Sometimes I get this irrational idea that there’s only so much “goodness” in the world, almost like it’s a natural resource or a currency, and that the reason I have it so good is because I just have “more” of the “goodness” available to me and the reason some poor person in Congo has it so bad is that I have too much of the “goodness” for one person, and, by a simple matter of economics, the person in Congo is bereft of this currency and has to use a sharpened car b umper to defend his family and small cache of food from roving bands of twelve-year-old soldiers wielding AK-47s.
I know, it’s kind of like free market hippy-dippy-ism or something bullshit like that. What’s more, I think it’s an affliction of some sort that is brought on by living in a wealthy, consumer-oriented society. There’s no reason I should feel guilty for that accident of birth, yet somehow, through my education, cultural orientation, upbringing and what not, guilt is part of the package.
Rational thought dictates that, in fact, there is no logical reason things should go well for everybody all the time. They never have and they never will. There is no reason to believe that just because we want things to be better for people or even ourselves, that they should. Yet somehow, this answer just seems so lacking in finality—even though it is the final word.
One could call it denial, but I think there’s something behind the state of being in which one knows something to be true, yet intuits that the truth isn’t the right answer. Perhaps this “strange loop” is one of the reasons we have religion.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Adam // Jun 16, 2003 at 5:38 am
It’s a shame when people are publicly chastised for being ‘coldly rational’ in conversation. Yet when the same thoughts are acted upon, and lead to the accumulation of wealth, the person can become a respected leader.
Socially implied guilt can piggyback into our conscience when we accept ownership or a responsibility for our environment.
You can’t feel guilty if you’re a simpleton, or if you’re unaware of your surroundings. The information revolution has definitely accelerated the weight of responsibility the socially aware now feel.
Putting our responsibility into perspective is difficult. Each individual decides to what extent they accept or deny their involvement in their surrounds. We are all interconnected. But we can only do so much. Why not start with the ones closest?
2 Chris // Jun 17, 2003 at 11:13 am
Damn hippies.
3 Jason // Jun 17, 2003 at 11:06 pm
Don’t feel too bad for people who live in societies that aren’t as materially wealthy as we are… many of them have things that we don’t even know we are missing. One in six Americans suffers from depression, I wonder what the numbers are in other countries. Our materialistic culture gives us a lot of short lived instant gratification but also a certain emptiness.
Then again, most of our teenages don’t have AK-47s (they stick to the Saturday Night Specials from the pawn shop) so maybe we are better off.
Just something to think about while pukeing outside the Yacht Club (for some strange reason everytime I go there someone in my group gets “vomit drunk”).
4 Scotty the Body // Jun 18, 2003 at 7:10 am
While Americans may suffer from depression (1 in 6, that sounds about right), I’d bet that Europe is the same (even worse if you’re Viennese). And last night, I was reading an article about war atrocities in Congo. A woman watched from a hidden spot as “soldiers,” who had ransacked her village and killed everybody they could find, chopped the arms off of children (who were, in many cases, barely still alive), and then proceeded to roast the arms over an open fire and sit down to a feast.
That’s more than depression. That’s psychosis on a mass scale.
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