quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

"Humans need community rather than individualism to make them happy. "

No NG, I think we need both. A community with no individuality acts pretty much like cells of a battery. Oh, wait, that is what the multinationals want us to be right ?

It is a given that we hold a degree of self-preservation and our own personal style but this is only a part of our make-up. My comment was based around community and individualism as value systems (rather than a person's individuality).
 
Multi-nationals encourage community? I can't agree with this. On the contrary, the consumer holds a relationship with the seller and the product is used for a perceived sense of personal satisfaction. Furthermore, multi-nationals encourage a lifestyle geared towards the pursuit of items rather than human relationship. Granted, the result is a significant part of society chasing items like sheep. However, this is not community i.e. it is an almost hynpotic relationship between the seller and the consumer and is essentially personal to the consumer.
 
We're pack animals and we seek out humans to share our existence for the reasons mentioned above. Where we start veering away from this and become self-absorbed we lose our social connection that we need and ultimately our way in life. There are plenty of examples to support this - solitary confinement is used as a harsh punishment for prisoners for a good reason and working from home is an option that most of us would rather not take.
 
In fact, this very board is a good example of community - humans seeking out humans for companionship. This is a key reason why the internet is so popular.
 
Basically, without the companionship etc that comes from being part of the pack we will go psychotic. It is community which provides this companionship and where this community breaks down people will turn to anti-social behaviour. Hence, in Britain, we have slowly but surely moved towards an unregulated society where individualism is encouraged above all else. As a result, we're seeing crime, obesity, depression and alcohol-fuelled violence on high levels. Ultimately, if you want happy people build a happy society. To build a happy society you need to give everyone a fair crack of the whip rather than a section of society lording it over the rest.
 
As said, what makes me happy personally - the knowledge that I play in a role in helping the people in the area I live to achieve a better quality of life. I certainly don't have the weight of the world on my shoulders as a person can only do his/her bit. However, in all honesty, if I was still working in the private sector I wouldn't like myself very much at all but that's my value system i.e. I don't want to look back on my working life when I'm 65 and say "yeah, my working life was all about me and the shareholders I worked for". Of course, to each their own.
 
T

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

Thing is though, with the sheer volume of ads in this country they need to get creative. Over the years they have excelled at it. They actually get people to watch the Superbowl even if they hate football, to see the commercials. And they are good too. It is kind of an unofficial championship for the scriptwriters.

Advertising is a powerful propaganda tool and the US is famed for being exceptionally proficient in advertising. If the same messages are being spewed from all sorts of media day after day then a significant amount of people will follow the lead and buy into the product. It's the same here. Football (English version) used to be a working man's game pre 1990s, half the people who go now wouldn't have been seen anywhere near a football ground on the grounds it would have been beneath them. Murdoch gets hold of the TV rights, gives it a shiney packaging, helps to inflate prices and now you have all sorts of people going to football who don't have the first clue about the game.

An old Man chides a youngster for wearing his hair long.

Add this : Did you notice the old dude was bald ? Now NG I am obviously not referring to you, you are probably bald by choice. I could be wrong, but very few pople are that bald just from losing hair. To me, deciding to shave your head is like being a nudist in a way. And some people just look good bald. I don't think I would, but that's me.

I'm talking about a guy with male pattern baldness, bad enough that he wears a hat inside sometimes. Even in his fifties or so he still has an insecurity having to do with his looks. He feels it makes hin look old. So in dismissing the attractiveness of hair (on the right person ) he declares it wrong. Only girls have long hair. That's a bunch of crap too. Browse pictures and you'll find Women with their head partly shaved, and when we start talking about piercing, well let's not.

Point is that people have all kinds of motivations for doing what they do, hidden even from themselves. I, myself, took the media out of the picture a long time ago. My TV is going to last a very long time, except when I use it as an aux computer monitor it sees very little use. After the noise from that subsided I had time to think.

If your point is we're all at least partially chained by society's norms then I take your point. It is hard not to be as we don't live in a vacuum and we're a product of our environment, the societies we live in and the norms which are presented to us through family, friends, law, Government, education, media etc. However, there is the option to reach beyond these norms and do a bit of thinking and reading around the way the world works.

I psychoanalysed myself. I thought about the past and wrongs I have done, and for the first time, without any duress or pressure of any kind, truly regretted my wrongs.

Now logic kicks in. I don't believe in any deititic redemption so I am saddled with my sins. Now I prefer not to throw more fuel on the fire.  Logic can move mountains.

Now that you got me started here.... I referred to the old Star Trek other times, do you remember Mr Spock ? One day a friend asked if I had any heroes, and said I had none, which is true. I do not idolize fictional characters and never have, even when young. But the closest thing I can think of is a character who saved the Earth a half dozen times, the galaxy twice (or was it thrice ?) and the whole universe at least once. All this because he kept a cool head in times of chaos and crises. Yup, that's the closest thing I got. Mr Spock.

I know Mr Spock but in truth I've never watched it, or superman or batman or the rest. I was always a kid who wanted to be outside. Television and computer games were never my thing as I was pretty much never in the house when I was younger.

Speaking rationally we bantered about deer population, what of human population ? Do we have to be starved to the point where we all need to become animals just to survive ? Have we lived and grown all these millenia just to fall down like that ? Just like that ? Do we get back to dog eat dog instead of cooperation ?

Well, I think it's fair to say I believe in mutual co-operation. I could give you an overview of British political history and how life improved for the average person through mutual co-operation but that's for another day.

Tell you what, if things continue down their path of today, you might wake up someday not liking your........................................................................

perspective.

T