands this result, and evidence of its proof is pretty clear. Keep It Simple Stupid. K.I.S.S.
And especially if you're over-brainy, you feel like you're talked down to, your fears are discounted. Look, the media are not going to frame the debate at your level of understanding and comprehension because it would not be profitable for them to do so. They only need eyes to stick to the screen, just a few moments while channel surfing, not minds. And it's who gets the MOST eyes to stick who wins.
We live in a hyper-competitive culture to start off with. All the 'leadership' has to do to get their way, is to whip people up with fear, then offer simplistic solutions which have a more complex agenda behind them, complex because we're not MEANT to understand. We would have a means to defend ourselves from the 'solution' if we could. (Like tricking your enemy into giving you the means of acquiring total ownership of their whole nation, by burying a demand FOR a central bank in the Communist Manifesto [demand number 5], or something equally outlandish like that. Ha ha ha.)
Take the fear of 'terrists'. I have no doubt that there are sincere 'terrists', or would-be 'terrists', who would be willing to harm innocent people. However, I think that as a relative threat to any one individual, the possibility of getting killed by a terrorist is so remote, as to make it the last thing in my life I need to worry about right now. There are greater threats to me, my life, and my freedom, than people aligned with foreign terrorists [conspiratorially or ideologically], right here at home!
Devoid of intelligent and responsible discussion in the media, a cardboard cowboy is put on the box promising to 'strike out' at the 'terrists'. The target is vague and shifting. A foreign war is started, and then even the justifcation for the war shifts. Again. And again. Is fear the whole point? Or is the name of the game simply 'misdirection'?
In such an atmosphere, do you think it would be 'profitable' for those in power to speak to the people at a mature level? A shaky population is a compliant one.
What's even more interesting, is What happens when the 'invaders' simply become counter- competitors? What happens when the dollar falls and goods from China start costing a whole lot more? At whom do you strike out then, with your dumbed-down culture? That's why I think the "leadership" in the US is making some major. fucking. mistakes.
And that's fine. Stuff like this happens all the time. Frogs fall from the sky as well.
This happens.