Those That Forget The Past, Blah, Blah, Blah

[flameelf]

Anymore, no one seems to agree who said this first:

http://jaywalker.ca/Jaywalker_Magazine/Columns/Publisher's%20Notes/forget_the_past.htm

I know the first time I saw it, it was attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche. But it's an absolute truism, honestly.

Some of the greatest oafs have quoted wonderful things--when Ozzy Osbourne got it right with his

Comments

[flameelf]

I appreciate your sharing so much that is personal to you. I, too, am someone who grew up in a very abusive situation and am happy to say I've done better with my life than the tools I was sent out into the world with. I feel that's how it is for you, too.

However, I want to point out that the personal/subjective "normal" that we both learned to adapt to is not a SOCIAL norm. You have to admit, there was a point in your life as a child when you realised your family was NOT 'normal'. That other families were nothing like yours. Do you remember the day you wondered how someone who loved you could hurt you so badly? I do. That nightmare dichotomy is rough on a child.

You're rather supporting my initial arguments and augmenting them with the 'something else' that tended to prompt my posting in the first place: i.e., as society marginalises the idea of true evil and 'accepts' more and more evil as "generally acceptable to tolerate", it gives strength to true evil. Evil flourishes because it is tolerated. Mankind makes horrendous choices from the influence of evil.

[And, to counter the other comments in here as an aside, the influence is not where one assigns blame. The CHOICE of the CHOOSER determines guilt or innocence, and consequences must be expected of EVERY choice. But to be ignorant of the influences that CAN affect one in a weak moment is to open oneself up to making those horrendous choices.] I offer the next few statements NOT as personal judgements against you, but as relatively general statements that most people would agree with.

I think you can agree, anything destructive is negative. Your instincts and your body were created to preserve you to the best of their ability, and to do something willfully destructive to one's body (or someone else's) is to go against the hardwiring of the human animal. What became a norm for you at points in your life was still not part of what could be defined as "good" or even 'normal' in society. I personally have a friend who continued to cut herself to the point where she has permanent nerve damage in her hands and forearms--that is NOT normal.

To want to willfully damage someone else is not normal. To want to end the lives of others is not normal. These are evils that are becoming more and more tolerated in society, but tolerance does not mean "good".

I believe in absolute Good and Evil; I don't believe that everything can be dropped into situational ethics or relativism where "Whatever YOU feel it is is what it is," although that's what we're teaching our current generations of youth. Good and Evil were not questioned as much in the past, but less general evil was tolerated in society, too.

The fact that we all have to fight for our rights as human beings EVEN NOW against prevalent attitudes of "The rich know more than the poor" or "Better an uneducated populus that can be manipulated than a collective nation that can stand up for what is right" is indicative of the degeneration of society and the way that evil has seeped into things. Why do women in America still have hurdles to climb? Is it just because we're female that "equal rights" sounds correct? No--but to anyone sitting in a position of power (and doesn't power corrupt?), it's a position of strength to keep common sense, normalcy, and logic DOWN and to promote the corrupt status quo.

I think a lot of people are going to be very surprised where their complacency leads them.

Nechtan

[cissa]

Hmm. I'm beginning to think that we're using very different language but possibly meaning similar things- at least, within our own philosophical and/or metaphoric systems.

My prevailing metaphor is an ecological/engineering one. I see systems and ask myself how they work, and what subsystems they have, and of what supersystems they are a part. How things fit together, and work together.

With that in mind- no, I don't agree destruction is negative- at least, if by "negative" it's meant "to be avoided as a priority." I live on the destruction of other life: I eat- plants and animals, mostly. Bad for them, good for me. The work I do- my jewelry- depends on both necessary and unnecessary destruction: a crystal must be destroyed so a stone can be cut (necessary); ore must be destroyed so the metal can be extracted and used (necessary); huge areas are strip-mined to get the raw materials for both of the previous (unnecessary, I believe, and I try to be conscious about what I buy).

Unnecessary and gratuitous destruction and damage is as close as I come to "Evil"- but for me, the moral issue lies in the "unnecessary and gratuitous" and then it starts to get complicated.

I could probably write a treatise on this stuff, because it's fascinating. Thank you! However, right now it's making my head go all 'splodey. I think I need to get into the studio and hit metal to ground myself from these rarified heights. :)

PS- I think we do agree that complacency is bad!

[flameelf]

Oh, we absolutely do agree! I knew we were in concordance for the most part from your first post, but I had wanted to develop what I'd meant by some of my earlier comments a bit more.

Thank you so much for all your input! I do like your pointing out about the necessary "food chain" sorts of destruction/'violence', too. The difference between that and these others is again Free Will, plus using that Free Will against another being with a conscience much like one's own. I'm sure animals don't want to die to become a ham sandwich or to lose potential babies to our breakfasts. Under that mechanism, even CHANGE becomes a destructive element, as does natural entropy.

Nechtan :)