As successive generations of man pass over this earth like water down some sacred stream we seem to have cultivated a profound sense of self importance. I think most people at some intuitive level realize that we are training ourselves for this modern maze to such an extent that we are becoming incapable of seeing anything but but our own narrow and confused path. In ages past people had far more time when their mind wasn't bombarded with noises, sights and smells; thus they had much more time for contemplating life. So not only have we made life more complex, we have removed a major aspect of our ability to understand ourselves. Although we are pretty much as ignorant as our immediate ancestors, we seem to have gotten smart enough to realize that their is no God whose wrath we must fear, only us humans on a rock spinning around other rocks in the infinite expanse of space. "Man is the measure of all things"-Protagoras That's probably why we like to call it Civilization and not Organized Expansion of Institutions. Yup we are pretty stoked on what we've done here, but probably only because we don't think about what is actually taking place in front of our very noses. Take me for example, just your typical Californian College kid. But I understand that my presence at this place, both in time and space, dictates a few things about my existence. Like the fact that I'm one of 300 million or so living in what is known as the United States of America, a collection of various institutions all geared towards making us able to go anywhere in the world we please to either trade or steal anything we (commonly called the market) might desire. We get away with this without feeling like malevolent mercenaries by invoking the greater institution Global Capitalism, and bunch of other ideas like freedom, liberty, justice, democracy, Coca-cola etc. The way in which myself and my fellow Americans dash from location to location with bags full of money or planes full of bombs, bespeaks of a mentality that can only be likened to a carnivorous creature that never worries about the prey upon which it feeds. This whole nation runs on the premise that material wealth begets happiness and respect, sadly that material wealth just happens to require us tear assing around the whole planet extracting substances from inferior cultures. Why are they inferior you ask? Because we can go into their country and tell them whats what, so clearly we are running a better Civilization. So while little old me studies history and leads a peaceful little life, the organization that I'm implicitly a part of is changing life on earth to such an extent that our products and culture has spread everywhere. Those who help us, we reward, those that speak out we denounce as halting progress, and the few who resist are greeted with depleated uranium bombs falling in their backyard. You would think that the other 300 million Americans would want to be aware of this rather important reality, but they aren't and apparently don't want to either. We are the undeniable masters of the maze we created at present, so why should each and every individual unit have to be aware of what the whole is doing? In all likelihood being cognizant of what I've discussed would probably ruin many Americans ability to go placidly along with such a daring and violent enterprise. So it goes, I'm here for the ride regardless. For as a wise man once said, "We are all living in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
No comments:
Post a Comment