There is relatively little compassion in the world when compared to the very plentiful anger or rage. I, too, have been angrier over the last few years — perhaps in large part in relation to the Internet 'angry algorithm' sending me the stories, etcetera, it has (unfortunately correctly) calculated will successfully agitate me into keeping the (I believe, overall societally-/socially-damaging) process going thus maximizing the number of clicks/scrolls I’ll provide it to sell to product advertisers.
Nonetheless, we, at least as individuals, can resist flawed yet normalized human/societal nature thus behavior. If enough people instead perform truly humane acts, positive change on a large(r) scale may result.
Perhaps somewhat relevant to this are the words of American sociologist Stanley Milgram (1933-1984), of Obedience Experiments fame/infamy: “It may be that we are puppets — puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception [and] awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.”
Still, the human race may so desperately need a unifying existential/fate-determining common cause, that an Earth-impacting asteroid threat or, better yet, a vicious extraterrestrial attack likely is what we have to collectively brutally endure together in order to survive the longer term from ourselves.
We all would unite for the first time ever and defend against, attack and eventually defeat the humanicidal multi-tentacled ETs, the latter needing to be an even greater nemesis than our own formidably divisive politics and perceptions of differences, both real and perceived — especially those involving race, religion and nationality.
During this much-needed human alliance, we’d be forced to work closely side-by-side together and experience thus witness just how humanly similar we are in the ways that really count. [Albeit, I've been told, one or more human parties might actually attempt to forge an alliance with the ETs to better their own chances for survival, thus indicating that our deficient human condition may be even worse than I had originally thought.]
Yet, maybe a half-century later when all traces of the nightmarish ET invasion are gone, we’ll inevitably revert to those same politics to which we humans seem so collectively hopelessly prone — including the politics of scale. And, yet once again, we slide downwards.
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PostScript: Before non-Caucasian people became the primary source of newcomers to North America, thick-accented Eastern Europeans were the main targets of meanspirited Anglo-Saxon bigotry. As a thick-accented/broken-English 1950s Eastern-European immigrant to Canada, my (now-late) father experienced such mistreatment. ... If Canada and the U.S. were to revert back to a primarily Caucasian populace, if not some hypothetical VDARE whites-only ‘utopia’, I wouldn’t be surprised if Eastern Europeans with a thick Slavic accent would inevitably again become the main target of bigotry within the dominant Euro-Canadian/American ethnicity/populace.
All true. It would take some great catastrophe to throw us together to co-operate - and maybe even this wouldn't work. And agreed that whoever is the most different within a group of mean bigots, is the one that will get "othered" and singled out. Such is human nature.
There is relatively little compassion in the world when compared to the very plentiful anger or rage. I, too, have been angrier over the last few years — perhaps in large part in relation to the Internet 'angry algorithm' sending me the stories, etcetera, it has (unfortunately correctly) calculated will successfully agitate me into keeping the (I believe, overall societally-/socially-damaging) process going thus maximizing the number of clicks/scrolls I’ll provide it to sell to product advertisers.
Nonetheless, we, at least as individuals, can resist flawed yet normalized human/societal nature thus behavior. If enough people instead perform truly humane acts, positive change on a large(r) scale may result.
Perhaps somewhat relevant to this are the words of American sociologist Stanley Milgram (1933-1984), of Obedience Experiments fame/infamy: “It may be that we are puppets — puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception [and] awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.”
Still, the human race may so desperately need a unifying existential/fate-determining common cause, that an Earth-impacting asteroid threat or, better yet, a vicious extraterrestrial attack likely is what we have to collectively brutally endure together in order to survive the longer term from ourselves.
We all would unite for the first time ever and defend against, attack and eventually defeat the humanicidal multi-tentacled ETs, the latter needing to be an even greater nemesis than our own formidably divisive politics and perceptions of differences, both real and perceived — especially those involving race, religion and nationality.
During this much-needed human alliance, we’d be forced to work closely side-by-side together and experience thus witness just how humanly similar we are in the ways that really count. [Albeit, I've been told, one or more human parties might actually attempt to forge an alliance with the ETs to better their own chances for survival, thus indicating that our deficient human condition may be even worse than I had originally thought.]
Yet, maybe a half-century later when all traces of the nightmarish ET invasion are gone, we’ll inevitably revert to those same politics to which we humans seem so collectively hopelessly prone — including the politics of scale. And, yet once again, we slide downwards.
--
PostScript: Before non-Caucasian people became the primary source of newcomers to North America, thick-accented Eastern Europeans were the main targets of meanspirited Anglo-Saxon bigotry. As a thick-accented/broken-English 1950s Eastern-European immigrant to Canada, my (now-late) father experienced such mistreatment. ... If Canada and the U.S. were to revert back to a primarily Caucasian populace, if not some hypothetical VDARE whites-only ‘utopia’, I wouldn’t be surprised if Eastern Europeans with a thick Slavic accent would inevitably again become the main target of bigotry within the dominant Euro-Canadian/American ethnicity/populace.
All true. It would take some great catastrophe to throw us together to co-operate - and maybe even this wouldn't work. And agreed that whoever is the most different within a group of mean bigots, is the one that will get "othered" and singled out. Such is human nature.