So many aspects of human “intelligence” are just what intuitively seem to work and afterwards, generally, our minds don’t ask too many questions. So we normalize what we see. Shrinks call this the availability heuristic. It sorta boils down to “what I see is all there is.”
What’s my point? Isn’t it blatantly obvious as a thumb clobbered by a hammer that these days seem to be a betrayal of many of the principles of what we once thought made a good society? Isn’t it clear that we don’t seem to be as connected to reality as we were? It seems that believing what we want has gotten to near psychotic levels.
Even religion seems to be no longer a force for morality. The banality of evil that Hannah Arendt referred to in her book “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” has never gone away and is painfully on display all over the globe, even here in America. I understand the human need to be a member of a tribe that cares about us and believes in what we do. But there’s the rub: believing and our projection of evil onto others.
Isn’t it obvious at this point to any educated, intelligent person that we need to rise above the thinking that we evolved in the violent Stone Age? I sure hope we manage to do this. And soon. Because the Venn diagram of self-delusion and evil has a large overlap. Thinking clearly and doubting one’s beliefs and tribal affiliations are part of what makes a decent human being.
I’m afraid we have back-slidden from caring about truth and others. It seems all we really care about is money and being better than the others. I truly believe this. Like Maya Angelou said, when people show you who they are, believe them, the first time.
Rick Walker
Snohomish
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