The Moral High Ground
Part of a reply I made in an earlier journal entry involved the Monkey Sphere -- the human inability to consider more than a limited number of people as individuals and important. The less important someone is, the less they're considered an individual, and the more they become an archetype or character than an actual person. They're not important to you, so they're not seen as 'people', insomuch as they're seen as stage dressing.
I feel that, as part of a civilized nation, people who are expected to deal with lots of other people from a position of power should be constantly reminded that they're dealing with actual people, rather than with stage dressing. I'm talking police, doctors, soldiers, politicians. I mean everyone who is expected to face the masses and can excert serious influence on them. I think these people need to be constantly reminded that the lives they influence are not statistics and not stereotypes.
You're a police officer going into a 'bad area'? You'll be reminded -- these people have lives, these people are suffering in ways you don't understand, and as such they may react to you in ways you're not going to expect because you have advantages they don't. If you decide to take out your baton and beat the snot out of someone, you'll be well aware you're beating an actual person with family and their own goals, not just some (insert ethnicity) guy who has ( insert ethnic stereotypes).
If you're in the military, 'the enemy' is not some charactiture of a human being, they're human beings. You'll learn the attitudes they probably have, the kind of life they're probably living. If you decide to mow down a half-dozen people on the street because one may have had a weapon, you'll be well aware you just ended a half dozen lives, and the impact that probably has on their families.
And you know what? Yes, that might make some people feel guilty. It might tick some people off. It might crush souls. I think that's good. Because it means that we're human, and we have empathy, and that makes us better than those people who can blow up a house full of people and ignore it as a 'statistic', and it means that we're better than someone who is willing to write off a whole city block as 'welfare cheats' because they've commited the crime of being poor.
A few years back, my sister broke down into tears when the bombs started falling in the Middle East. She cried about the loss of individual lives. She didn't see these people as 'terrorists' or 'soldiers' or anything of the sort. She saw them as people. (And admittedly, she damned the people who gave the green light to drop the bombs to a very special hell.) I wish more people felt that way -- that taking any life is wrong, it is murder. Yes, I can accept it has to happen, but it should always be considered murder, and the guilt of feeling like a murderer should always exist. No rationalising it away, no pidgeon-holing the person killed into some category to make it feel better. Accept that it is murder, that you're a murderer, but it had to be done.
I think the person who can do that is a superior breed of person. And I think that if more people were like that, there might be a lot less killing in the world. A lot less corruption. A lot less brutality. If people were more empathic to their fellow people -- even the people they've never met, are never going to meet, and don't even know about -- the world would be better for it.
Maybe then, when some suits decide to screw over a few million people to make prophit, they'll feel that twinge of guilt. They'll say, "you know, we're ruining lives here. We're hurting millions of people when we don't have to." They'll actually feel guilty... and not do it.
Wouldn't that be something.
I feel that, as part of a civilized nation, people who are expected to deal with lots of other people from a position of power should be constantly reminded that they're dealing with actual people, rather than with stage dressing. I'm talking police, doctors, soldiers, politicians. I mean everyone who is expected to face the masses and can excert serious influence on them. I think these people need to be constantly reminded that the lives they influence are not statistics and not stereotypes.
You're a police officer going into a 'bad area'? You'll be reminded -- these people have lives, these people are suffering in ways you don't understand, and as such they may react to you in ways you're not going to expect because you have advantages they don't. If you decide to take out your baton and beat the snot out of someone, you'll be well aware you're beating an actual person with family and their own goals, not just some (insert ethnicity) guy who has ( insert ethnic stereotypes).
If you're in the military, 'the enemy' is not some charactiture of a human being, they're human beings. You'll learn the attitudes they probably have, the kind of life they're probably living. If you decide to mow down a half-dozen people on the street because one may have had a weapon, you'll be well aware you just ended a half dozen lives, and the impact that probably has on their families.
And you know what? Yes, that might make some people feel guilty. It might tick some people off. It might crush souls. I think that's good. Because it means that we're human, and we have empathy, and that makes us better than those people who can blow up a house full of people and ignore it as a 'statistic', and it means that we're better than someone who is willing to write off a whole city block as 'welfare cheats' because they've commited the crime of being poor.
A few years back, my sister broke down into tears when the bombs started falling in the Middle East. She cried about the loss of individual lives. She didn't see these people as 'terrorists' or 'soldiers' or anything of the sort. She saw them as people. (And admittedly, she damned the people who gave the green light to drop the bombs to a very special hell.) I wish more people felt that way -- that taking any life is wrong, it is murder. Yes, I can accept it has to happen, but it should always be considered murder, and the guilt of feeling like a murderer should always exist. No rationalising it away, no pidgeon-holing the person killed into some category to make it feel better. Accept that it is murder, that you're a murderer, but it had to be done.
I think the person who can do that is a superior breed of person. And I think that if more people were like that, there might be a lot less killing in the world. A lot less corruption. A lot less brutality. If people were more empathic to their fellow people -- even the people they've never met, are never going to meet, and don't even know about -- the world would be better for it.
Maybe then, when some suits decide to screw over a few million people to make prophit, they'll feel that twinge of guilt. They'll say, "you know, we're ruining lives here. We're hurting millions of people when we don't have to." They'll actually feel guilty... and not do it.
Wouldn't that be something.