jlf1961
Posts: 14840
Joined: 6/10/2008
From: Somewhere Texas
Status: offline
|
quote:
PeonForHer
I can't help suspecting, JLF, that you've had a long-time fascination with violence, that this has fuelled your researches into history, and as a result has led to an over-focus on something that is at the periphery of most people's lives for most of the time. That's to say: your view suffers from a large-scale confirmation bias. Violence is involved in humans' lives far less, on average, and adding together all the time involved, than using the toilet, brushing one's hair or taking the dog for a walk. Violence has probably taken up a minute part of the sum total of all human man-hours.
Not a fascination, but have witnessed all to much of it.
But you say it is the depiction of violence in entertainment, but does that not say something about the subconscious of the person watching it?
Let you in on a little secret, I never purchased a toy gun for my son, never allowed him to have one. I never even allowed him to have toy soldiers. The entire time he was growing up, I spoke against him ever joining the military, to the point of threatening to break his legs if he told me he had.
You see, I did not want him to see that stuff I saw in uniform. I would prefer a world in which no child ever had the option of putting on a uniform and taking up arms against another human being.
The problem is that world cannot and will not ever exist.
You talk of going to the bathroom as taking up more time that wars in history, the problem with that analogy is that has nothing to do with culture, or civilization as a whole.
Name one empire in history not built on the sword and conquest. There are none.
There is not one country on the planet that does not exist in its present form except by force of arms.
Yes I am biased, by experience. I have a concealed carry permit not because of my fascination or love of guns, but because the contract work I take requires me to be bonded and carry.
I am trying to sell one parcel of land I own locally in order to buy a piece of property so remote the nearest walmart is 120 miles away, the nearest town has a population of 30.
I have grown disillusioned in humanity, since it still makes the same fucked up mistakes it has been making for 20000 years.
I am certain that civilization will end in one of two ways, either some uber rich dick head is going to go on some "primitive adventure" vacation to some place that only the locals have resistance to a virus that hits them like a bad head cold but rips through the rest of humanity like the plague/ebola/dengue fever...
Or,
Some dick head world leader is going to get a wild hair up his ass and piss off some other dick head and all hell will break loose.
The problem with the last possibility is that the majority of the people on this rock will celebrate it as "standing up to whatever."
You want an education in humanity? Volunteer with some organization that takes you to some of the more unstable parts of the world. Listen to some kid in some village justify out right murder of people because they are from a different tribe. Then you find out that it has been going on since before the white man ever got there.
Sunni and Shia Muslims kill each other because they disagree over who the legitimate successor to the prophet was. Protestants and Catholics killed each other for centuries over Christianity for pete's sake. So much for "love thy neighbor."
Its even worse during the holidays, at least here in the states. You here folks talking "peace on earth and good will toward men" then you go to a department store and see people fighting over the latest "in" gift.
Hell, a couple of weeks ago, this area was under the warning for an ice storm. People hit the stores like a horde of locusts, fighting over everything from beer to bottled water.
One person may be rational, hate violence, preach peace, and believe it. But, when you take humans as a whole, that goes out the window.
And it gets a hell of a lot worse as population density goes up.
You cant even call it a "pack mentality" since that is a comparison to wolf packs, which work together for the whole of the pack. Even in a mob, humans think primarily about themselves, not what is good for the whole. And violence, for whatever reason, is not good for the whole.
Combat vets, regardless of the movies, do not relish war, or their experiences. Most of us relive them every night, nightmares we wish we could forget.
No one who has been there is fascinated with violence, but we have a realistic view of it.
I have ancestors buried at Gettysburg, Arlington, and a couple of other national cemeteries. I have friends buried in five. I have a god daughter who never met her father who died 3 minutes short of a hospital ship.
And today, even more than fifty years ago, mankind is coming up with more fucked up reasons to kill each other than reasons not to.
The really fucked up thing about it? There are more reasons not to go out and kill a bunch of people than there are to do it. Ghandi actually pulled it off, and got an assassins bullet for his efforts.
Change can be brought about with out killing.
The problem goes back to humanity. We are our own predator. We, as a race, seem to relish the idea of it, either in entertainment or overtly acting on it.
No, I am not fascinated by violence, I just have a real low opinion on the human species. And for every bright soul who does some selfless act of compassion there are a few hundred million that negate that act with bloodshed.
_____________________________
Boy, it sure would be nice if we had some grenades, don't you think?
You cannot control who comes into your life, but you can control which airlock you throw them out of.
Paranoid Paramilitary Gun Loving Conspiracy Theorist AND EQUAL OPPORTUNI
|
RE: General thoughts on humanity. - 
Have you got a cite? 
Profile
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread