Our addiction to suffering
As a species we are by nature a walking hypocrisy. With one hand we use our brushes, pens, rules and tools to fashion and manipulate the world to our own design, applying rational comprehension and logic to the universe to discover and learn the nature of the universe. With the other, we use our gifts of higher thought and opposable thumbs to unleash the most unbelievable horror and destruction upon living things – while using the pens and brushes and instruments to bleat about the “sanctity of life”.
It is a disturbing and amusing irony that this causes little if any cognitive dissonance, even to the minds capable of comprehending it.
Consider the alien creature looking in at us. It would not be surprising if it reported to its mother ship that the human species is apparently addicted to suffering as a species, certainly the impartial review o the evidence would suggest this.
We once waged war with swords and axes, but this required a lot of man power. Then we had guns, much better for killing scores of people in a session. We developed napalm and landmines, white phosphorus and Sarin gas to deal with our “enemies”. Our capability to inflict the maximum suffering with the minimum effort is truly an impressive feat.
Where once conquerors put entire nations and peoples to the sword when they were victorious, now we apply the “humane” methods of sanctions and oppression – extending the suffering of millions into the years, rather than the mere moments of the past.
We are not content though with the suffering we inflict on the battlefield, like a junkie looking for a fix we apply suffering to our friends and families as well, determined to have it all now, the maximum hit with no regard for tomorrow.
We condemn those with terminal, incurable, agonising diseases to suffer on until they die robbing them of their dignity as well as their comfort. We foster a division of resources to maintain poverty and hunger – both unnecessary yet reinforced to feed our addiction to suffering.
Even our media gluts itself on the suffering of others while we sit in our homes like pale voyeurs to the crimes, famines, rapes and genocides of our times. We do this and we demand more.
The alien observing us should be outraged by our behaviour and seeming delight in our sadism. Perhaps there is an alien watching us right now and considering the merits of a unilateral pre-emptive strike against us, lest we spread ourselves into the galaxy like a despicable plague.
Consider your role in all this.
As a species we are by nature a walking hypocrisy. With one hand we use our brushes, pens, rules and tools to fashion and manipulate the world to our own design, applying rational comprehension and logic to the universe to discover and learn the nature of the universe. With the other, we use our gifts of higher thought and opposable thumbs to unleash the most unbelievable horror and destruction upon living things – while using the pens and brushes and instruments to bleat about the “sanctity of life”.
It is a disturbing and amusing irony that this causes little if any cognitive dissonance, even to the minds capable of comprehending it.
Consider the alien creature looking in at us. It would not be surprising if it reported to its mother ship that the human species is apparently addicted to suffering as a species, certainly the impartial review o the evidence would suggest this.
We once waged war with swords and axes, but this required a lot of man power. Then we had guns, much better for killing scores of people in a session. We developed napalm and landmines, white phosphorus and Sarin gas to deal with our “enemies”. Our capability to inflict the maximum suffering with the minimum effort is truly an impressive feat.
Where once conquerors put entire nations and peoples to the sword when they were victorious, now we apply the “humane” methods of sanctions and oppression – extending the suffering of millions into the years, rather than the mere moments of the past.
We are not content though with the suffering we inflict on the battlefield, like a junkie looking for a fix we apply suffering to our friends and families as well, determined to have it all now, the maximum hit with no regard for tomorrow.
We condemn those with terminal, incurable, agonising diseases to suffer on until they die robbing them of their dignity as well as their comfort. We foster a division of resources to maintain poverty and hunger – both unnecessary yet reinforced to feed our addiction to suffering.
Even our media gluts itself on the suffering of others while we sit in our homes like pale voyeurs to the crimes, famines, rapes and genocides of our times. We do this and we demand more.
The alien observing us should be outraged by our behaviour and seeming delight in our sadism. Perhaps there is an alien watching us right now and considering the merits of a unilateral pre-emptive strike against us, lest we spread ourselves into the galaxy like a despicable plague.
Consider your role in all this.
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