Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Feb 02, 2018 2:17 am
Greta
The human condition you complain about is the animal condition. Over the millennia humanity has been trying to escape the brutality and suffering inherent in nature, both without and within. So far, given the mere millennia with which humans have had so far to make sense of these unprecedented and complex social conditions, human beings have done incredibly well!
There have been many mistakes - murder, cannibalism, rape, infanticide, extreme torture methods, superstitious beliefs, wars, the Plague, the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, violent colonisation and failure to learn from indigenous people, overuse of fossil fuels and nuclear arms, sustainability, oppression, slavery, the list goes on. Humanity has had to deal with and learn from these traps and mistakes, resulting in uneven, but definite, progress on all fronts - moral, intellectual, political, economic, social, technological. Given that there was no manual telling humans how to handle their powers, how can the species be blameworthy?
But that isn’t what is meant by the human condition. The human condition is what makes hypocrisy a human norm. Animals aren’t hypocrites. Hypocrisy is a result of the human condition. Granted our species has grown in scientific knowledge but our fallen emotional nature is unchanged and varies within people as it always has. Man is capable of both the greatest expressions of compassion and attrocities. You cannot make a scapegoat out of hypocrisy but the seeker of truth seeks to learn why it governs our nature and what it deprives us of as human beings
Is hypocrisy the most important thing in the world? Besides, it's especially ironic coming from you, given you penchant for accusing others of your own faults.
Hypocrisy is only one problem and largely concerns the corridors of power, which have always been hypocritical. Violence and environmental vandalism are of greater concern.
If you think animals can't be hypocrites you are, as always, ignoring the natural world and then pretending that you understand anything in nature. The dominant male in harem style societies refuse to let other males mate with the females of the group. When they are defeated by a usurper, the defeated ex-dominant will still take every opportunity sneak in some mating with females, which he had not long before forbade to other males. Double and "flexible" standards are a standard aspect of power dynamics per se.
Nick_A wrote:You define progress by learned facts. Real human progress is defined by the quality of the human perspective in which facts are used. Where we have gained scientific knowledge, collective humanity is losing its human perspective. It is being forgotten and has to be “remembered.”
You have choices:
1. go with the flow
2. go with the flow and be angry
3. fight for change politically
4. fight for change physically.
Go for it. You won't change anything because you are ordinary, but you will seemingly take your place as one of the already-established combatants of the new world. Reason v religion! Roll right up!
I will personally take my place as an observer. Besides, if regaining what's being lost means being more like you, I'll go with the robots, thanks.
Nick_A wrote:4 students hit by gunfire at Los Angeles school; 12-year-old girl in custody
Who or what is your scapegoat which enables a twelve year old to become a crazed wounded thing with no respect for human meaning and purpose? We need a scapegoat. Who or what will you blame?
US culture, obviously. You don't see it happening anywhere else to the same extent, not even in war-torn countries in the middle east.
So we need to look at how the US differs from other western nations. Guns and gun culture stand out. Weak welfare safety nets. No universal healthcare. The unfair electoral college gerrymanders. Courts' enthusiasm for the use of custodial sentencing and heavy-handed deterrents (often just breeding new and more expert criminals). Privatised prisons. Excessive focus on the drug war. Tendency to bomb places without fair reason. Inability to laugh at themselves.
Who do you blame? Let me guess ... progressives and secularists!!!