I am a product of this civilization, which has taught me to think, feel, behave, value, hope, hate, fear and praise. But much of what I do, I do out of love, and, even if I had been born among dolphins or the Maya, the love and light, in their intimate character, would be the same.
As far as I can see man, through language, has become able to organize societies and to keep the techniques that worked. Through this method we learned how to cultivate the land and breed and domesticate animals, to set sail on the seas, to make objects out of skin, bones, stones, wood and metal. But the greatest revolution came whenever we stop seeing the world through superstitious eyes, and we replaced magic for mathematics as a way to explain what goes on around us.
The latest revolutions brought new forms of energy and their corresponding industries, it has also brought medicine, and global communications. We now have gigantic power, but, is this a good thing?
Well, for me, it does not sound so good. I love the knowledge, but I fear, instead of gaining knowledge, man is being imprisoned in a tower of self-deceit. We have secluded ourselves from nature, we don't even consider ourselves part of the natural order, we live immersed in computers, in cities, streets, tv screens, we are blinded by religion and political divides. Although we have more and more, we feel less and less fulfilled. Is this a life worth living? I suppose many other people may feel the same question.
What are we running after? What are we looking for? We see the immediate things, the car, the money, the house, the husband or wife, well-built for competition in this society where looks are everything. But do we feel happy?
I fear that most people are growing an increasing dissatisfaction with this society. Many people do desire a complete transformation, they just don't know how to get there. How to get happiness.
If lots and lots of people get frustrated with the social world then it is natural that they will want to change it, even destroy it. We have built so many weapons, we have so much power, that, it seems to me, global warming is the least of our present evils.
Some decades ago everyone was scared with the cold war, people feared a global, massive, nuclear war. However, that specter seems as close as ever, precisely because people are getting more and more frustrated with society, this goes up to every level of decision, from the personal to the political.
I wonder, with the lack of resources and all that, some mad president will not simply press the button and start a global massacre for the same "vital space" with which Hitler justified the greatest war in our written history.
If not, I wonder what will happen when all the billions from China and India will want to have the same kind of water and power consumption that we have. Will leaders in industrial societies foment coups d'état and civil wars? Or will they simply do a preemptive attack? Or will they simply accept that our standards must decline and that, in fact, we can live better with less? Or will new forms of power production make available high standards of life quality for 10 or more billion people?
Will art and true science (love for truth) triumph? Over comfortable dogmas and superstitions? When will take care of animals instead of exploiting them?
The things that I hate more in this society is the despise that the weak suffer. This includes children, animals, people from other cultures, poor (miserable) people, people with poor education, people with mental or physical disabilities. I mean, we should "take care" of each other. Instead we despise people who fail to meet our standards.
I would like to be a carer, although, sometimes, I play the role of the judge.
Tonight I play the role of the defeated. I look around me and I see a whole society running towards consumption, video games finished what the tv started: an almost permanent state of alienation from nature. And we run of, towards the latest model of whatever it is that makes us smile.
These societies are heading again towards war. While we don't destroy a large part of our civilization we keep on polluting and destroying the scarce virgin habitats that still remain on the planet. It's not that I don't like mankind, I do. But nevertheless we are like a virus. As long as we don't feel compassion for our surroundings, for what is "external" to us, we will not cease to be a virus.
This a list that shows how blind we are to others' suffering:
animal experiments
fragile people experiments (how did medication for schizophrenia and other "treatments" were discovered?)
lies making up religion and politics
repression of children in the name of their well-fare, guaranteeing that parents and teaches can systematically and violently go against their will for the purpose of "educating" or "protecting" them. They are, after all "minor".
killing vast numbers of foreign people without it being objectionable in the aggressor society (e.g. US and Iraq)
giving incentive to the en masse stultification through mindless programs and diversions (watching sports, mindless cartoons, soap operas that have no learning purpose, etc)
Generally speaking each one of us tend to regard the vast majority of society as a means to one's end. So if I can take some advantage (money, fame, etc) by making thousands or millions of people more stupid, dependent, sick, etc, I will feel that as natural, as a kind of right. These actions are most of the time masqueraded under pretty names, sometimes even welfare programs increase the dependency and provide to those who give an allure of majesty and power.
I think it might be possible to change this, but perhaps only very slightly. There are, in our society, many persons who are not at all like that, they are concerned and aware. Many others could perhaps become aware in different circumstances. But there is still a large majority, I'm afraid, who simply is too blinded to others' feelings and concerns. They live their lives as if they were the only ones in the universe, not because of some selfish desire, but simply because they don't have the capacity to listen to others' suffering.
Then, what should we do? Well, probably just let things roll. it is true that this is not the perfect society for me, but, in the general sum of wills, visions and expectations, it is perhaps the society most adequate to the whole at this point in space and time.