I was watching CNN this morning and, following yet another item about the Austrian father who imprisoned his daughter for 24 years and had seven children with her another item revealed that, elsewhere, three babies had been discovered in a basement freezer among the pizzas.
It appeared that the mother had the children one by one in her bath then…well, because my hearing is not so good I didn’t get to hear all the details…but knowing all the details about what humans do to each other is not such a good thing.
Then there followed more details about American missiles killing more Iraqi civilians, then a segment on the continuing pretense that America is being an honest broker in the M.E., then food riots in Somalia, then Wall Street had gone down, then another suicide bomber had struck… I turned the television off, filled with revulsion.
This ugly world revolts me. People, in the main, revolt me. But what frustrates me the most is knowing that there is nothing that I or anyone else can do to change the world or its deeply flawed human inhabitants. Absolutely nothing.
And soon, my generation will disappear and another group of stupid, conceited, deviant humans will strut onto the stage and exactly the same tragicomedy will be repeated. Over and over and over it will happen until, eventually, we destroy ourselves.
"Life is a sick joke!" Francoise Sagan once said. Amen to that.
Stop the world – I want to get off!
“Life is a sick joke!” Francoise Sagan once said………..
Well, life often can appear as such but appearances can be deceptive.
Life is a product of the natural processes. Nature is into testing its creation in ever challenging circumstances. Nature is not into jokes. Nature is deadly serious.
An organism or species either survives or it does not. I am in agreement with your assessment of the human species being on the verge of its own destruction.
It would be a tragedy if we humans can not overcome our flawed genes. However, it would only be a tragedy to us humans. Nature would not miss a beat.
We humans are so arrogant and we think so highly of ourselves that we are blind when it comes to seeing our flaws. This blindness prevents us as a species from being able to recognize the need for change.
There are individuals such as you that can see our flaws and the need for change. The Internet has provided such individuals a vehicle for expressing the need for change and a forum for hashing out ideas that can lead to the needed changes.
This capability has never existed before. It comes along at a critical time in our evolution. This makes me think that while Nature often seems insensitive to our challenges Nature does provide us with the resources to survive each level of the survival game.
I only hope that we who see the need for changes can persevere long enough and shout loud enough to facilitate a paradigm shift in how we humans treat each other and how we interact with Nature.
If not, then we all will be getting off the train………….
Reply
The world is full of suffering and things to make you sick to the stomach but it is easy to only hear the bad, we also have to listen out for the good which always gets drowned out.
I was listening on the radio about the donations pouring in to Oxfam and other charities today for the Burma disaster. It’s heartwarming to think that people care about other people they don’t know and will never meet but they still want to help in some way.
Reply
Lucyp;
It is such observations as you point out here that at least indicate that the human spirit does have the capability for creating a better world.
While many humans have good hearts it is our arrogant leaders who drive the train.
Burma is a good example. The average Burmese citizen is probably a decent person but their leadership is an oppressive military junta that only looks after itself to the detriment of the masses.
Even a nation wide peaceful demonstration of monks televised to the whole world could not sway the generals to step back and work toward a better life for their subjects.
The response of the generals was death, imprisonment and even more repression. Such is the condition in so many places around the world. There are arrogant political leaders, military leaders, religious leaders, selfish corporate leaders and self-centred ruling elite throughout the world who will commit whatever mayhem that is required to maintain their privileges.
They will do this even if the world goes to hell in a hand basket. They would be more willing to destroy the planet than to give anything back to the masses even if doing so would actually make life better for everyone including themselves.
Without positive change in our leadership classes there is no real hope for the human race.
Our conductors are driving the train over a big cliff.
Reply
Lucy and David, if only people in the main were like you and me the world would be a great…well, much better place given that the reality of life is not always a picnic!
It’s easy to blame world leaders for everything but, as I see it, the bulk of the human race demonstrate an amazing capacity to follow along. The Germans demonstrated that in WW2.
Running a website like this involves keeping up with the world news. And reading the news daily means that I keep getting to know more and more about humans which is having an increasingly negative effect on me. And being a voice crying in the wilderness is too often joyless and frustrating especially if, foolishly, you tend to take yourself and what you’re trying to achieve seriously.
Catch 22 I guess! Damned if I do and damned if I don’t.
Reply
I’m glad you weren’t watching Fox News. Now that’s a channel which is really frightening.
Reply
Clive, sometimes I watch it especially when I’m in need of a bit of a laugh!
Cheers.
Reply
“It’s easy to blame world leaders for everything but, as I see it, the bulk of the human race demonstrates an amazing capacity to follow along……………”
David G.
You hit the problem nail right on the head.
Leadership is just a part of the problem although a big part…..
It is the masses who allow themselves to be controlled by despots that lead to most of humanities problems.
It is a marriage made in hell. Despotic leaders and the passive masses make for a very dangerous cocktail. It is a paradigm that has evolved over the centuries that could very well lead to our demise. It already has lead to much human suffering and environmental degradation.
Now that we have identified the two major elements that distort human societies what can be done about it?
Do we start from the top down or the bottom up? Is there a way of coming from both directions at the same time?
The most chilling question is, is it even possible to overcome this state of affairs?
Reply
David – that is really the question, isn’t it? Can we, as a whole, get the train back onto the tracks? No, we cannot. Because the engineer of that train is comprised of Power, in the form of our leaders. We can protest, we can call and post and blog and march and bitch and whine – but in the end, the policies that affect the entire planet are set by the leaders.
Look at the U.S. – we know, collectively (well, most of us do anyway), that torture is both illegal and morally bankrupt. We know that illegally invading other countries is, by definition, a War Crime if not done in self-defense. We know that illegally wiretapping Americans is a violation of law. We know that black-site American prisons, destroying Habeas Corpus, renditions, ignoring Congressional subpoenas, kidnapping people and locking them up without representation, hiding prisoners from the Red Cross, handouts to corporations that are making obscene profits while slashing funding for public programs, launching illegal invasions based on lies and propaganda: we know all these things and more are illegal and corrupt and just plain WRONG, and leading us down the road to complete authoritarianism. But, collectively, most of us turn a blind eye. We are therefore complicit in this destruction of the fundamental fabric of decency, democracy, freedom, and human rights.
McCain will win the presidential election in November. Mark my words. Why? Leaving Rethuglican election-tampering out of the equation (which you can bank on), a majority of American sheeple will vote for him. Polls show that most Americans think endless preventative war is wrong, that we need to get the hell out of Iraq, that torture is illegal and wrong, that America’s way has been lost by our aggressive, bullying foreign policy, and that we desperately need a change of leadership and enlightenment to get back to the right path. Yet, those same people can’t get the brass cahones to take a good look in the mirror and admit that the heinous reflection staring back is themselves. Truth hurts, and Americans just cannot get past the self-delusion that they are “God’s chosen people,” a special, favored nation that cannot possibly do any wrong. We are the “good guys.” Period.
Admitting the ugly truth about oneself is the first step towards correcting a bad course. Americans are too sheep-like, and too deeply in denial, to ever face the sad truth about their nation and where they are going, and that they themselves are responsible for that course by their laziness, their gung-ho attitudes of supporting the criminals in charge over the last 8 years, and their deafening silence.
The only way to overcome this state of affairs is for massive revolution. And, in a country that is always ready for bed or glued to the latest episode of American Idol – ain’t ever gonna happen.
Welcome to the Fascist States of America.
Reply
David G.
You make a very strong case for a bleak future. I agree with you 99.99%.
However, hope springs internal. I will not count out the human race just yet.
I have heard it said that the night is darkest just before dawn. While I agree with you that we humans are our own worst enemy we are also survivors.
I am confident that as our condition reaches the darkest moment our survival mechanisms will kick in and we will pull through. I just hope we can avoid a blood bath in the process.
Reply
If nukes are involved, those who survive will wish they hadn’t, David F., given the radiation etc.
But even though, intellectually, I see no other outcome, I too hope for the best.
Cheers.
Reply