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
2006-11-13 03:09 pm UTC (link)
And that is the nature of humanity. Or maybe the nurture, or some combination of both. Because really, how can we say how much something affects people? If we all have different experiences that affect our perceptions, something that a person says might affect you and me very differently. We might come to the same conclusions, or very different ones. This becomes a problem with the issue of morality because who is to say that any one's morals are any more right than anyone else's? That is the nature of morality. It is personal, but it affects everyone. It is often in society agreed upon or accepted that "we" as a society hold ourselves to certain morals because they are right for our society. Are they? Clearly they affect members of society who disagree with them, or agree with them but break them for whatever reason. These people are punished, or are supposed to be punished by the standards we value in our society. And then there are those who might like to do something "immoral" but don't simply because they don't want to face the repercussions that society has set aside for them. And then there are those of us who agree with these morals, and don't have to worry about achieving our desires because they are things we can acheive while maintaining society's definition of morality.

But like you said, morality affects everyone. What you do, what you perceive as right and moral affects those around you because you treat them a certain way, or they perceive your actions a certain way. And I am not saying there aren't universal things that are necessary for us to live in harmony; e.g. not killing each other. But we haven't been living in harmony so far, so how do we really know what can be done or said to put us all on the same moral plane?

Was Hitler wrong? His actions affected an immeasurable number of people. He brutally slaughtered millions. Yes, in my mind, that makes him absolutely 100% wrong. But what could have been done to stop him or make him think hey, maybe this isn't right? We'll never know. I just find it hard to believe that anyone who develops a true understanding of this notion that morality affects everyone, even if moral actions are determined on a societal or personal basis, would do something like kill another person. Certainly there are circumstances in which we think killing a person is justified, namely self defense. There are situations and circumstances in which we develop the ability to think morally for ourselves by recognizing that some certain moral or standard cannot be held in a situation if we want to do the "right" thing.

All I am saying is, I often have radically different views from society on what is moral or immoral. But I am able to function in this society because my own individual standards or morality recognize morality as a thing that affects everyone. I hold myself to my own moral standards that keep me within society's standards of morality. But I am not really within these standards of morality because I come to different conclusions of why some act is moral or immoral in a given setting. I don't get punished for having different moral beliefs because my moral beliefs won't allow me to kill anyone or rob anyone or commit some act that society regards as horrible. I am comfortable enough with myself and my conclusions on morality that I am very much aware of the fact that any thing I do, no matter how big or small, can and probably does affect other people. And this keeps me from doing something like killing a person, not because the act itself is inherently wrong, as society would preach. But because every day in my own situations and experiences I know that what I do affects other people and what they do affects me. Awareness of this fact keeps me from ever seeing someone as enough of a threat to kill. Not because I share society's morals, but because I have my own morality that is intertwined with every other thing in the Universe because I don't know where or if my actions stop affecting other people.



Yes I am aware that I just wrote a freakin book on your livejournal page. Oops. Guess I had alot to say :)

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