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Todays blog will be a brief diatribe on several different subjects

The first subject I would like to discuss is anarchy. Anarchy is defined as a state of lawlessness and disorder, but to some people it is actually a fairly appealing concept. The idea of not having a government constantly badgering you about things, or having to obey any rules at all is a desirable concept to many. Could Anarchy ever work though? I do not believe so. After all anarchy is not just some theoretical idea that has never been tested, anarchy has actually happened thousands of times throughout history. The reality is that no place where anarchy occurs ever stays anarchic. Eventually a few factions will become stronger then the others and they will fight until one of them emerges as the dominant faction. In addition, all societies have a desire to govern their members. From this desire emerges government. So it is no surprise really that in every instance where anarchy has occurred it was only a matter of time before a new government was set up. Considering all of this, I believe anarchy to be perhaps an impossible concept to really sustain. Why some people still cling to the idea of it as some salvation from the present structure of government I'm not really sure.

The second issue I'd like to blog about today is cowardice. We may like to think of our society as in general being full of very brave people who are willing to risk harm to themselves for altruistic ends-- essentially good Samaritans--but I am not so sure that is really the case. Perhaps in general the society of the USA is filled with more altruistic people then selfish ones, I can really only speculate since I have not traveled the country extensively. I do know however there are many places I have seen where the cowardly seem to out number the brave. I should take a second and explain what I mean by cowardly. A coward would be someone who while they may be capable of helping someone in need, they choose not to. I have pondered why someone would act in such a manner and I have concluded that the reason may be related to four different factors.

The first factor is confidence, an individual is capable of helping in one sense but may view themselves to be incapable. For example lets say you come upon a women being beaten. If your walking by you may notice that the attacker is no larger then you are, indeed they may even be smaller in psychical size. However let us suppose that you have never been in a fight in your entire life. Are you really going to feel very confidant stepping in to protect that individual against someone who might know a little more about conflict then you, and could easily hurt you? Some people would still try and help the lady, but others would keep on walking by, fearful of getting caught up in anything. They would rationalize the decision as being a correct one because if they were the only ones around, they could easily draw harm upon themselves. At this point in my hypothetical I should also note that while it's true you can call the police if you have a phone, that won't always solve the issue. Would you stand around and do nothing while you waited for a police car to make the five minute, ten minute, or who knows how long drive to you? Sometimes there simply isn't time to wait for someone else to drive down and solve the problem.

Which leads me to the second factor. I believe that unfortunately, we as a society like to train people that taking any kind of action themselves to solve certain problems is wrong. It is preached often that "taking the law into your own hands" is something to be avoided at all costs. If you have a problem, call the police. Hide away in some corner if necessary, barricade yourself. Run, get away, or hide while you wait for someone else to show up and solve your problem. Fighting is bad, and by effect, the message implies that defending yourself is bad. Whether this is a necessary evil or not is not what I'm discussing, but rather the overall effect on society. I think that if you train people to wait for others to solve certain kinds of problems, that training is going to stick with them. Instead of helping that person who needs help, they will call someone else and be done with it. Regardless of whether there's a possibility that by the time the police show up it could be to late for the person in need of help, people will be to scared to endure harm to themselves as well as break one of societies sacred rules of letting other people solve their problems for them. After all, the law does not take kindly to anyone who disobeys this rule even accidentally.

This was not always the case with the law, 50 years ago judges were given much more leniency on how to sentence a defendant based on the individual characteristics of their case. In order to combat organized crime however, sentencing guidelines were drastically reformed with stiff minimum sentences imposed for every crime.

A third factor could be decline of social stigmatization. Social consequences are often a powerful motivator, but as the number of people who can relate to inaction in times of crisis grows, the practice of socially shaming those individuals who choose to do nothing at all weakens.

The fourth factor of course is simple indifference. Some people just don't see it as being any of their business what is happening to someone else, or they just don't care. Still other more sociopathic people even seem to think suffering of random strangers is funny.

In summary I believe that the fear of the situation as well as fear of potential legal consequences are the two main reasons why otherwise good people may choose not to help their neighbors.

Vocab-
Sociopathic : of or relating to a sociopathic personality
Salvation: a means of preserving from harm or unpleasantness

Television

It seems that I generally hate the entertainment media of today, most productions of today seem to emanate repetition and stupidity. Sure I will admit that I like a good action movie now and then, but the range of what I find "good" has drastically shrunk from when I first started watching movies. Most action movies are just tired old formula movies, it's hard not to fall asleep while watching them.

All the little cliche details of these movies bug me. Like how the hero is always lucky enough to dodge dozens, even hundreds of bullets throughout the entire movie. Regardless of if the henchmen have machine guns firing 10 rounds per second, you can count on them to miss every time. Same thing with those explosions, things are always blowing up yet the hero is lucky enough to never be near them or be hit by falling debris.

I also supremely hate the "college jackass" type movies. Not only are they unfunny, but they perpetuate stereotypes of both men and women. The "men" portrayed within these films- if you can even call them that -care little about anyone or anything besides themselves. The women are the same way except in addition to being superficial, mindless pleasure seekers, they are also sluts. Yes I know the "culture" of media is not created to be realistic, and in some way people shouldn't expect it to be. I know that the people who make these kinds of movies/shows/productions would literally produce anything if they thought it would make them a profit. Nonetheless, that fact doesn't make them any less juvenile and annoying. The stupidity, the stereotypes, the fear mongering,the low standards, the propaganda, and the blatant disregard for any kind of realism all coalesce to form one momentous conglomeration of anserine drivel. Probably why I don't watch much tv.

Vocab-
Emanate: proceed or issue forth, as from a source
Anserine: having or revealing stupidity

Followers and Leaders

A few years ago I was having a conversation with a friend about people. I was ruminating on the subject of why nobody ever seemed to take the initiative to change things, I suppose people seemed almost apathetic to me at the time. My friend had a simple response to me, and said something to the effect of: “well, we can’t all be leaders.” The concept behind this struck me as obvious and profound at the same time. I understood what my friend had said as meaning that a society where everyone was a leader would never function, every society needs followers.

Thinking on this subject further I have to say this mentality makes a lot of sense to me. After all, with a Darwinian perspective in mind, wouldn’t a society with many followers fare better then one with few? Having a small number of minds in charge of the decision making process instead of many allows for swift decisions. In the ancient world, I’m sure this was a considerable boon. Societies that were quick to collectively act would be more likely to out-compete ones who took long amounts of time for their decisions.

In this way perhaps people have become accustomed to following the will of their superiors for the collective good, and thus the state of democracy today is explained. After all if you’re a soldier and someone gives you an order then for the army to be efficient you had best follow that order instead of sitting around arguing about it. Since if every soldier questioned and argued about orders constantly, ones army would surely be destroyed by a more efficient army. So perhaps it could be said that group think is a kind of defense mechanism, just based on the natural way in which most of our societies function and have functioned. Leaders and followers, we need both to be successful.

Of course I won’t postulate that people can not switch between being a leader and being a follower. In fact I think that most all of us are leaders sometimes and followers other times. It is just the idea that some people tend to desire to be followers exclusively, with no will to lead anything whatsoever, which interests me.

Vocab:
Boon:Something to be thankful for; blessing; benefit.
Postulate: to assume or claim as true, existent, or necessary

Blog 10

Democrat or republican. Is it just me, or does the country seem polarized right now? Too many people seem to have slipped into some kind of "us and them" mentality, it's kind of annoying. Personally I identify a little bit with democrats and a little bit with republicans. I was raised a democrat and both my parents are democrats, but I'm happy to say I've matured past the "us and them" mentality that still plagues many others in our society. I've learned to empathize with the other side. After all, republicans are not evil people. Some of the people who run that party may seem a little bit shifty, but most of the votes in republican party actually come from the "average" working class person. These kinds of people vote for the republican party because of they believe in things like family values and national security. Republican leaders promise these individuals that their issues will be taken care of, which is why those same leaders get their votes. I suppose the point I'm trying to make here is that most republican voters are just normal people trying to do what they believe is right. They don't deserve to be laughed at or dehumanized.

Unfortunately I suppose the lack of empathy for the other side is somewhat predictable. Just like ants, some people seem to slip into a kind of "follower mode" when dealing with anything they regard as "enemies". Their brains shut off, and they blindly follow whoever they have chosen as their leader. They don't see their job as thinking, their job is to attack the other sides position and tear it down.

Now I should stop right here and say that I consider myself more of a democrat than a republican. In fact I believe that many republican policies are essentially nonsense designed to help big corporations, but not the average person. Under George W Bush there even seemed to be corruption within the white house itself. Former lobbyists being appointed to key positions within organizations they used to fight again? Didn't seem right to me.

Just because I dislike this kind of thing however it isn't going to cause me to slip into group-think mode, but I can't say the same for all democrats. I think some democrats have become so hateful of the opposition that there's essentially no point in even trying to talk to them about considering opposing points of view. For example if I tried to explain to one of these people that I was a social democrat but that I believed in family values, I'd automatically get lumped into the "enemy" category and they would stop listening to what I had to say.

Of course I like to think that most of us democrats are not like that at all. But whenever I encounter such intolerant people I find them very exacerbating to be around. I suppose it doesn't help that categorizing and labeling are rampantly perpetuated by both liberals and conservatives alike, and when it's all said and done everyone has developed a set of stereotypes to go along with the words used by the opposition. Which is of course why we have to keep renaming things, so from now on I declare family values to be known as "personal-group liberties". Yes I support personal-group liberties, and I hope everyone else does too.

Vocab:
Perpetuated: Cause to continue or prevail; "perpetuate a myth"
Exacerbating: Exasperate or irritate