looking for the lever... thank you, wiredferret.

[kuangning]

I believe in humanity. I believe in our potential, in our creativity, in the spark that makes us who and what we are.

I believe that the root of our problems is that we forget. We forget that there is no action in a void. That we cannot act, or fail to act, without repercussions. You judge your probable consequences. You assess the situation, take stock of your probable influence... and then you act, or you choose to act by not acting, hopefully by not acting because you've turned your attention to the things that you can influence, and influence positively.

Beyond that, we forget that we're made of the same stuff as everyone else. Some of us use what we have more effectively, some of us have better scope for showing it... but, rock-bottom, we're all the same. One. We hear the message so often, we've learned to ignore it. One world, until we figure out how to change that. And I hope that when we expand beyond this one, it will be a greater honour to return than to leave it. One race, one species, humanity. You cannot act on any one subset of the group and not affect the whole. You can't act or fail to act on any individual - including yourself - and not change the whole. And you can never know exactly how your action or inaction changes things, but you still bear the responsibility for the consequences.

I believe that most people, including our lawmakers, do mostly what they feel is right. I believe that they act, in a situation where staying true to one's ideals is hard and the repercussions of their actions are magnified greatly and always in front of them, and that there has to be some respect given simply because they dare to act. I wish that they believed as I do. That they remembered that you cannot act for one group, or against one group. That you have to act in the best interest of the whole. Not the whole state. Not the whole country, or the whole continent. Just the whole. But I understand that they don't, and I believe that it's a difficult thing to remember that when you're pressured on every side by groups clamouring for this change or that, because it benefits this group or that.

I wish we had more groups pressing for the change that benefits the whole. Even though the change that benefits the whole might not be what benefits the group in the short term. I wish I could take the world's population and randomise them. Keep the borders and the boundaries in place, but fix it so that every family unit is made up, all at once, of a random mixture of individuals of different cultures. How differently would we feel, how much would our worldview change, if we had to interact with each other on a daily basis? The Internet's the closest thing we have to that. Once I thought that it would mean that we'd abandon the belief that we're separate, that we're acting in isolation. But even here, it's so easy to close our eyes and close the borders. To group ourselves into "Us" and "Them."

What to do about it? Damned if I know. Here's what I'm doing, though. I'm believing, and I'm going to keep on believing. And if I talk about it every now and again, maybe someone else will believe in it, too. And - since we act out of what we believe - maybe that's all it takes.

Comments

[mayamaia.livejournal.com]

I wish such views were more prevalent in societies...but the little problem is how people view things. There's something in everyone that says, I have to work for survival. But that's not simply personal survival. It is survival of everything that helps a part of them continue. So we're protective of family. And protective of things that include our family. That's often extended out to the family of a nation...but so few people seem to make the jump to the human family. And then there's something that has faded over time: the sense of Mother Earth, that we are all children, all a part of the family of life. Physically, it's true, biologically it's true: humans are made of the same stuff as everything else, and nearly all our DNA is the same as the DNA in anything above bacteria. So how in the world can we imagine that a person who is in nearly every way exactly like us - the only differences being so minor as to be nearly nonexistant - how can we ignore that and decide to hate instead of protect?

I don't know.

One of the greatest lessons of the world wars, a lesson that not everyone learned and tha seems to have faded too much, was that us = them. Christmas Day in one small part of the war, no ceasefire, but the people on both sides decided to quit for a few hours to celebrate the birth of a man who suggested love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. For a few hours the people who had spent weeks, months, killing one another joined and took a break. And when that time was over, both groups went back to their own sides and continued to kill one another. It happened.

And yet here we are today, man fighting man, which might as well be brother fighting brother. No wonder the story of Cain and Abel is so well known, it happens every day in some petty war or other. Pity nobody seems to understand that it was violence which banished Cain to wander the earth with everyone his enemy. Gah.

I wish that somehow, a person with a peaceful message could just once get into the hearts of everyone on the planet. I wish that somehow people would open their eyes and remember that love is the greatest thing in the world, and to love one's enemies one of the most holy actions possible.

But wishful thinking will get us nowhere. Wishful writing, wishful speech, and wishful action will. Just remember the speech: I have a dream...

Thank you for making your wishes known, Cairsten. Hopefully they will reach a few minds and hearts, to open them a little more, to the possibilities if they make this dream come true.

[baxil.livejournal.com]

The Internet does not unify; the Internet still fragments. But it fragments along different lines. We fragment today into groups of intellectual peers, of the like-minded. Very often this challenges the lines that separate us in physical life (gender, skin color, etc). Sometimes this doesn't. But that is why Internet users still play "us" and "them" -- because they're not thinking differently, merely redrawing the lines.

Sometimes it makes enough of a difference to push people forward. Hopefully, the cumulative advance of that effect applied to millions of net users will cause us to take a great leap forward as a species -- in much the same way that the Industrial Revolution brought more of the rich and poor together into the middle class, and our American traditions and constitution have brought forth the progressive ideals we strive today to fully realize.

[gurath.livejournal.com]

Fear is the key. Fear is a tool of evil. Fear of many different things, unrealized at the time, influences so very much of every choice we make:

fear of hunger, poverty, or theft makes us greedy and watchful of what we have, as does fear for our futures
fear of pain, embarassment, or enslavement makes us distrustful and wary
fear of losing someone makes us control, rather than love and nurture
fear of being unpopular makes us jealous, and makes us dress and act certain ways

The Bible says "Fear not!" many times, in many ways.

I think if we could take that advice, and banish fear across all peoples, we could change the world for good. But every single, little, tiny lie of any colour breeds distrust, and increases subtle fears. The Bible had it right: Don't lie. Don't cheat. Don't steal. Don't chase your neighbour's wife. Be good to your folks, so they don't need to fear for their old age. DO all those things, not because they are sins, not because it sounds good, but because it really is better for everyone if you do.