oldschool8 ([info]oldschool8) wrote,
@ 2006-11-11 04:43:00
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Current music:I am a Rock - Simon and Garfunkel

Progressive Perception
I've been thinking about this idea of the progress of perception and it just seems to be going so slowly. I think about it and it really depresses me. The fact that so many people still think they are better people because they might be a certain race, a certain sex, have a certain income, a religion, where they live, the clothes they wear, their interests, or even the music they listen to. How hard is it to realize that everyone is born the same, everyone is equal in every way possible. People may be born with disabilites or cheimical imbalances, but that is what they were dealt with. Now am I saying that because someone who was born to be imbalanced and become satisfied only when killing and eating other humans that they should be treated with the same respect that all other humans should be treated? No. Am I saying that someone raised to believe that blacks are theives and Jews are out to get your money should be smiled upon and said their opinion is ok because everyone is entitled? No. Should an African Nuer tribesman who beats his wife when he is upset, because he was taught this from a child, be treated with the same understanding of someone who knows that beating anyone is terrible and resorted to only when animal instincts overcome human ones? No. Now I'm still young so I have no definite opinion about most things. I am sure about some things, and I can be told well what makes you so right, and arent you a bit full of your self to think that you are right and others are wrong. Isn't everything relative? Because the murderer justifies what he is doing, doesnt it make it right in his own mind, and therefore someone in the universe thinks that what he does is not wrong? So if blank slates are compared, why would my unmurderous opinion be any more acceptable then his murderous one? And I use extreme examples because they are the most understandable, but any example can be dropped down to different degrees of reference.
There is much more to this. The idea that I have some thought that was passed down from some pre-human a million years ago, amazes me. Some Homo suddenly thought, I will make an axe to cut things, some human embelished upon this idea, this axe thought continued being passed down generation upon generation, century upon century. People would adapt the idea and pass that adaptation along. Now we have chainsaws to cut the wood, heavy machinery, firepower to chop down our enemies, scientific bombs to wither them away. This clearly shows that technology is progressing. Any thought or idea that is passed along, that clearly shows a benefit, can be thought of as progress. What is the point of progress if it is perceived incorrectly? Technology can surpass every imagination, but if we have a device the size of a pinpoint that can create enough energy to power the entire planet and the only thing the seperate nations can think of is how to use it in war, arent we right back to the animal days where one animal evolved a couple teeth and decided to use it on an animal without?
So why does the progress of perception go so painfully slow? Why have we gone from rocks to rockets but Man is still man and woman is still woman? Joe better than Jane and all that. Grow some balls. You're a pussy. You throw like a girl. My countrys better than yours. My God is better than yours. My Arian brothers! Lazy bum. Chink. Jew. Christian. Imbecile. Retard. Geezer. Mamas boy. Slut.
The intollerance we put up with and live with and see as normal is just ridiculous. It takes just one day to go without my blinders, my distractions, my nintendo and TV, to realize how bad it is. Its always there in the back of my mind, when concentrated upon it become unbearable. And what can I do? What can anyone do? When perception progresses so slowly. Someone said he needs to keep his Vagina happy, refering to his girlfriend today. Who does that? Since when was a person summed up as a part of their anatomy?
Maybe Im being crazy, but I doubt it. Are people better then what I think? Is humanity progressing quicker than Im saying? Am I completely wrong, have the wrong ideals, and am I just completely full of myself, for thinking I might have the right idea while most everyone else seems to be wrong? I wonder sometimes. Its hard to fight it sometimes. My first impressions arent the same ones as my rational impressions. It's becausae of the society I was brought up in. The TV I watched. The news I witnessed. The thoughts and jokes I heard. I think irrational thoughts all the time, and I know they are wrong after a moments thought.
I don'tknow where I am going here. This started off as a supposed post about perception but ended as a couple paragraphs of my thoughts. Read into as you will but please don't make snap judgments. Snap judgements plague the universe and prevent any type of progressive thinking. A conservative isnt a gun slinging, rich, destroyer of the enivornment, as much as a liberal is a baby killing, nazi, hippy, hater or God.
And what makes me feel a word I cant think of in the english language, is that the Grand Illusion just came on. A song by a group of humans called Styx. "If you think your life is complete confusion, because your neighbor has it made, Just remember that its a Grand Illusion and that deep inside we are all the same." "And still we wonder who the hell we are"


Well I have tomorrow off so I will look on this post and try to refine it a little bit, I have these ideas and I need to put them down it written form or else I soon forget them. And something forgotten cant be progressed at all. I realize I left a lot of thoughts unfollowed in this post, Ill try to solve that for myself later on.




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[info]lazyangel1317
2006-11-12 01:26 pm UTC (link)
but what is progress? All these questions that you're asking are evidence that we don't really have the right to say what progress is because then we're arbitrarily assigning a higher moral value to certain things when, like you said, what makes someone right in their own mind? how can something that's right in your mind be righter than anything else? everything is progress, but nothing is progress.

why would we feel the need to sum someone up in a single word? by their gender or race or religion or whatever other label. the only conclusion I can come to is that we're afraid of it so it's easier not to deal with it. it's easier to just think of a gender group as a group and a racial group as a group. but when you think about it, these really are just methods of classifying things in our mind. so they're inherently wrong. or inherently right. but they have to be both because we can't say that something has a higher value than something else and prove it except through our own perceptions. we look for differences in people but also similarities. i tend to think that if we felt better about ourselves, we'd look for the good things in other people too. but that is just my perception :)


so if you sit and think about a group of people and how they are different from yourself, then they are different. if you think about how they are the same, then they are the same and thus there is no need for labeling it is a "different" group. and our methods of classifying what is different are invalid because humans are infinitely different from one another. so how would we have the right to say which differences are significant? because everything is the same, but it's different. things that we view as similarities are different too, they have to be because we don't know how they exist. we don't know what balance of biological aspects and personal experiences shape us. so they are impossible to rank. i might be very similar to someone in something that i believe but the process of how we get to even the similar beliefs is so individual.

so these words that we use to identify people become scapegoats for our real problems. instead of me being wrong for classifying someone by some physical characteristic that is out of their control, i can just make excuses for the way they are based on their label. i can choose to not get to know anything about them and decide that they are a certain way because of their race or sexual orientation or gender or sex. and it's true, because if my perception of it is true, then it's true. i don't want these things to be true for me, i want to not be afraid to know people for who they are, not what they are. so i choose not to use those labels.

i can't think of a better way. any input is welcome :)

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[info]oldschool8
2006-11-13 05:45 am UTC (link)
Well Stephanie, my questions about the relativity of morals was mostly rhetorical because they were supposed to be assumed as absurd. Moral relativity, as seemed to be your main focus in your last post is pretty flawed when you think about it. Morality is more than just an individual idea and we are not just individuals living in the moment seperately from one another our whole lives through. Morals have to do with the interactions of yourself, other people, and your surroundings. If morals were just what went on in your own mind then what of the person you just effected through your moral ideals. Are genocides relative? Not for the millions of people slain.
Now what Im getting at, and you can apply this to your other post as well, is Moral Universalism. Morals that apply to humanity throughout time and space.
Now as your idea on labels, which I don't think I really addressed too much in my post, but the coming of absence of labels is a nice example of progressive perception. If people can perceive the world around them as not being about typing or fitting into a type, as seeing everyone as an indivdual with needs, thoughts, and emotions, then their might be a lot less predjudice. Wouldn't you say everyone being a bit more equal is progress?
and your "everything is progress, but nothing is progress," doesnt make any sense. Do you even know what that means??

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