Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Humanity

I write this entry partially in response to Lisa’s entry on Black Friday over at Glass City Jungle and partly in response to a classroom discussion on “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” in my English 275 class. This entry looks at us humans, and how we treat each other. Do we demonize some, in order to exploit and harm them? Are we kind to all of our fellow brothers and sisters? Are we ethical or are we just psychopaths?

Three people were killed on Black Friday, one due to a mob, and the other two because they shot each other. That’s right, two people died because of the consumers need to save maybe 5% overall. In a store where they are advertising 70% off sales, most items are regular priced and there are only 6 items or so that are 70% off. Nobody got those items, but everybody thought that they had a chance. So, in order to save 100$ they killed somebody… Seriously, what is wrong with people these days? How can anybody justify trampling somebody, and then trampling those trying to get and help him, in order to save money? If you are running for your life it is one thing, but rushing in to save a buck is not worth anybody’s life!





Far too often we see other humans killing or harming each other with no concern over their safety. From people who shoot-up on drugs and run through red-lights, to people beating up homeless, simply because they are homeless. They seem to think that other people do not matter (in the drug case), and thus they can be reckless because there is no harm possible to themselves. Or, in the case of the homeless beaters, they demonize the homeless so much that they do not appear to be humans, and thus can be beat up. To me, this is absurd and terrifying. If we can demonize and thus ignore a person, simply because they are in some way less fortunate than us, how long is it until we, as a country, start taking out specific groups in organized mobs, smashing glass and gassing people?

In a paragraph that will get me in trouble with my cousin…
This summer, over in Italy, two Roma girls drowned while the tanning and lunching Italian couples ignored them. Even after the girls were pulled from the sea, and laid out on the beach with towels over their bodies, the beach goers just seemed apathetic and callous about the whole situation. WHAT THE HELL? Two girls, young and with their entire lives still ahead of them, were not saved, and were treated no different than animals. I am willing to bet that these people would have looked and felt remorse if they saw a dead dog, or a dead kitty, but felt nothing when other humans were laying there dead. There is something wrong with this, and something wrong with people these days.

And what about death porn, or snuff films? Sure, there are no main stream films, but you can find all sort of shit on the internet. From chicks shitting in cups (no link given, google it if you are that sick) to blondes getting their head blown off (saw this, I think it is fake, but not sure), you can get anything. What does this tell you about our society? Sure, they used to go and watch hangings, go and watch public shootings, and the like, but they did not watch some of the things that are online now. Typical death scenes are one thing (including the hanging of Saddam), but the torture, rape, and then killings that are seen online are a whole different thing.

What is wrong with us, if we can justify doing these things to others? Hell, what is wrong with us if we then share them and have people enjoy them? There is something wrong with our country, and I, for one, think that we need to change this. Teach empathy in schools, punish kids who act out and harm animals, do what is needed to be done. Too often we take the PC course, which is to assume that the kid has troubles and council them. SCREW THAT, send them to jail for doing stuff like that. Take down the websites (for violating the law, not for expressing themselves), stop this deceptive sales pitch, and teach people that trampling is not the answer.




On a side note, to those of you who work in stores during this time, when you have customers attacking you, yelling at you, and harming you, my heart goes out to you. Good luck

16 comments:

Izeas GT said...

This page seems to be the first ever Google search result for "I'd like to thank everyone at 4chan" (in quotes). As in, there were no results, I refreshed it, and then there was one result: this.

Barga said...

that is due to my RSS feed featuring XKCD. It is the alt text of today's comic, and thus in the google search for my site
i had the same problem with the wolframs rule 34 quote, so many people showed up that i needed to make a post just explaining it for them

that said, look around, see if you like anything

Ander said...

This is a really encouraging post and something I have asked myself a few years ago. Not that I am ALLLLLLLL KNOWING AND A GENIUS, I just had a different set of questions at a different time.

Do we demonize some, in order to exploit and harm them?

Who is we? and how are the some being exploited and harmed?

Ander said...

Though I will say I don't believe the prison system is any good and never will be and 90% of it should be gotten rid of. Am I saying there should be no punishment for killing people? No. I just don't think our current system does enough or as good of a job as it should. Not everything will alllllllllllways be the same. What we have now is really only 100 years old.

Ander said...

Do I have an answer to how to deal with harm to others? No. That is a question I am looking for answers to.

Barga said...

"Though I will say I don't believe the prison system is any good and never will be and 90% of it should be gotten rid of. Am I saying there should be no punishment for killing people? No. I just don't think our current system does enough or as good of a job as it should. Not everything will alllllllllllways be the same. What we have now is really only 100 years old."

The current system would work if it were not overloaded with non-violent drug users. Not attacking the drug-war in this post, but we need to come up with a better way to handle the NON-VIOLENT, NON-REPEAT offenders

Ander said...

yes that is one tactic/(rationalization?) used for the harming/exploitation of others.

How are people being exploited and harmed?

3) The we is everybody, as we all do it. There are people I sometimes think down upon (like the slutty sorority girls) but i still think of them as people. Some people can create classes of people (like I do), others can't and knock them out of our species

I don't believe everybody does this. I certainly did at one point but I do not anymore. This was only recently.

Isn't creating classes of people one of the ways to demonize people? What class would you put me in?

Ander said...

I think you can only justify supreme force and use of authority, I.E. locking someone up, in only the rarest of circumstances.

In our currently accepted status quo opinion, the ultimate supreme force is nuclear warheads. Killing people for dealing large amounts of drugs and such no one thinks about. We all have nuclear war on the brain.

I think its a very simple readjustment in thinking organizing priorities to eliminate the need for the whole military industrial complex and intelligence community.

The only acceptable means of extreme force in society should be caging them. And it should only be used as a very last resort.

Much of human behavior is learned. Behavior is an expression of our feelings and what we believe to be true. When growing up you observe others behavior to look for your own set of behaviors to express the way you feel. If you can learn it, you can unlearn it and learn something else. Is this easy? No. Is it possible? Yes.


Is this really an argument against what you were saying? Not really. Just clarifying I guess.

Ander said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ander said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ander said...

Demonization is one tactic used to rationalize the harming and exploitation of others.****

Ander said...

Do you look down upon or disagree with behavior?

Barga said...

i would put you in the class of people who write many many posts they could put all of the text in one
:)



I believe that all humans should treat each other civilly, and it is sad that we do not

Ander said...

hey, just cause everything doesn't come at once......haha

Anonymous said...

speaking of prohibition
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122843683581681375.html

a little off topic, but should lead to a future one barga.

Barga said...

Pete, i am already in a debate about that on Gaia, probably will wait before I post anything about that

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