A place for me to express my interests through photos, text, music and video
Posts tagged society.
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Perspective
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
-Carl Sagan
“ Corporations are mandated by law to maximise profits on behalf of their shareholders regardless of social or environmental cost
— …
“ Democracy is in the worst interest of national goals. The modern world is too complex to allow the man or woman in the street to interfere in its management
— Time Magazine
Patriotism/Nationalism
*Thoughts whilst watching “Media Corruption Exposed: PsyWar”*
“Patriotism is a devotion to a certain place or people. Contrary to nationalism, which is inseparable from lust for power” - George Orwell
I think the key distinction between patriotism and nationalism (within the context of Orwell’s quote) is the fact that Nationalism is often characterized by states and groups of people that have aims to form attacks on other nations in order to spread their own values (they may justify these actions with claims to some sort of self-defense or preventative war). Whereas patriotism is when a state or a group of people are more concerned with defending their values, whereby they aim to fend off and protect themselves from any faction that poses a threat to them. Additionally, patriots are more concerned with domestic social justice and human betterment in general.
The latter group of people do not have aims to attack or impose themselves upon others. A real patriot feels an attachment to his country, but not at the expense of other countries. A real patriot takes pride in his country’s ability at social betterment rather than his country’s ability at imposing herself upon others.
I think this is the distinction that Orwell was trying to make. Nowadays, propaganda has taken patriotism and used it as a word to define militarism and support for war (mostly unethical wars).
Thoughts on Anders Brevik & Multiculturalism
Breivik’s actions were triggered by his growing and deep discontent with the government’s lenient policies towards immigration. He became disgruntled with the fact that 1/4 of all inhabitants in Oslo (his hometown) were immigrants. He believed that by killing the “future leaders” or “traitors” (as he calls his victims) of the Norwegian Labour party, he was sending out a message that Norway could not continue along this pathway to irreversible multiculturalism. More specifically, it can be concluded that he believed that the mass immigration of Islamist groups into Norway were detrimental to Norwegian society.
It All Goes Back In The Box
*A Great Life Analogy
The way the world works
ZEITGEIST: MOVING FORWARD
*The best society-orientated documentary I’ve watched thus far
*An eye-opener
*Essential viewing
Thomas Paine
My country is the world and my religion is to do good.
“ War is inevitable in a monetary-based economy. Peace talks, treaties, supranational organisations etc. merely prolong this fate.
“ Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations.
— Shawn Carter
It really is amazing how powerful a combination of lyrics and a melody can be in influencing the minds of the masses.
“ Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
— Margaret Mead
In Light of the Recent Race Rows: A Short Take on Racial Discrimination
(Another Quick Rant. Feel free to argue with me. Or add anything you feel I needed to include)
The general definition of racism in today’s rhetoric is understood to be “the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination”. The law prohibits acting on this belief (obviously it cannot prohibit the retention of this belief). “Article 21 of the UN charter prohibits discrimination on any ground such as race, color, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, disability, age or sexual orientation and also discrimination on the grounds of nationality”.
Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to objectively identify the reason for a tragedy/failure that involves a non-white individual or group. Different groups of people will interpret their failure to achieve their goals in their own way based on their own experiences. A black man who has had history of suffering from racist abuse may point to racism being the reason for him not getting a job, whereas the employer may say that that black man simply just did not fit the bill. Who’s to accurately say that the employer is lying or not?
