Nietzsche a avut o bucățica de dreptate cand a spus ca “Dumnezeu a murit” numai ca luat-o razna înainte sa fi apucat sa facă cu adevărat lumina în problema asta.
Ce vreau sa spun
este că Dumnezeu nu a murit pe cont propriu. L-am omorât noi. De două ori. Și în timp ce prima dată am fost în stare  să rezolvam situația acum se pare ca nu mai știm pe unde sa scoatem cămașa.

Permiteți-mi să mă explic.

Nu am nici o modalitate de a ști dacă Dumnezeu a fost cel care ne-a creat. Îi voi lăsa pe alții să decidă în problema asta.
Pentru mine este suficient că nu văd nici o dovadă serioasa în favoarea acestei ipoteze. Există doar unele “mărturii” furnizate de persoane aflate într-un ‘conflict de interese’ mare cât o catedrală. A Neamului. Așa că aceste mărturii mi se par cel puțin părtinitoare. Pe lângă asta eu unul nu am nevoie de vreo explicație de tip Deus ex Machina cu privire la nimic din ceea ce exista în acest Univers. Știința modernă a făcut o treabă destul de buna, cel puțin pentru mine.
Pe de altă parte ipoteza contrară este absolut imposibil de demonstrat. Și atunci, de ce sa-mi mai bat capul?

Ce știu, sigur, este faptul că cel puțin un fel de Dumnezeu există cu adevărat! Cel care a fost creat de noi, o reprezentare socială a cărei existență provine direct din relația noastră mentală cu El.
Simpla existență a acestui Dumnezeu virtual a avut două consecințe foarte importante. Astfel a fost facilitata aparitia democrației și a unui mod coerent de a înțelege lumea – un Weltanschauung, ca sa folosesc un termen tehnic nemțesc.

Voi face aici o scurtă pauză. Mantra curenta este că “Dumnezeu ne-a făcut după chipul său”. Acest lucru are doua consecințe practice foarte importante:
– Că, cel puțin la nivel declarativ, suntem egali între noi – am fost cu toți turnați în aceeași formă, nu?
– Și că fiecare dintre noi adăpostește o scânteie de divinitate. Iar aceasta natura, parțial divina, pe care o împărtășim cu toții vine însoțită de o mare responsabilitate. Așa se explică principala poruncă „practică” pe care am primit-o – să nu ucizi și să nu judeci pe altul. Cine suntem, fiecare dintre noi, ca să jucăm rolul lui Dumnezeu față de alți „semeni de-ai noștri”?
De asemenea, împărtășirea unui același Weltanschauung a fost ceea ce ne-a oferit posibilitatea de a acționa ca o comunitate, cadrul în care ne putem ajuta unul pe celălalt. Pentru un timp, cel puțin, dar cât de bine a fost cât timp acest cadru a funcționat ca lumea. Dacă stăm puțin să ne gândim am înțelege că nici unul dintre noi nu ar putea face mare lucru fără acest cadru. De fapt  nici măcar astăzi, cu toate tehnologiile moderne pe care le considerăm acum „normale”, nici unul dintre noi nu ar fi în stare să supraviețuiască prea mult, dară-mite să prospere, pe termen lung.

Și acest lucru, uciderea lui Dumnezeu, s-a întâmplat de două ori.
Am dat naștere unei prime generații de zei, făcuți și aceștia tot după chipul nostru, bine și rău împreună. Zeii Antichității Egiptene, Grecești, Romane și mai apoi cei ai Nordului împărtășeau același comportament cu cel al oamenilor. Ba chiar, din când, unii dintre ei coborau din Olimp și împărțeau cu noi chiar și paturile. Asta până la un moment dat. După aceea ne-am obrăznicit și i-am abandonat. Filozofii noștri ajunseseră, încă de-atunci, la concluzia că știu ei mai bine ce trebuie de făcut și că pot oferi soluții complete pentru toate problemele noastre doar prin puterea gândurilor lor. Și uite așa autoritarismul absolut a sfârșit prin a avea binecuvântarea oficială a Academiei, în timp ce adorarea zeilor a fost lăsată pentru masele de fraieri.
Din acel moment s-
a dezlănțuit iadul. Pentru 6 secole după ce Platon a scris Republica sa Marea Mediterană a fost martora unui șir de imperii care s-au distrus unul pe celalalt, fiecare dintre ele condus fiind de tot felul de împărați care se credeau care mai de care mai zei, mai filozofi sau chiar și una și cealaltă.

Până când am pus în loc un alt Dumnezeu. Unul care ne-a spus să nu ne mai certăm între noi – pentru că toți suntem frați – și să începem să trăim în comuniune. Până când l-am omorât și pe acesta.

Nu că nu am fi fost avertizați. Pascal, matematicianul francez, ne-a spus că este complet irațional să respingem cu totul existența lui Dumnezeu. Dacă, în realitate, acesta nu există credinciosul nu pierde nimic iar necredinciosul nu câștigă nimic – în afară de satisfacția dubioasă de a se putea lăuda, după moarte, cu “Ți-am spus eu!”. În schimb, dacă Dumnezeu există, atunci credincioșii vor moșteni lumea, în timp ce non-credincioșii și-au făcut-o cu mâna lor. Numai că, între timp, toți au trăit într-o lume structurată de presupusa existență a lui Dumnezeu și s-au bucurat de cele două consecințe menționate mai sus – egalitatea între oameni, chiar dacă numai în teorie, și capacitatea de a face lucrurile în mod concertat, mult mai eficient decât de unii singuri.

Acum, că ne-am ucis Dumnezeul pentru a doua oară – episodul la care face referire Nietzsche – ne-am „rătăcit” din nou. Numai că de data asta nu am pierdut doar o ipotetică viață de apoi ci am început să transformam, treptat, chiar lumea în care trăim într-un infern.

Și dacă nu mă credeți, haideți să urmăm sfatul lui Lešek Kolakowski.
“Să comparăm lumea fără Dumnezeu a lui Diderot, Helvetius, și Feuerbach cu cea a lui Kafka, Camus și Sartre. Prăbușirea creștinismului, care a fost așteptată cu atât de multă bucurie de către Iluminism a avut loc aproape simultan cu prăbușirea Iluminismului însuși. Noua Ordine, antropocentrică și radiantă, care avea să se ridice și să îl înlocuiască pe Dumnezeu de îndată ce ar fi fost răsturnat de la putere, n-a mai venit. Ce s-a întâmplat? De ce a fost soarta ateismului în așa fel ciudat legată de cea a creștinismului, astfel încât cei doi inamici să ajungă să împartă același ghinion și aceeași incertitudine””(Dumnezeu într-un timp fără Dumnezeu, 2003)

Acum, de ce nu putem face efortul minim de a încerca să înțelegem ce ne-a spus Pascal? De ce este atât de greu să înțelegem că noi înșine stricăm viața frumoasă pe care am putea-o avea dacă am continua să pretindem că Dumnezeu există ȘI dacă ne-am comporta în consecință?

De ce ne este atât de greu ca măcar să ne prefacem că îi respectăm pe cei cu care s-a întâmplat să împarțim planeta?
E adevărat că respectul mimat nu este la fel cu cel autentic numai este mult mai bun decât imensul dispreț generalizat în care ne bălăcim continuu.

Chiar și mai important este faptul că dacă nu vom mai folosi atâta energie pentru menținerea câmpului de forțe de care avem nevoie pentru a ne proteja de disprețul care ne sufocă am avea mai multe posibilități să ne imaginăm o lume mult mai bună decât suntem în stare acum.
Și, cine știe, poate că vom reuși să descoperim cât de frumoși suntem atunci când ne dăm jos armurile.

Poate că în felul acesta vom da naștere unui nou Dumnezeu.
Spre satisfacția celui care se uită de sus la noi.
Dacă există.

Lešek Kolakowski, Dumnezeu într-un timp fără Dumnezeu, 2003, http://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/06/visions-of-eternity-7

That’s one way to look at it.
Sometimes it might indeed resemble a punishment but please remember the many times when common sense prevented us from making huge mistakes that might have ruined our lives.

Misogyny and misandry are equivalent scourges.
I fail to see any difference between ‘kill all men’ and “beat her savagely, laughing as he licks the tears from her crying eyes.”

David Futrelle's avatarwe hunted the mammoth

Murdered feminist activist Grace Mann Murdered feminist activist Grace Mann

Last month, police say, University of Mary Washington student and feminist/LGBT activist Grace Mann was murdered — bound and asphyxiated by a male housemate and fellow student.

An antifeminist blogger is blaming her death on feminist jokes about misandry. 

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Does he have any ‘right to exert his authority, inside the limits that have been delineated for him’?

Somebody who has real authority enjoys a certain degree of autonomy, if not outright independence. ‘Authority’ is almost never clearly delineated, there is always a gray area where the discretion of the individual in charge is the one that calls the shots.
More over if we, the ‘subjects’, consider that he has ‘the right’ to exercise that authority then it’s us who are in deep trouble.
‘Exertion of authority’ ‘smacks’ of the situation  when the ‘authority man’ had conquered his position against the wish of his subjects – like the emperors of the old. (Or like the communist dictators of not so long ago, only they pretended to exercise their authority for the benefit of the people while the emperors of the old were more straightforward and declared themselves ‘gods’)
Nowadays, at least in the democratic states, authority is, theoretically, used as a tool, towards the accomplishment of what the person in charge is supposed to achieve, not as a right enjoyed by that person.
In fact the notion of a right to exert authority inside some limits is akin to what has been described as ‘feudalism’, a social arrangement not that different from the Athenian democracy. The people were divided in two categories, just as in the previous situation – the ‘imperiums’ of the Antiquity, the difference being that in an imperium the top class was inhabited by a single individual – the emperor/dictator, while in feudalism/Athenian democracy the top class was inhabited by the free people, whose authority/freedom extended only as far as it started to encroach the authority of the equivalent individuals. I have to remark here that in many circumstances feudalism has very quickly degenerated back to imperium – for instance in absolutist France, ‘L’etat c’est moi’, or in tsarist Russia, while England successfully avoided that due to the spirit enshrined in Magna Charta.
The difference between feudalism/Athenian democracy and the modern democracy being that currently we can no longer speak of individual authority simply because nowadays no one has the “right” to own slaves – as the Athenian ‘democrats’ had, nor even enjoy extensive authority (bar the right of life and death) over other people – the serfs, as the feudal barons did not so long ago.

Nietzsche was somewhat right only he went bonkers before he was able to shed some real light on what was going on.
The point is that God didn’t die on his own. We killed him. Twice. And while the first time we were capable to fix the situation now we seem incapable to ‘make the right thing’.

Let me explain myself.

I have no way of knowing if it was God that created us or not. That’s something for others to decide.
For me it’s enough that I see no evidence to support the first hypothesis except for some ‘testimonies’ provided by people with vested interests in the matter. I find those testimonies highly biased. Nor do I find any need for a Deus ex Machina kind of explanation for anything that exists in this Universe. Modern science has done a good enough job in explaining the world to me.
On the other hand the second hypothesis is absolutely impossible to demonstrate. So, why bother?

What I do know, for sure, is that at least one kind of God does exist. The one that has been created by us, people, a social representation whose existence stems directly from our mental relationship with Him – the One who supposedly created us.
The mere existence of this ‘virtual’ God had two very important consequences. It brought us democracy and it provided us with a coherent way of understanding the world – a common Weltanschauung in German terms.

I’ll make a short break here to elaborate a little. The common lore is that ‘God made us in his image’. This means that, basically, we are equals among ourselves – we’ve been all cast in the same mould, right? – and that each of us has a spark of divinity in him. Quite a heavy responsibility – being of a Godly nature – don’t you think? Hence the ‘do not kill/judge’ commandment. Who are we to play God towards other Gods?
Also partaking in the same Weltanschauung was what offered us the possibility to act as a community, to help each other. For a while at least but it was good while it lasted. After all none of us could have done much by himself.
In fact none of us is able to survive for long by himself, let alone thrive solitarily. Not even today, with all the modern technology that we now take for granted.

We gave birth to our first generation of Gods, made exactly into our image, good and bad together, during the Antiquity. The Greek, Roman and German Gods were our look alike-s and shared our unruly behavior. Some of them even occasionally shared our beds. Then, at some point, we got cocky and abandoned them. Our philosophers thought they knew better than that and that they could come up with comprehensive solutions all by themselves. That’s how absolute authoritarianism ended up having official blessing from the Academia while the adoration of Gods was left for the unsuspecting masses.
All hell broke loose from that moment. For some 6 centuries after Plato had wrote his Republic the Mediterranean Sea had been a string of empires toppling one another.

Until we came up with a different kind of God. One that first and foremost told us to stop quarreling – for we were all brothers – and start living in communion. Until we killed him also.

Not that we haven’t been forewarned. Pascal, the French mathematician, told us that it is completely irrational to reject the existence of God. If, in reality, God doesn’t exist the believer looses nothing and the non believer gains nothing – except for the lame satisfaction to be able to brag ‘I told you so’ after death. Conversely, if God does exist, then the believers are going to inherit the world while the non believers have dealt themselves the worst hand ever. Meanwhile, by living in a world structured by the presumed existence of God both believers and non believers enjoyed the two consequences I mentioned above – equality among people, even if only in theory, and the ability of doing things in concert, a lot more efficiently.

Now, that we’ve killed God for a second time – the murder described by Nietzsche – we’ve lost it again. Only this time we didn’t lose just the hypothetical after-life, we’re gradually transforming this one – the only life we have for sure – into a bloody nightmare.

And if you don’t believe me do as Lesek Kolakowski suggests.
“Let us simply compare the godless world of Diderot, Helvétius, and Feuerbach with that of Kafka, Camus, and Sartre. The collapse of Christianity that was so joyfully awaited by the Enlightenment took place almost simultaneously with the collapse of the Enlightenment itself. The new, shining order of anthropocentrism that was built up in place of the fallen God never came. What happened? Why was the fate of atheism in such a strange way tied to that of Christianity, so that the two enemies accompanied one another in their misfortune and in their insecurity?” (God in a godless time, 2003)

Now why can’t we make the small effort to understand what Pascal told us? Why is it so hard to understand that we are spoiling the beautiful life we might have if only we kept pretending that God existed and behaved accordingly?

Why is it so hard at least to fake some respect for those who happen to share the planet with us?
Fake respect is not as good as the genuine one, of course, but is a lot better than the huge amount of scorn that is publicly traded these days.
Even more important is that if we won’t have to use so much energy in maintaining a force field to protect us from being drenched in scorn we’ll may be able to imagine a better world than the one we currently have to deal with.
And, who knows, maybe we’ll have time to discover how beautiful we really are, inside our armors.

A new (representation of) God would be born this way.

god-is-dead

Lesek Kolakowski, God in a godless time, 2003, http://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/06/visions-of-eternity-7

Oana Moraru ne atrage atentia, pe Facebook, cu privire la necesitatea stringenta de a reseta modul in care interactionam, la toate nivelurile, cu noua generatie.
“vin din urmă copii din ce în ce mai agitați, cu probleme de atenție, hiperactivi si sensibili, incapabili să se asculte unii pe ceilalți, greu de motivat sau captivat, cu prag mic de toleranţă la frustrare, dependenți de atenție etc”. 

Domnia sa propune si o explicatie pentru situatia in care am ajuns: “Suntem o cultură educațională negativă. Și profesorii și părinții – în marea lor majoritate – își corectează sau mâna copiii de la spate cu obida si înverșunarea propriei neputințe”.

Eu as face un pas mai departe.
Pana nu demult se vorbea despre un conflict intre generatii.
Numai ca pentru ca asa ceva sa apara este nevoie de o oarecare comunicare – nu poti sa te certi cu cineva daca nu vorbesti pe limba lui si daca nu ai ceva de impartit cu el.

Situatia actuala poate fi descrisa mai degraba folosind conceptul de ‘hiatus intre generatii’.

Prea multi dintre parinti muncesc toata ziua pana la epuizare, cateodata chiar din dorinta de ‘a le asigura un viitor copiilor lor’. Cand ajung acasa cad lati. Si oricum copiii lor sunt ocupati. Cu internetul, cu what’s up-ul. Din cea mai frageda pruncie, cateodata chiar dinainte de a sti sa vorbeasca.
Si, asa cum spune omul asta aici:
“If you are worried that your child spending 15 hours a day using a tablet is making them insular or unsociable, you may have to consider the possibility that it’s not so much the tablet that’s doing that as the fact that they have a parent who’s willing to let them use a gadget for 15 hours a day. It’s a very formative time of their development and parental interaction is key to this, so it might be an idea to do some of that rather than finding a scapegoat.”
(Daca sunteti ingrijorati ca cele 15 ore pe zi in care copilul vostru se joaca pe tableta il vor transforma intr-o fiinta insulara sau asociala ar trebui sa luati in considerare si posibilitatea ca nu tableta sa fie de vina ci faptul ca are niste parinti care ii il lasa, constienti fiind, sa se joace 15 ore pe zi la tableta. Copilaria este o perioada foarte importanta pentru formarea lor si ei au nevoie imperioasa de a interactiona cu parintii lor. Poate ca ar fi mai bine sa intretineti legatura cu el in loc sa cautati vinovati acolo unde nu sunt.’

Uite asa am ajuns sa nu mai avem nimic sa ne spunem si sa nu ne mai intelegem deloc.

Eu fac parte din generatia despre care se spunea ca a crescut cu cheia de gat. Macar atunci parintii stateau seara de vorba cu noi. Nu de alta, macar sa ne intrebe daca nu cumva am pierdut cheia.
Pe vremea aia generatia matura inca incerca sa transmita niste valori celei tinere, aceasta se ‘revolta’ in timpul adolescentei iar la maturitate adapta valorile vechi la noua situatie.
Acum generatia matura este atat de dezamagita/dezabuzata de tot ce se intampla incat aproape ca nu mai vrea altceva de la viata decat sa supravietuiasca. In conditiile astea cine sa se mai gandeasca la valori sau la idea de a le transmite cuiva?
Consecinta este ca practic avem de a face un dezinteres aproape total al generatiei mature cu privire la soarta celei tinere. Acestia din urma sunt crescuti mai degraba ca niste animale de companie, prea putini dintre ei sunt ajutati cu adevarat sa devina ‘membri responsabili ai echipei’.

Si atunci sa ne mai miram ca “vin din urmă copii din ce în ce mai agitați, cu probleme de atenție, hiperactivi si sensibili, incapabili să se asculte unii pe ceilalți, greu de motivat sau captivat, cu prag mic de toleranţă la frustrare, dependenți de atenție etc”. Ca nu prea le pasa, nici lor, de noi? Si nici de viitorul lor?

Pot sa se chinuie profesorii devotati meseriei lor – asa cum este doamna Moraru si inca destul de multi ca ea – pana la lacrimi si la epuizare nervoasa, daca nu punem umarul si noi, parintii, eforturile lor nu vor avea rezultate pe masura.

‘Pe masura’ de care avem nevoie. Noi si copiii nostri.

http://www.pbs.org/parents/childrenandmedia/article-when-introduce-child-smartphone-tablet.html
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/01/toddler-brains-research-smartphones-damage-social-development
http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2015/feb/03/toddlers-damage-smartphones-tablets

Un excelent articol de pe blogul Simonei Tache mi-a readus aminte un episod din adolescenta mea.
Cineva apropiat mie a trecut printr-o etapa destul de tumultoasa a vietii – Sinistra sotie a Odiosului dictator ordonase o restructurare care a dat peste cap viata a foarte multor oameni, numai ca in perioada aia nu prea iti venea sa ceri ajutor in situatii de genul asta. S-a lasat cu manifestari psihosomatice si abia atunci s-a dus la doctor. Tratamentul somatic a reusit, partea psihologica/psihiatrica s-a rezolvat in timp numai ca medicatia pentru inima, destul de ’empirica’ pe vremea aia, i-a dat tot organismul peste cap iar rezultatele s-au vazut abia peste douazeci de ani.

Comentariile de pe blog mi-au intarit impresia pe care o aveam deja cu privire la faptul ca depresia este o boala cu puternice conotatii sociale. Mai sunt si altele numai ca aceasta are o dubla determinare.
Pe de o parte tendintele depresive pot fi accentuate in cursul sau din cauza relatiilor stabilite cu cei din jurul persoanei potential depresive iar apoi, dupa ce depresia s-a instalat deja, chiar si atitudinea fata de noua situatie este modulata tot de reactia celor din jur. Mai apropiati sau chiar mai departati.

Nu, nu vreau sa fac pe nimeni vinovat de nimic.
Tot ce imi doresc este ca ‘apartinatorii’ sa se gandeasca si la nevoile reale ale persoanelor (potential) depresive, nu doar la fobiile lor personale: ‘ce-o sa zica lumea daca o sa se afle ca sotia/sotul/copii/parintii mei s-au dus la psihiatru’?
Tot asa mi-as dori ca oamenii sa-si tina multe dintre judecatile de valoare pentru ei. Sau, si mai bine, sa nu le faca deloc daca nu este nevoie imperioasa de ele si, in nici un caz, inainte de a strange suficiente informatii pentru ca judecata sa poata fi facuta macar intr-o relativa cunostinta de cauza.
Asa ar fi evitate foarte multe dintre ‘frecusurile’ cotidiene care, chiar daca nu se datoreaza rautatii intentionate a cuiva, produc atata tensiune si nefericire celor care, pur si simplu, se intampla sa ‘cada la mijloc’.

Am fost cu depresia atat la psiholog cat si la psihiatru” – http://www.simonatache.ro/2015/05/15/am-fost-cu-depresia-atat-la-psiholog-cat-si-la-psihiatru/

“To judge or not to judge, that is the questionhttps://nicichiarasa.wordpress.com/2015/05/02/to-judge-or-not-to-judge-is-this-a-real-question/

Government officials throwing self serving smoke screens.
Everything here is true except for the last sentence.
As long as CEO’s, the rich and the corporations don’t understand this simple economic principle no amount of legislation will achieve much, except for further de-balancing the economy.
In fact minimum wage encourages employers to pay as low as possible instead of letting them pay so low as to see their working force disappearing in the dark.
The fact is that by setting this minimum wage the government suggests to the employers that: ‘it’s OK for you to try to pay as low as possible but you cannot over do it and we’ll tell you where to stop.’ That’s why the employers no longer compete among themselves to get the best available workforce – which, if well managed, produces excellent long term results. The competition on the labor market has been ‘degraded’ to ‘who is able to have the lowest labor costs’ only this policy sometimes generates good enough results on the short term but never fails to lead to disastrous results on longer term. The work force is demoralized, no longer cares to improve its qualifications and aggregate consumption goes down for  lack of solvable demand.

This concentration on costs instead on overall efficiency is malignant. Offering employees  a living wage and decent working conditions vastly improves efficiency and, ultimately, bottom line results. Henry Ford had understood that more than 100 years ago. How come we have already forgotten?

The Story of Henry Ford’s $5 a Day Wages: It’s Not What You Think:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/04/the-story-of-henry-fords-5-a-day-wages-its-not-what-you-think/

So.

A not careful enough mother ‘blackmails’ a hot meal  (normally reserved for the first class but she payed for it) out of a rather reluctant stewardess for her autistic daughter and a somewhat rigid pilot – but who acted completely within the limits of pertinent regulations) – lands the plane in the middle of the flight and has the family deplaned. All in the name of ‘safety for the rest of the passengers’ – who didn’t felt threatened, at any moment.

So what’s the big deal?
The mother should have brought along some food for her child or made sure in advance that she could order food inflight and nothing would have happened.
The stewardess could have taken it as an emergency instead of harshly judging the mother of an unfortunate child.
Or the pilot could have acted a little more considerately towards the very passengers whose safety he was so preoccupied about and continued the flight – if we are to take at face value the situation described in the article at no moment any of the passengers had been in any real danger. (The ‘obtrusive’ mother could have been ‘charged’ at the destination as well if the pilot really felt that she had to be given a lesson.)

What I’m trying to suggest here is that a lot of the unpleasant consequences experienced by the ‘innocent bystanders – a planeload of people loosing at least an hour of their lives, if not more, and UA footing the bill for a lot of additional fuel – could have easily been avoided if at least one of the three people involved – mother, pilot or the stewardess – would have acted just a little differently.

But the picture is even more complicated than that. To understand what I mean click on the picture above and jump to the comments section. It’s amazing how people who have not been there are so easily willing to pass definitive judgement about what had happened so far away from them and to apportion precise amounts of blame to the parties involved. It doesn’t matter which side they choose, I’m just amazed at their willingness to judge so easily a rather delicate situation, based exclusively on a sketchy report published by a reporter who wasn’t even there when the incident took place.

Exactly this fact, that modern people tend to jump, head on, to conclusion even without having access to a lot of the pertinent details does not bode well for our future.
Following ‘procedures’ – and giving up thinking with our own heads – is indeed easier but it somehow demotes us from the status of wise (sapiens) humans to that of disciplined (impulsive) apes.

And no, ‘disciplined’ is not that far away from ‘impulsive’. You see, ‘procedures’ are structured instructions devised, by some instance who doesn’t have much trust in those who get to apply the instructions, to be followed exactly in those circumstances when the judgement of the operators has been found unreliable by the those who came up with the idea of procedures in the first place.
In their turn, the operators – realizing that no matter what they’ll do their judgement will be second guessed – no longer take their time to carefully consider the situations and determine what procedure would be appropriate . They just apply the first pertinent procedure that comes to their mind and hope for the best. This way they unload faster the psychological burden felt by anyone who is compelled to make a controversial decision – hence both the impulsiveness and the desire to conform to the rules. The fact that the spectators have no qualms to pass judgement based on the scantiest information only adds to the pressure felt by the people who are liable to be judged. Besides the need to solve the current situation and the angst about the outcome now the ‘performers’ have to deal with what, and how intense, the public reaction will be. Knowing that most of the time the public is less than sympathetic doesn’t help things.

And if we add the fact that the public seems to favor ‘decisive’ action versus more ‘inclusive’ measures (which are perceived  as ‘wishy washy’) we start to understand why the contemporary world has become way more polarized than it used to be.

Who loses?
At first glance ‘the innocent bystanders’ – those who happened to be caught close enough to the action as to be directly affected by the interaction between the active parties.

But if we distance ourselves a little bit and take a closer look at the whole business we might arrive to a different conclusion.

Contemporary world has become so complex and is moving so rapidly that each of us is simultaneously involved in many situations, playing various roles. In some of them we are the active participants, in others we are just caught in the middle – as ‘innocent bystanders’ – and we learn about a lot more others from the media – as ‘distant but abetting spectators’, as in this case.

And it’s in front of the telly that we contribute the most to what’s going on.
This sounds strange, isn’t it?
When are ‘actively participating’ we don’t have much time to reflect about what is going on – so we act according to the prevailing social norms. In fact according to ‘the procedures’.
The whole thing usually starts when we innocently suffer the consequences of others behaving ‘abruptly’: we convince ourselves about the need to take our lives into our own hands and to never again allow others to prevail over us.
We usually exercise this new found resolve as spectators – our most common situation nowadays – only in that instance we are far from the actual action and not directly affected nor command much information about the whole thing so we consider the situation in a detached manner and without having enough information about the matter.
Even more, here, ‘in front of the telly’, instances are succeeding so fast that we don’t have time to at least consider each of them carefully. Hence our rather abrupt calls. After all why bother to analyze them in any depth? We don’t intimately know the persons involved nor do we have comprehensive information about each case…

This is how we set the stage for future abruptness. By allowing ourselves to pass fast – and rather inconsiderate – judgments about everything we effectively condition ourselves to a ‘black and white’ attitude towards the world. Small wonder then that we act so ‘decisively’ when we are involved as ‘active participants’ and even smaller that we have to suffer the consequences of the so much abruptness that is going on around us.

Don’t blame ‘procedures’ for that. In fact they are almost natural.
Reflexes, both those that are ingrained in us and those we learn during our life time are nothing else but Mother Nature’s way of doing things easier for us but none the less ‘procedures’.
Cultural norms are also ‘procedures’ only they have been adopted before the concept was coined and the term itself invented.

Only we can do something about this. It’s us who suffer the consequences so we need to take time and consider a lot more carefully before passing judgement. Or, even better, pass the ‘opportunity’, specially so if we don’t really need to.

http://www.nozomi.ro/despre-motociclism-de-la-oresti-marmara-via-festina-lente/