Kill the Electoral College

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-02-2017, 06:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: As are you, then.

I stand by my psychological judgement

I don't mean that as applied those who disagree with me politically as a matter of ideas, but those who value guns per se. Yes, it's insanity.

There's lots of things about this world that's insane, but we still hang on to them. Guns are certainly one of them. War is probably another.

I suppose you're right about lack of police. I think the UK invented them as we know them today in the 1820s. So they've been around a long time.

Like many pack hunters, humans evolved as territorial.  A breeding group needed so much land to supply food.  The human race evolved to form groups that will take and protect sufficient land.  Thus, we are accustomed to violence, bred for violence, doomed, perhaps, to violence.

I'm a Star Trek fan.  I'd like to believe that someday humans might create a culture like Roddenberry's fictional Federation where the instincts regarding violence, bonding into conflicting groups and territory are subdued, are kept under control by an enlightened culture.  It's a worthy dream.  We shouldn't forget such dreams.  I am very disappointed that the Star Trek franchise and science fiction in general have turned away from such dreams in favor of typical Hollywood action - adventure glorification of violence.

On another thread I've been recommending On Killing.  I'll mention it again here.  What is humankind's violent nature?  What are the checks and balances between when is violence necessary and when it should it be shut down?  What mechanisms have been bred into humans to try to strive for the correct balance?

Man's instincts towards violence, his urge to form groups, to assure said groups have adequate resources, to defend said groups from attack, evolved as they did for good reason.  However, they evolved when hunter gatherer cultures were dominant, when clubs and thrown rocks were state of the art weaponry.  Nukes and assault rifles make for an entirely different situation.  It shouldn't be surprising that what once worked well enough is no longer optimal.

It would be really nice to evolve to Roddenberry's utopian Federation as quickly as we might, but even in Roddenberry's future, the best diplomatic tool was a fully charged phaser bank.  The various starships Enterprise were heavily armed for good reason, and used those arms in many many episodes.  If they weren't so armed, Star Trek episodes would have to be filmed with all starship crew members speaking Klingon.

Thus, as they say here in New England, ya kant get dayah from heah.  As a believer in turning theory and transforming crises, I can see major changes in cultures over a matter of not so many years.  However, you can only do so much in a given crisis.  We're not going to get to Roddenberry's utopia in my lifetime.

Anyway, to form groups, to defend one's group, to protect the group's resources, that's literally in our DNA.  It is in our DNA for good reason.  Groups that didn't protect their territory, resources and neighbors got bred out of the gene pool.  Most modern cultures have police forces and militaries as they are still necessary.

And clinging to deep down instinctive and cultural imperatives about what really has been necessary in the recent past should not be called 'insane'.  Values and cultures do not change lightly.  They change only when the traditions have blatantly and obviously failed.  In large parts of the country, the values held dear by the founding fathers, that are embedded in our Constitution, are not viewed as having blatantly failed.  They are deeply held to be necessary, vibrant and meaningful.

How many times need I say it?  People cling very tightly to their world views and values.  Many are unwilling or incapable of understanding and sympathizing with how other cultures came to exist, how they were shaped by quite valid historical experiences.  Too many are so locked into their own perspectives that any who disagree get labeled as insane, evil, stupid, brainwashed, etc...  

I guess a basic premise of my own world view is that any wide spread culture and values set came into existence for logical reasons that made sense given the environment that begat the culture.  As a rule of thumb, when the environment changes, when what once made sense no longer makes sense, human beings are incredibly slow to adapt.  I tend to lean progressive as technology changes much, thus it is often beneficial to acknowledge that a changing situation requires a changing culture.

But if the environment changes more slowly in rural areas than urban, if the need for change in rural areas is small to nonexistent, if the changes that seem necessary in urban areas bring no benefit in rural areas, the question is convincing people to fix what doesn't seem to be broke.  One might come to expect a very firm no.  This firm no will come at a deep down values driven take no prisoners level.

And if you don't know this already, you haven't been paying attention to the various red posters that contribute here.

I guess my frustration is that few people will assume or perceive that from inside any culture, any culture, that culture always seems to be based on common sense, logic, and valued lessons learned from history at great expense.  Too many folk are stuck thinking that one's own culture is right and true, thus it follows that all other cultures are wrong.  The other guy must of course be insane, stupid, brainwashed, evil, etc...

I'm of course absolutely sure that my own perspective is definitely the correct one.  It follows that the rest of you are wrong.