The Attractiveness of Negative Being
Being is hard to understand – but easy enough to do. Even a rock can do it. And earthworms can do it even better. Only people have trouble with it. And we have succeeded in messing it up entirely. How come?
Frankly, I do not know – but I am willing to at least ask the question. And a properly formulated question is the biggest part of solving a problem. And for humans our biggest problem is that of being.
And right here is where I lose all my readers – who are not interested in thinking at all. This is quite a contrast to the Age of Reason – when we (or at least our best and brightest) loved to think – and write about their thinking. What has happened to us?
Here again, I have no idea – I can only say that something happened, and it was not nice. But it had something to do with the attractiveness of negative being. What on earth do I mean by that?
People have the amazing capability to reproduce reality in themselves. Any living being can do this – it is aware of its environment, and can respond to it appropriately. Any species that makes inappropriate responses doesn’t last long.
People, with their highly-developed central nervous system – some would say over-developed central nervous system – can easily go crazy - in any number of ways. One of these is to go negative - and destroy themselves.
This has happened many times. History is full of examples of people who rose and fell. There have been all kinds of rational explanations of this. My explanation involves the attractiveness of negative being – a concept only people could possibly have.
Concept is probably the wrong word. It seems to be more of a gut-level social impulse. I am listening to The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - which tries to answer the question (which as been asked over and over) ”Why were the Germans so crazy?”
The same question could be asked of Americans in the last half of last century “Why were they so crazy?”
My answer is that, for complicated reasons we do not understand – people find negative being very attractive. And they find leaders that help them to destroy themselves.
Since we now have a global culture – this destruction is global. Leadership is no longer necessary – the people can do it all by themselves.
You want a solution? Simply convince people that they are going this route. That’s all.
No trackbacks yet.