Self-satisfied and narcissistic little careerists that many of us are, we remain oblivious to the immense suffering we are inflicting on the world as we gleefully pursue the American Dream, replete with the requisite Hummer, McMansion, trophy spouse, 2.5 “perfect” children, and all the trappings to which our American Exceptionalism entitles us at the expense of billions of other humans, hundreds of billions of non-human animals, and Mother Earth herself.
Sure, many of us hear Jesus’s parable and think of ourselves as the Good Samaritans. After all, our humanitarian imperialism has made the world safe for freemarket-dom and corporatocracy for years. And those “ignorant savages” whom we have “rescued” by bringing them the “stability” of ruthless dictatorships and showing them how to put their resources we exploit to good use damn well better be thankful we bestowed our “compassion” upon them. So in a very perverse sense, we are Samaritans when it comes to our foreign policy because we often involve ourselves in the affairs of others, but no argument based on a shred of intellectual honesty would support us being “Good.”
Generally speaking, we have much more in common with the Levite than the Good Samaritan. From the moment the doctor retrieved us from the birth canal and severed the umbilical cord that nurtured us for nine months, our sponge-like minds began absorbing the idiocies of the distinctly “American” myth of rugged, hyper-individualism. We devote such exhaustive levels of emotional and mental energy to aping the ridiculous archetypes personified by the likes of “go it alone hard asses” such as John Wayne, Sylvester Stallone, and Bruce Willis that our capacity to experience empathy, compassion, and deep connections with human and non-human animals is severely stunted.
How beguiled are we with a cultural dogma that elevates the individual to the level of a deity and portrays collectivism as a plague of Biblical proportions?
Let’s examine some of the contradictions and distortions to which many of us are blind.
Even the “lone wolf” legends of the silver screen can’t escape their humanity. They were conceived by two human beings, developed in their mother’s womb for nine months, brought into this world by doctors or mid-wives, raised and nurtured, educated, and remain(ed) highly interdependent with the rest of the human race.
Few people other than Ted Kaczynski can claim anything close to true independence, and even his wasn’t life-long or absolute. Yet many of us conduct our lives with a thinly veiled “me first and to hell with the rest of the world” attitude, as if we are the only ones on the face of the planet who really matter and as if we don’t need a soul to help us as we bull-doze through life to attain our goals.
. . .
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Levite Be Gone: Releasing The Samaritan Within
Posted on Friday, January 11 at 09:57 by AnonymousContributed By
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<a href="http://www.mssinstitute.com/downloads/Samaritan%20ethics.pdf">http://www.mssinstitute.com/downloads/Samaritan%20ethics.pdf</a> shows more about what is called "Samaritan Ethics".
An individual human is a real, concrete, clearly bounded entity with its own will and interests. It speaks for itself.
A collective is an abstract, arbitrarily defined (some might say fictitious) personified entity whose "will" is interpreted and communicated by a largely self-appointed elite (a "priestly class", if you will).
Which would you say better matches the traditional definition of "deity"?
Interesting definition. Here's mine, let's see what you think about it:
A collective is an abstract, statistical representation of a group of individuals, arbitrarily defined either through geography or demographics. It is used to simplify the interactions between the individuals so it can be better understood.
You seem to focus on a twisted definition, mostly used by the elite to attain their own goals, while ignoring the fact that, at the same time, interactions between people form a complex system which can be statistically modelised. It seems to me you are confusing propaganda with statistics.
Let's take an example: it has been observed that there is a corellation between crime and poverty. While it would be completely stupid to say that every criminal is poor or that every poor person is a criminal, on a large scale, when poverty goes up, crime goes up.
Or: When, on a large scale, people have on average various living habits then, on average, people will have a lower life expectancy.
Something more interesting: in World War 2, when Hitler rose to power, he was accepted by most of the population. In fact, he was democratically elected. Of course, that doesn't mean everyone, or even a majority of the population were hard-boiled nazis who wanted world dominations. People had elected Hitler for a great variety of individual reasons. Still, on a large scale, statistically speaking, no matter their reasons, they supported the rise to power of Hitler and World War 2 happened.
Isn't it interesting? You cannot define individuals through their statistical representation -- which is what I call "collective" --, but when observing them through this "collective", you can see trends and patterns, statistical occurences and correlations.
So, let's go back to things like welfare and such: Welfare and universal health care and things like that are large scale actions, so it stands to reason to observe their results through large scale tools, statistics, rather than individual anecdotes. Sure, *some* people are greedy little bastards who parasite the system. *But*, if, on a large scale, welfare and universal health are good things for most people, aren't they worth it? What if, in the long run, by reducing poverty, they reduce crime? What if they increase life expectancy?
Maybe, of course, these are detrimental in some ways to some individuals, for instance rich, healthy people. It is up to us, then, to define what are our priorities, what are our values as individuals. These individuals values will then, when observed on a larger scale -- for example, in all Canadians -- define a "collective", a statistical will.
Don't approach this as ideology. Approach it as science. In science, nothing is ever absolutely certain. Rather, science gives us rules which, statistically speaking, fits our observations of reality and allow us to better explain it in order to take beneficial action. Thus, it is up to us, as scientists, to define which rules, which systems, which statistics are relevant to the way we live and which ones are not. Maybe we are mistaken in some way, maybe some people mislead us in false interpretations, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the whole subject like it's non-existent.
The Sharp Wolf
"What does it say about our society that personal sacrifices to go to war to kill people are praised, while personal sacrifices for peace are condemned?
What does it say that intentional destruction of cities and communities and families and individuals are considered totally legal, while actions trying to dismantle weapons of mass destruction send people to prison?"