Henceforth known as a bus blog. Short, to the point, I’m on the bus when I think of these things.
I once had someone (who is on my FB page) say “Joe, the thing that separates humans from animals is that we stop to care for our injured and sick.” What he failed to mention was that we’re also the only animals the commit homicide and enslave others as a matter of perceived social status. I sit and think on my ride home today, what exactly motivates things like homicide, and slavery. Currently in my job, I work for a manager who is seriously power-hungry. I try to understand what motivates her hunger, what emotions she feels or what inspires her to feel powerful in some situations. I can see moments, based on her facial expression and little body language that tells me she feels good when she feels like she accomplished a sense dominance over me. It’s sad, but also makes me realize the fundamental nature of what people need to accomplish things like homicide, slavery and the like.
The perceived imbalances created by a free market, or by natural ability – The haves vs. the have-nots. We seek to take from one to give to another under the banner of social justice, or “right and wrong.” My manager feels as though she’s accomplished some greater good by oppressing me and my attempts to rise in my job, because she and others feel intimidated by my ability. I’m not saying I’m an amazing employee, just that I’m generally more adept at my job than most. She feels like she’s exacted her notion of right and wrong and brought about her perception of “justice.” As a matter of etymology, this leads us to the notion of “being justified” in such an action. She likely felt “justified” in keeping me from promotion opportunities because of her idea that I need to spend more time in my job before I DESERVE any promotion.
What I’m saying is that without the notion of injustice, or inequity, we have nothing to inspire us to kill or hate. Some of the most proclaimed “open-minded” people I’ve ever spoken with were the most bigoted. They proclaimed their desire for social justice and equity by demoralizing those who make a large amount of money because of their perception of inequity.
“Violence” is defined as “rough or immoderate vehemence, as of feeling or language: The violence of his hatred.” And as I think of things like the supposed “non-violent” sit-in strikes I think to myself… Wait, someone should look up this word for once, because they were very explicitly VIOLENT. Okay so no one got shot, but they still sought to destroy what was created by another as a matter of “We believe this is unjust, we hate you and seek to force your hand.”
Historically, people have committed genocide and murder all over a desire to impose their sense of justice on another group of people… The details and goal is always the same. The normal reaction of people who are starving, is to hate the person who has food if they aren’t sharing, and they feel as though it is unjust for one person to have food while they starve.
I guess this is what separates us from Animals – The depth of our society. It drives us to want to save, love and care for others and in the same emotion it also drives us to kill, hate, tax, enslave, and destroy others for the same reason.
My point and solution in all of this is to say – “Let go.” I don’t want your ideology imposed on me in as much as I imagine you don’t want mine imposed on you. So perhaps this is where we should separate. You think something different than I do. Live it, so long as doing so doesn’t mean forcing me to live your ideology too. I’ll do the same.
Think it can’t be done? Animals do it every day. That might be a bit simplified, but in truth, the Animal Kingdom has a great advantage on us. They don’t pine over simple aspects of survival like we do. In that, I might proffer the argument that animals are in fact, more noble than humans. But perhaps I’m just a bit of an idealist. IDK, my BFF Jill.
