Triedit
If what I've contributed helps at all...no thanks necessary..
I'm very afraid for our world right now. We are children (as an ancient Chinese sage once said.."Children playing with axes...not realizing the possible consequences.." and haven't come to terms with the question you've asked as one of the most fundamental questions that every person should be asking themselves'....
Can I pretend that I'm not affected by what's going on in the world? Can I afford to ignore the conflicts and what seems an oppressive ubiquitious apathy emerging from the people of the world to all the grave circumstances that suggest our very existence is in jeopardy?
Does our willingness to ignore the injustices and preventable wrongs that permeate our cultures exonerate me of responsibility for the outcomes we experience? Do I have a duty, a responsibility to identify and name the sources and dynamics responsible? We all stopped caring a great deal about the world in general when we could plug ourselves into the TV. When our appetites became the marketplace and our cognitive processes begame fair-game to an ersatz value structure and counterfeit moral framework. Ethical costructs became fodder for economic and political agendas and we stopped beliving in ourselves.
If we examine, as objectively as we are able, the condition of our planet, the condition and character of our interpersonal affiliations and bonds with every other human being, can we be optimistic about the future that our children will inherit?
Your question is an enormous connundrum and there are as with most dynamic constructs, no simple or "easy" answers.
We have it seems to me to have become quick to anger and slow to forgive and tolerance is garbed as acquiescence to the status quo... even when that same electronic avenue of escape tells us that there are some terribly serious and potentially terminal situations developing around us.
The only thing that makes existence and all the suffering and turmoil that comes with it survivable and in any way tolerable is the investment we are all willing to make IN EACH OTHER.
Taking away the empathy compassion and "othering" that bound us together in our smaller ancient communities has in my opinion de-humanized mankind to a significant degree. Our loss of a sense of responsibility to our communities and each other has permitted and amplified a sense of "alone-ness", a sense that daring to care is an intrusion into the lives and complexity of others.
Certainly, an agenda that would create exclusivity for some and leave little else but poverty and isolation for others has not served us well. An agenda that regards personal perspectives and selfishness as the benchmark for "success" and the hallmark of prosperity...has enormous attendant costs.
We are facing what appear to be insurmountable hurdles, as a species we all have contributed to the despoiling of our planet, the alienation and outright ostracization of millions of fellow human beings on the basis of religious beliefs, skin pigmentation and ideological preferences....
Do we choose to not act even within ourselves to begin to examine the how and why of our shaping of the future, or do we find contentment in believing that we're all somehow not responsible?
