We are all hypocrites. Lets just get that out of the way before I even start. None of us are perfect or even close to it. We are all innately biased, and tainted with the subjectivity of our own perspective. Even at our best, our attempts at a more objective standard through logical analysis and rational thinking are still impeded by an ignorance we may try to escape from, but can only mitigate to degrees of influence, nevertheless impacting how we view everything around us. Science itself recognizes this constant of human discovery by making a requirement of any claim its ability to be falsified by new information and the perspective it may bring to enlighten us further. In a sense, science itself recognizes that the only true constant in the progression of our understanding is also a recognition of our limited vantage and the ignorance that comes as a by-product of our current state of existence. This is not to say that we cannot know anything, as a true agnostic would claim, but that we can know, just not everything. Despite these limitations, the reality of the perspective granted through increasing our knowledge can lead us to conclusions which contradict the cultural and societal norms of our current environment, and compel us to assert propositions which are at odds with our individual actions within those societies, but which retain their validity. This is where most of us now stand who see a systemic problem in our growing global society. We live within it, and we consume just like everyone else, but we are becoming aware that something is very, very wrong with human society. There is a sickness that has infected us. You can see it evidenced every time you turn on the TV, drive down the highway, or turn on the radio. Everywhere you turn, someone is trying to sell you something. It is so subtle at times we barely notice how deeply advertising has invaded nearly every aspect of our daily lives. Profitability has become the guide post for the economic engine that drives most of the modern world. An idea is not valued by how much it can benefit humanity, but instead by how well it can be marketed and sold to a demographic at a profit. This process seems so ingrained to us as normal many of you reading this are probably scoffing that anyone would see a problem with it, and that is precisely the problem. We have been taught this model of success because it has birthed the relative freedom we cherish in Western society, or so we have been taught. Meanwhile corporations privatize precious life sustaining resources like water, while they stockpile wealth in a world with dwindling resources and aggregating political power. Multi-billion dollar international energy companies who have made their profits exploiting the resources in underprivileged countries fund massive disinformation campaigns to dispel the notion of climate change in order to maintain their profits. In addition to this, many corporations effectively control the policy decisions of countries like the United States through lobbyists and institutionalized corruption that reaches down all the way to the local level of government. Profit, not democracy rule us. Marketability, not sustainability are what govern us. Perspective can be a limitation, but it can also help us understand by shifting the scale of the larger picture to encompass ourselves as part of whole rather then a segmented partition of humanity. Economic equality is just now becoming a concern in the first world. There is a massive shift in the concentration of wealth over the last 40 years or so that has left over 40% of the wealth in the hands of just 1% of the population and an income gap that is reaching levels last seen in 1920s America. The gap between rich and poor is becoming greater and the once transitional middle class is disappearing, replaced by what looks like an insurmountable precipice when plotted onto a graph. Regardless of this, to most of the world we are as much of a privileged class as we would consider the wealthy in our midst. We are essentially what amounts to the Uncle Toms of modern economic enslavement. We have benefited from the exploitation of those in the third world. We have stolen their resources, and we have even destabilized and overthrown their democratically elected governments for the profit of corporations and the consumer driven societies they exploit in turn, driving a worldwide economic food chain which is divorced from the consequences of its behavior through the corruption of power driven by the influence of wealth gained through exploitation. This is nothing more than a power structure observable in nature which sacrifices any evolved sense of human decency on the altar of greed and power. It is an animalistic hierarchy best fit for the plains of the Serengeti, not the framework for building a lasting and sustainable human society with respect for both our environment and one another. We are quickly consuming ourselves out of a home by following this treacherous path and our behavior is catching up with us. Even now as I type this out on my personal computer in the comfort of a first world living room, I can look around me and see that change needs to happen. Unfortunately, change is something we human beings hate more than anything else, and especially when we are comfortable with the way things are. I say all these things knowing they will have little impact. I am fully resigned to the notion that it will be too late before we wake up. Perhaps, like those who wandered through the ruins of the aqueducts and a once flourishing Roman culture in the dark ages of Europe, human survivors of the coming age may look up at the ruins of our cities and see a lesson we have yet to learn.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 18:24:08 +0000
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