Yeah i know i'm kind of jumping parts but whatever.
At the end of the first part, i did conclude that wisdom is knowing that what you know is only the perception you've taken on due to your experiences. These experiences end up shaping our being and turn us into who we are today. I guess in a sense you can't really blame people who lived in poverty for being assholes as a result, but that get's into a whole different tangent about discussing whether the ends justify the means. In any case, these experiences end up shaping who we are, and most of the times, the character that's created ends up being what separates our personality from someone else's personality. Of course, from these experiences, there can be various different reactions to them. For example, a child that is abused by other children for being a minority (i have experience with this), may either turn into a major cynic or become a really good person who tries to help people. From a psychological standpoint, the second result may seem to make no sense, but if you think about it, there are people who experience the good side of living along with the bad for long enough to realize that they don't want others to suffer the painful part of life. The closer you get to fully experiencing both sides of the world, the more knowledge you'll have (although we have already established that knowledge isn't real, but for the sake of this discussion we'll coin knowledge as a realistic concept that actually exists). What people decide to do with this knowledge, of course, changes based off experience. Going back to the example with the child, if no real love is shown for that child, then the chances are greatly escalated that he/she will become cynical and hate life, but there is also a chance that at least one person will come along with the kindness to "save" that child (i am reluctant to use the word save because it honestly isn't necessarily a bad thing to be a cynic. Again, these are all perceptions that have been burned into our head by propaganda and stereotypes). In that event, the child may either see that person as their idol and try to live up to them, or take his kindness to heart and live based on that mentality. In both situations, the pain suffered from the childhood life will probably linger on, expressed in the child's personality every once in a while, which is normal, most experiences tend to have an impact on a person's life. Oh, and while we're on the topic of how experiences and propoganda affect our personality, everyone is racist. Get over yourself and look past those differences because they honestly won't mean anything in the long run of a friendship/ relationship.
I'm sure that the most common thing that you'll ever hear from anyone who's ever suffered depression or is emo is "no one understands how I feel!" followed by what seems like childish rant about what may seem like either actually problematic things or just stupid pointless things that really aren't a big deal. Most of the time, we'll brush this off and tell the child to suck it up and be a man, but is that really the best advice we can give? Probably not. The major problem we have with dealing with people like this is that the feeling of lackluster existance is not something that everyone has experienced, and for the people who have experienced it, its probably the only thing they ever really pay enough attention to to care about. One of the reasons i'm writing this chapter is because recently (at least relatively recently to when i was writing this) I experienced that feeling of "no one understands how i feel." for myself, and after pulling myself out of it (with the help of friends who said more than just "deal with it," mind you), i realized that its not the problems that induce the sensation of "no one understands," its the emotional trauma and pain that causes that feeling. Just telling people to be proactive and make new friends won't help, either because that's not the main reason for the problem, or because you're probably giving the same stupid advice that everyone else already has. If you get anything out of what I'm saying in this chapter, realize that whenever someone talks to you about anything regarding their problems or their pains, its because they want YOU to do something about it, not some "stupid" (in their eyes) advice that they've probably heard a million times. The response "I'm sorry, what can I do to help you?" is so much more meaningful to that person than "well, I'm sorry but you have to grow and deal with it", even if that you end up thinking of nothing to do for that person, due to the key reason that putting yourself on the line for that person shows that you care so much more than just directing them to someone else or themselves. To my experience "make more friends/find better friends" doesn't really seem very different from "get off my back, man." Although, since I've bashed at you enough, i would like to point out that i do think people who say "no one understands" are pretty stupid because they tend to fail to realize that there are plenty of people who go through the exact same thing, and also because when they complain to other people who can actually relate to their experiences, instead of receiving comfort, I notice that they tend to just reinforce this feeling of lack of understanding, such as with the response "yeah, people are just so fucked up because they don't get us at all," versus the comforting message mentioned above. (I'm starting to wonder about the interconnectedness of emo society...) Humans differ through experiences, and the biggest problem is that our experiences always tend to be so one sided, we can never really offer the advice that we should to people, because we haven't experienced their side of the pain to know what they want. (note that the "no one understands" example is only one example of various similar situations.)
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Chapter 2: Society. Part 1: Structure
We all know that society exists in many forms, and we all know that we generally prefer one over the other, so i'll just go a little bit in-depth about them.
The people who lead can range from many things, including the one who has slightly more authority over others, one single dictator-type leader, to a leader with people to keep him in check. Of course, the two main types of compositions of government in societies today are democracy and Communism, or at least they're the two most well known. It is possible for followers to also be leaders, banding together to decide things and keep things in order. Among the people who lead are people who enforce the laws created by those who do so. This can range from police, courts, the army, and other related peoples. Although they may not necessarily lead people, they do push them towards certain societal habits with their actions and authority, so this grants them enough power to be considered leaders, in my opinion. The ruler of a society, which can range from one to a group of people designate laws (But don't necessarily have to enforce them) and protect the society. He/she/they also handle diplomatic situations between multiple societies. The ruler's main purpose is to make sure that the society thrives and doesn't fall apart. Even Rulers who seemed like terrible people were merely trying to make their own society better for themselves if you look at it from their point of view (big example: Hitler). Rulers can do this job by controlling the people (dictator), enticing them towards a situation that seems or is favorable to them so that people will want to follow him/her/them (example: the way McDonalds sells larger sizes for less), or by giving people the power to decide certain things for themselves (democracy). There are problems with each of these styles of ruling, as to be explained.
Ruling harshly with an iron fist can go one of two ways: Total obedience without fail and appreciation towards the dictator, or an eventual revolt. The former can only be achieved if the society is COMPLETELY isolated, something with only North Korea has really achieved, and even that is to an extent because North Korea and South Korea seem to influence each other. Otherwise, if people are given an opportunity to see another side of life, they will try to embrace it. Its a lot like this: If you live your entire life in a darkness and never saw light, you'd mostly like respond "darkness? what's that?" if someone asked you why you lived in such a dark place. This is because you've never experienced light to know that darkness is a concept that contrasts with another. Once you experience light though, you'll want to embrace it because human nature trends towards change. Dictatorships are the same thing. The other problem with this society is that if the ruler screw up, all of the blame and hate will be placed on the ruler, unless you've achieved that isolated community, then they'll still love you anyways because they can't differentiate right from wrong, and will probably blame themselves because the Dictator is supposed to be god, in a sense.
The second method is reminiscent of the quote "you can fool some of the people all of the time, and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time," and is actually a bit of a branch off a dictatorship. Of course, if you're actually a just ruler who create very good conditions for the people, you're not fooling anyone, but it is hard to maintain that justness because it costs a lot out of the society both economically and socially to do so. Contradicting ideals between peoples (liberal vs conservative) make this best case scenario society extremely hard to achieve. On the other hand, if the Ruler(s) create a situation that seems good but is actually not (global warming?, Taxes, etc.), There will be people who will catch on, and in the end that will affect the rulers competence negatively.
The third is the democracy we have today, in which the followers actually have quite a bit of power, in choosing the ruler and other laws. This seems good for us, because we get to choose our rulers, but it actually isn't all that much different in terms of the good and bad. The only real difference is that we get to choose who to love or be pissed at. In fact, i find it sad that you people can make fun of and hate on people you elected, its pathetic. Well actually, i guess i can understand part of the reason: Unless the election is won by a landslide, it kind of makes sense for a percentage of the people who didn't want the person who was elected to not support his actions, and propoganda can also be a factor. I still think its pathetic though. Moving on. One of the major problems with democracy is that the common people are stupid. People who gain roles as presidents and senate know how to do their job and what a new law may or may not entail, but the common people, not as much. Its like giving a baby a contraption with 2 buttons, one which saves thousands of people's lives, and one which does the opposite. And if you add corruption and fail to read the fine print or between the lines which a law may entail, us people can make some really stupid mistakes in what we think we want. Its like painting a smiley face on the button that kills 1000 people and painting a skull and crossbones on the one that saves 1000 people. The key issue that is accompanied with a democracy is "do the people know what they actually want?" and that becomes big issue in these controversies like global warming and the war in Iraq.
I would like to mention that there's a 4th theoretical way for a society to be ruled, and that is for all of the followers to band together to create the rules and coexist peacefully. The only real problem with this, is that ideals will be so scattered among people that coming to a consensus will be near impossible, and i can't think of any situation where a society like this could actually exist without problems.
Aside from the way people rule, we also have to factor in how many people are ruling at once, and who is keeping who in check.
If the ruler is a single individual, he then has all of the power. It's basically a 50/50 chance that he will either be corrupt, or he won't. if he isn't, then all is good for everyone, if he is, then refer to the dictatorship paragraph i mentioned earlier. On the other hand, if the ruler is actually a group of rulers, or a system of groups of people to keep one another in check, then this changes. The rule of thumb is, the more people, the more corruption there is likely to be. Another rule of thumb is, less people managing the government and people will yield more extreme results on the way the society is ruled, and more people will be more standard and generic,which refers back to the single ruler concept. I'll use coin tosses for this example. If you flip a coin once, your rate of heads to tails will be 100 percent or 100 percent tails. If you flip it twice, its 100 H, 100 T, or 50/50. 3 times, you now have 33/66, or 66/33. the more times you choose to flip the coin, the more likely you are to come to a 50-50 concensus; if you flip a coin 1000 times and get 470 Heads and 530 Tails, thats a very small difference. With people, theres going to be even less because people aren't black and white. some lean a bit both ways on some issues, and therefore theres even more homogeneity with more people governing. Of course, there always is the chance that every single person will think exactly the same way, but that is so unlikely it's out of the question.
So now we get to the common people, which i'll refer to as us for the time being. we simply follow what's given to us, unless we don't like it. If we don't, we can just revolt, or peacefully call for change, depending on how the ruler(s) are. If we are the rulers, then we can meet to change it ourselves, but again, cannot imagine such a society existing. The type of us people that exist is extremely ranged. There are people who devoutly follow the rules, and it ranges from people who passively follow it without care for occasional errors, and there are those who deny the laws and wish for change. (i'm somewhere in the middle of the last two.) Depending on the ruler(s), these ratio's change. An interesting thing i'd like to add though is that this is greatly affected by religion, especially here in the US. I mean, Under God is in the pledge of allegiance, and In God We Trust is on our coins. So the more influence the religion has on people, the more willing people generally are to follow the government, that is, if the government aligns itself with the religion in question, even though religion is generally not SUPPOSED to have any influence on government (Prop 8, haha). Another interesting concept is people who are "insane". on certain levels, i'd consider myself insane because i hate a LOT of society's rules, and the way people behave in them. Social insanity is basically a huge deviation from the societal norm. This person's opinion is usually meaningless to the rest of society, but every once in a while he/she/they can become a major influence. (one can say jonah and the giver of knowledge is insane, Hitler is another good example, before people actually started believing in him. Fight Club, the book, is a GREAT example). I guess in essence another word for insane is minority, but people who lack sanity generally don't travel in groups because their ideals may not be the same or contradict each others, and at least with minorities its a group that shares ideals and is big enough to actually mean something in the eyes of others. Oh, i would like to use this moment to say that discrimination SPAWNS from the desire to obtain power, but is only denoted or implemented when the societal norm shifts enough towards this idea that it becomes okay to do so.
Basically the way this game we call Society works is that The government wants one thing, and the people want another thing. Generally what the government wants is something that the people don't want, and vice versa, But the thing is, what the people want require some of what the government wants, and what the government want's requires the people's approval. This is the way things work in a democratic society. In a dictatorship, The ruler basically says "screw you i control everything and i can do whatever the hell i want and you have to follow, now do as i say and love your ruler!" Unfortunately for him/her/them, the chances of that working are about 1-2 percent. In the end, the basic game is there are 2 units. The ruler, and the people following. The ruler's job is to create a situation that the followers will like with the resources he has. The follower's job is to point out when the ruler is doing a shitty job and toss him out. If the ruler want's power though, then you could take a chance and go the dictatorship way, or you could do the "honest and just" ruler method. The only problem with that method is that because ideals of people are so scattered, its hard to make a good compromise and lead into a golden age.
The best ruler is the one who can maintain and generate a strong society for all. This does not necessarily entail that the ruler bring on a golden age, because if you think about it, improving a crappy society into a decent society doesn't really make one a good ruler if the great leap didn't really bring the society to high standards, but then again, that does depend on what situation the society is in compared to others. If a Leader was able to simply remove all of the poverty in Africa, i would consider him a Great ruler simply because that task would be hard to accomplish. If you have the resources to remove poverty and then some to BEGIN with, and all you can really do is just remove the poverty, then you're really not that great of a leader if you had the potential to do more with what you had.
A society merely has to consist of these aforementioned things to be considered as such. A classroom can be considered a society, up to a school, city, to a nation, country, and the world. Actually, the world isn't a society, it lacks a universal ruler, and god doesn't necessarily work because there are multiple religions. Societies also generally develop in a certain way as well, at least country/city status countries.
-Generally start small, unless its a branch of another, larger society.
-Almost always has one Major Ruler, or at least a figurehead.
-If isolated, develops with a strong attachment to said society, if not, attachment is based on the individual's preference
-Generally if a society enters a peak or a low, they will experience the opposite soon after, unless by war.
-If a society is detached, they will generally always want to break apart from each other. (Britain & US, Pakistan & India)
Just about every other habit that a society exhibits is straightforward or self explanatory, the losing side of a war loses power, etc. simple stuff like that.
The people who lead can range from many things, including the one who has slightly more authority over others, one single dictator-type leader, to a leader with people to keep him in check. Of course, the two main types of compositions of government in societies today are democracy and Communism, or at least they're the two most well known. It is possible for followers to also be leaders, banding together to decide things and keep things in order. Among the people who lead are people who enforce the laws created by those who do so. This can range from police, courts, the army, and other related peoples. Although they may not necessarily lead people, they do push them towards certain societal habits with their actions and authority, so this grants them enough power to be considered leaders, in my opinion. The ruler of a society, which can range from one to a group of people designate laws (But don't necessarily have to enforce them) and protect the society. He/she/they also handle diplomatic situations between multiple societies. The ruler's main purpose is to make sure that the society thrives and doesn't fall apart. Even Rulers who seemed like terrible people were merely trying to make their own society better for themselves if you look at it from their point of view (big example: Hitler). Rulers can do this job by controlling the people (dictator), enticing them towards a situation that seems or is favorable to them so that people will want to follow him/her/them (example: the way McDonalds sells larger sizes for less), or by giving people the power to decide certain things for themselves (democracy). There are problems with each of these styles of ruling, as to be explained.
Ruling harshly with an iron fist can go one of two ways: Total obedience without fail and appreciation towards the dictator, or an eventual revolt. The former can only be achieved if the society is COMPLETELY isolated, something with only North Korea has really achieved, and even that is to an extent because North Korea and South Korea seem to influence each other. Otherwise, if people are given an opportunity to see another side of life, they will try to embrace it. Its a lot like this: If you live your entire life in a darkness and never saw light, you'd mostly like respond "darkness? what's that?" if someone asked you why you lived in such a dark place. This is because you've never experienced light to know that darkness is a concept that contrasts with another. Once you experience light though, you'll want to embrace it because human nature trends towards change. Dictatorships are the same thing. The other problem with this society is that if the ruler screw up, all of the blame and hate will be placed on the ruler, unless you've achieved that isolated community, then they'll still love you anyways because they can't differentiate right from wrong, and will probably blame themselves because the Dictator is supposed to be god, in a sense.
The second method is reminiscent of the quote "you can fool some of the people all of the time, and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time," and is actually a bit of a branch off a dictatorship. Of course, if you're actually a just ruler who create very good conditions for the people, you're not fooling anyone, but it is hard to maintain that justness because it costs a lot out of the society both economically and socially to do so. Contradicting ideals between peoples (liberal vs conservative) make this best case scenario society extremely hard to achieve. On the other hand, if the Ruler(s) create a situation that seems good but is actually not (global warming?, Taxes, etc.), There will be people who will catch on, and in the end that will affect the rulers competence negatively.
The third is the democracy we have today, in which the followers actually have quite a bit of power, in choosing the ruler and other laws. This seems good for us, because we get to choose our rulers, but it actually isn't all that much different in terms of the good and bad. The only real difference is that we get to choose who to love or be pissed at. In fact, i find it sad that you people can make fun of and hate on people you elected, its pathetic. Well actually, i guess i can understand part of the reason: Unless the election is won by a landslide, it kind of makes sense for a percentage of the people who didn't want the person who was elected to not support his actions, and propoganda can also be a factor. I still think its pathetic though. Moving on. One of the major problems with democracy is that the common people are stupid. People who gain roles as presidents and senate know how to do their job and what a new law may or may not entail, but the common people, not as much. Its like giving a baby a contraption with 2 buttons, one which saves thousands of people's lives, and one which does the opposite. And if you add corruption and fail to read the fine print or between the lines which a law may entail, us people can make some really stupid mistakes in what we think we want. Its like painting a smiley face on the button that kills 1000 people and painting a skull and crossbones on the one that saves 1000 people. The key issue that is accompanied with a democracy is "do the people know what they actually want?" and that becomes big issue in these controversies like global warming and the war in Iraq.
I would like to mention that there's a 4th theoretical way for a society to be ruled, and that is for all of the followers to band together to create the rules and coexist peacefully. The only real problem with this, is that ideals will be so scattered among people that coming to a consensus will be near impossible, and i can't think of any situation where a society like this could actually exist without problems.
Aside from the way people rule, we also have to factor in how many people are ruling at once, and who is keeping who in check.
If the ruler is a single individual, he then has all of the power. It's basically a 50/50 chance that he will either be corrupt, or he won't. if he isn't, then all is good for everyone, if he is, then refer to the dictatorship paragraph i mentioned earlier. On the other hand, if the ruler is actually a group of rulers, or a system of groups of people to keep one another in check, then this changes. The rule of thumb is, the more people, the more corruption there is likely to be. Another rule of thumb is, less people managing the government and people will yield more extreme results on the way the society is ruled, and more people will be more standard and generic,which refers back to the single ruler concept. I'll use coin tosses for this example. If you flip a coin once, your rate of heads to tails will be 100 percent or 100 percent tails. If you flip it twice, its 100 H, 100 T, or 50/50. 3 times, you now have 33/66, or 66/33. the more times you choose to flip the coin, the more likely you are to come to a 50-50 concensus; if you flip a coin 1000 times and get 470 Heads and 530 Tails, thats a very small difference. With people, theres going to be even less because people aren't black and white. some lean a bit both ways on some issues, and therefore theres even more homogeneity with more people governing. Of course, there always is the chance that every single person will think exactly the same way, but that is so unlikely it's out of the question.
So now we get to the common people, which i'll refer to as us for the time being. we simply follow what's given to us, unless we don't like it. If we don't, we can just revolt, or peacefully call for change, depending on how the ruler(s) are. If we are the rulers, then we can meet to change it ourselves, but again, cannot imagine such a society existing. The type of us people that exist is extremely ranged. There are people who devoutly follow the rules, and it ranges from people who passively follow it without care for occasional errors, and there are those who deny the laws and wish for change. (i'm somewhere in the middle of the last two.) Depending on the ruler(s), these ratio's change. An interesting thing i'd like to add though is that this is greatly affected by religion, especially here in the US. I mean, Under God is in the pledge of allegiance, and In God We Trust is on our coins. So the more influence the religion has on people, the more willing people generally are to follow the government, that is, if the government aligns itself with the religion in question, even though religion is generally not SUPPOSED to have any influence on government (Prop 8, haha). Another interesting concept is people who are "insane". on certain levels, i'd consider myself insane because i hate a LOT of society's rules, and the way people behave in them. Social insanity is basically a huge deviation from the societal norm. This person's opinion is usually meaningless to the rest of society, but every once in a while he/she/they can become a major influence. (one can say jonah and the giver of knowledge is insane, Hitler is another good example, before people actually started believing in him. Fight Club, the book, is a GREAT example). I guess in essence another word for insane is minority, but people who lack sanity generally don't travel in groups because their ideals may not be the same or contradict each others, and at least with minorities its a group that shares ideals and is big enough to actually mean something in the eyes of others. Oh, i would like to use this moment to say that discrimination SPAWNS from the desire to obtain power, but is only denoted or implemented when the societal norm shifts enough towards this idea that it becomes okay to do so.
Basically the way this game we call Society works is that The government wants one thing, and the people want another thing. Generally what the government wants is something that the people don't want, and vice versa, But the thing is, what the people want require some of what the government wants, and what the government want's requires the people's approval. This is the way things work in a democratic society. In a dictatorship, The ruler basically says "screw you i control everything and i can do whatever the hell i want and you have to follow, now do as i say and love your ruler!" Unfortunately for him/her/them, the chances of that working are about 1-2 percent. In the end, the basic game is there are 2 units. The ruler, and the people following. The ruler's job is to create a situation that the followers will like with the resources he has. The follower's job is to point out when the ruler is doing a shitty job and toss him out. If the ruler want's power though, then you could take a chance and go the dictatorship way, or you could do the "honest and just" ruler method. The only problem with that method is that because ideals of people are so scattered, its hard to make a good compromise and lead into a golden age.
The best ruler is the one who can maintain and generate a strong society for all. This does not necessarily entail that the ruler bring on a golden age, because if you think about it, improving a crappy society into a decent society doesn't really make one a good ruler if the great leap didn't really bring the society to high standards, but then again, that does depend on what situation the society is in compared to others. If a Leader was able to simply remove all of the poverty in Africa, i would consider him a Great ruler simply because that task would be hard to accomplish. If you have the resources to remove poverty and then some to BEGIN with, and all you can really do is just remove the poverty, then you're really not that great of a leader if you had the potential to do more with what you had.
A society merely has to consist of these aforementioned things to be considered as such. A classroom can be considered a society, up to a school, city, to a nation, country, and the world. Actually, the world isn't a society, it lacks a universal ruler, and god doesn't necessarily work because there are multiple religions. Societies also generally develop in a certain way as well, at least country/city status countries.
-Generally start small, unless its a branch of another, larger society.
-Almost always has one Major Ruler, or at least a figurehead.
-If isolated, develops with a strong attachment to said society, if not, attachment is based on the individual's preference
-Generally if a society enters a peak or a low, they will experience the opposite soon after, unless by war.
-If a society is detached, they will generally always want to break apart from each other. (Britain & US, Pakistan & India)
Just about every other habit that a society exhibits is straightforward or self explanatory, the losing side of a war loses power, etc. simple stuff like that.
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