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Why we are Angry?
Why we are Angry? I have a theory on why there is so much anger in the world today. (I don’t suppose this is some ground breaking new idea; there were probably men in white coats out there saying something similar and far more profound years ago. But I’m just here to tell you what I have been thinking.) We know that low self-esteem can lead to depression, crime and self-harm, and in extreme cases anger and indiscriminate violence. I think we are suffering from low esteem as a human race. The problem with low self-esteem is that a lot of the time you don’t even realise you have it. But it is hard to love ourselves at the moment as a race. Thirty years ago the great Douglas Adams wrote, “Man had always assumed himself more intelligent than dolphins because of all that he had achieved – the wheel, New York, wars and so on, whereas all dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. Conversely dolphins had always believed themselves far more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons.” Things have got worse since then. We are now constantly fed stories of the latest atrocities humans have perpetrated on each other and on the world. Genocides, species extinction, random mass shootings, the rain forests etc. And whereas throughout the history of human evolution relatively small groups of people were to a great extent isolated from news of what went on in far away places, now we have instant knowledge of every hideous act our fellow men and women are up to. Douglas Adams hadn’t heard of the internet, he merely foreshadowed its possible invention, with his fictional “sub-ether network,” by which the Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was intermittently updated with random and often misleading information provided by unqualified reviewers. It is harder and harder to think of ourselves as more intelligent than the dolphins. After all, you have to have a reason to love yourself. A friend of mine is not alone in suffering from what you might call “concern overload,” which causes her to be continually upset by bad news from around the world. I have said that my method of dealing with this is to remember that when I hear of some famine or disaster, I have to make a choice between dropping everything in my daily life to rush off and help, or telling myself that others have that job, they are better at it than I would be, and they are doing their best. Once I have chosen not to rush off, I have to let these others get on and do their job – I have other jobs which are mine. In any case, against this tide of disaster, any one individual’s efforts are likely to feel futile at best. And yet another cause of stress and depression is a feeling of powerlessness. There is another famous saying which goes, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”* Most of us probably have an uneasy feeling that we are part of a monstrous humanity, of which we are not at all proud. And those of us without the mental tools to hang on, do the best we can and be content, are going to end up pretty depressed and angry about it. I can not think of any solution to this. How can we generate a public consciousness that the Human Race is heading in the right direction? Right now we are fire-fighting. All I can think of is the sentiment expressed in two of my favourite songs, “Don’t give up” by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, and “Teach Your ” by Crosby Stills and Nash. I think right now we might be feeding our the wrong kind of dreams. The one they pick is the one we’ll know by. *Often attributed to Edmund Burke, particularly in a 1961 speech by Kennedy, but first used in an earlier form by the philosopher John Stuart Mill in 1867: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing.” |
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I'm not blaming it all on Douglas Adams, or the sub-ether net, obviously.
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I wonder what goes through the heads of those two survivors of the Las Vegas concert shooting and the recent bar shooting in Thousand oaks.Life I'm sure is a total different place. When you mentioned the dolphins and species extinction,not in the same sentence mind you.My mind immediately thought about the guy that knows animals and humans and their interactions better than anyone else and that of course is Gary Larson.I can't help to think what he'd be drawing theses days. Great post! Using more than all the road!
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Thank goodness I do not have children or young adults. I see what goes on around me and I know they are not being instilled with the things that make humans good. What I see is instant gratification and poor communication and no love for fellow man. If the TV is on I am watching a cooking show. The news is never happy or promoting nice deeds. That on it's own dispenses depression. I prefer to promote the beauty that surrounds us like yesterday's full moon at 4pm (Virtual Symposium Group) use Virtual Symposium Group
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The elites have conspired to keep us trembling in a Culture Of Fear.
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Hi Lala, I'm reply to you first because at the moment I can't think of what to say to any of my other kind commenters! At least they are out there, so to speak! Are you actually disagreeing? Because actually I agree with what you said about people being given false impressions of what might make them worthy of love. In a way that is what I meant. Which is why all the negativity about the human race becomes a problem for someone who doesn't have a good self image. You and I both know our self image shouldn't have to be based on looks or money or whatever. All I meant is that without a reason to love yourself, (whatever that reason might be) loving yourself becomes more difficult. Ball of confusion is right!
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Aren't humans animals too?
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I agree DesMoines, there are enough bad things we actually have to deal with, no need for extra bad news as if it were somehow entertainment. I think the problem is that bad news sells. There is a theory that evolution has taught us to take more notice of bad news because in primitive human society paying attention to bad news kept us a live. The news that there was a tiger preying on local villages was more important than the news that a neighbour had had a successful hunt. But evolution has not equipped us for bad news from 2,000 miles away. So like you, I try to avoid too much news!
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I wonder what goes through the heads of those two survivors of the Las Vegas concert shooting and the recent bar shooting in Thousand oaks.Life I'm sure is a total different place. When you mentioned the dolphins and species extinction,not in the same sentence mind you.My mind immediately thought about the guy that knows animals and humans and their interactions better than anyone else and that of course is Gary Larson.I can't help to think what he'd be drawing theses days. Great post!
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Thanks pocogato. Sad but true. But thank you for the beautiful photograph, that is much appreciated.
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The elites have conspired to keep us trembling in a Culture Of Fear.
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Thanks Jack, that made me smile, I'm glad you enjoyed Thanksgiving!
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Ah well, maybe you only half misunderstood. Because I realise that you are right in as much as there are pervading voices which tell us we need reasons to love ourselves, when in fact we ought to be able to love ourselves whatever. But at the same time, I suppose I was being one of those voices in a way, in that I was saying it is hard for someone to love themselves if their own self view is not a good one. That could be for the wrong reason - that they are trying to conform to a misguided society norm, or it could be for the right reason - they know deep down that they are a horrible person!
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