People all over the planet are now reexamining themselves. As the New Year has begun they are looking at themselves as individuals and deciding what changes they wish to make, and they are looking at their entire culture, the groups to which they belong, and the whole global society—and in this process they are re-thinking what it means to be human.
Do humans really need to control, and use up, the largest portion of the world’s resources, while exerting the largest level of control over the world’s nations and their people, in order to create “the land of the free and the home of the brave”? Is this what it means to be free and brave?
Do humans really need to kill each other by the thousands in violent revolutions in Syria and Libya and elsewhere on the globe throughout human history in order to create their lives the way they want to live them in nations ruled by strong-willed despots?
Do humans really need to degrade, abuse, attack and rape the females among them, at the rate of one every 22 minutes as reported in India, in order to misguidedly assert some horribly mistaken notion of male superiority?
And do we need to lie, cheat, steal, and murder on an individual basis in order to simply get what we want in life?
Do we know no better way to behave? What would it take for us to rid our species of these deplorable deportments? It’s all very well and good to say that, well, it’s only the minority among us who do these things, yet how do we explain that in the second half of the first quarter of the twenty-first century (not the third century, thank you, or the twelfth century) we are still behaving in such a primitive fashion?
Could it be—might it just be—that what we are showing ourselves and teaching our children about what it means to be human is totally opposite to what we say we want our species to be? That it is, in fact, morally corrupt and socially depraved?
It is all these things, of course, and that’s the problem. But the even bigger problem is that we can’t admit that this is the problem.
Hey, we’re doing nothing wrong here!, we tell ourselves. Sure we graphically depict violence and killing in our entertainments and games; sure we objectify women in everything from our advertisements to our religions in our culture; sure we emphasize that Might is Right and To The Victor Go The Spoils from board games to board rooms—but this has nothing to do with why rape and killing and ruthless, go-for-the-jugular competition is rampant on this planet! One thing has nothing to do with the other, and get that straight! The things we model have nothing to do with the things we do, and we’re sick and tired of hearing you wimpy liberals telling us that it’s all our Culture’s fault! We’re going to continue to sell cars with pictures of half-naked women, and to sell movies with pictures of people getting their heads blown off, and we want you to shut up about it!! There’s money to be made here!
This article is Part III of an ongoing series:
LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR TOMORROW
Now in the last installment of this series we began what I have called the Carol Bass Dialogues. This is a string of commentaries based on an entry made on January 3rd by a lovely woman of that name. I picked Carol’s entry out of the dozens that were placed here because I found it wonderfully reflective of where so many people find themselves today.
Carol wrote about the challenges of moving into 2013, and of life in this post-modern world. She spoke about the fear she feels regarding the future, and about her lack of confidence as she looks ahead to Tomorrow.
“At my age to feel so much fear and uncertainty is not a good place to be,” she said. I’m not sure I agree about the Uncertainty part, Carol. I think that it is when human beings are certain about things that they become dangerous. Give me someone who is unsure rather than someone who is Dead Sure every time.
We do well to keep questioning ourselves, we do well to not have all the answers, because that keeps us searching for them. Or as Conversations with God says: “The question! The question! The answer to the question is in the question itself.”
The reason that humanity is in such a precarious place right now is precisely because we’re certain we’re doing everything right. Many people are, at least. The people in power are. They are sure that their economic system is the right way to do it. They are sure that their politics are right. They are sure that the increasing violence of society has nothing to with violence in movies, on television, and in video games. Kids understand, these are just games. People understand, it’s just a movie.
Riiight.
So you know what, Carol? I think it’s a good thing that more and more people now are uncertain about our future, and unsure of the way to build it. Uncertainty is the farthest edge of Creation. And if ever there was a time for our species to recreate itself anew, this is it. We can’t keep going on like this.
Carol Bass also said…
“It seems that so many have turned their back on what is right and what is wrong. The ten commandments according to the bible have become just another thing to cast off as just someone’s religious beliefs but not necessarily truth.”
Well, Carol, as you may know, Conversations with God says there is no such thing as “right” and “wrong.” It also says there’s no such thing as the Ten Commandments. Wow. What do you think of that? What if that were true? How can that be true? What implication does that have for society?
Is Carol right? Is it this kind of tossing away of our fundamental beliefs that is adding to the problem—if not causing it?
That’s next. We’ll look at that next.
Pass these articles around. Send the link to your friends. Talk about them on Facebook. Bring them up at the office. Let’s have The Conversation of the Century. We would do well to be talking about these things.
(A Note from the Global Conversation Project Team: If you join the Civil Rights Movement for the Soul and start a Conversation of the Century group in your home, Neale will personally join in the group’s explorations by live link on a regular basis. More on this as the series of articles here continues.)
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