You know, it was pretty convenient how we had that quickwrite today (I chose the one about modern society and materialism) since I've been roughly thinking about the same subject already. I didn't get much on the paper since I was thinking all over the place and once I had one idea down, I'd totally forget the others. Anyways, I shall commence.
To start off, I believe that our society deserves to be criticized for straying away from the idea of "necessities first, wants last". Materialism has been provoking people leading them to give into greed which strongly shifts their perspective and personality. It has gotten to the point where future opportunities or your own sense of individualism heavily depends on your possessions or looks.
One thing that has kept up materialism's 'spirit' is something I call 'materialistic uniquity'. As people, the most important thing should be your mind. Each person has their own perspective and abilities, although some people may be similar. Nowadays, people don't 'look' at your mind. Instead, they look at you physically. Adolescents, in particular, has fallen into this. To be recognized, you have to look 'fresh'. Your different appearance makes you look so much more appealing to the eye and if you interact with people similar to you, you become shifted into groups-- cliques. I find wide minds more attractive than wide wardrobes kthx.
Now, I understand that your appearance may sometimes speak for your personality, but you cannot gamble with that.
Okay, another thing I have realized is that we hate necessities. Well.. that's a bit exaggerated, but we don't care about it as much. Avarice is the biggest bitch in the world and we are ALL affected by it. I have a perfect small example: My mother. Not to call her out or anything.. but seriously.
So, my mother has an obsessive habit of pulling money out of my bank via ATM or swiping money away from my room which I don't hide so well.. I know it's stupid on my fault for not hiding it well enough, but I should be able to trust my mother enough to kind of just leave it, right? Wrong.
This has been going on for years and I never get legitimate reasons of why she'd take money from me. A few reasons she has given me was.. car repair, I owe my friend, bank issues, etc. There was this one time where she withdrew about.. $1000 from me and came back home with Neiman Marcus bags and a brand new Yves Saint Laurent coat. Holy shit son. REALLY? My sister wasn't the ONLY one who needed to go to college, thank you very much.
Enough with pointing fingers, but I do this sometimes too. Not at such drastic measures though.. I don't know. But sometimes I see improvement. I just always think of what my sister would tell me, "Get what you need, not want". It's really hard to follow, but when I'd get something in my hand, I tend to look at it for a LONG time. Then I would decide to buy it or just put it back.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Memoir Project: Human Nature
Who participates in genocide, and why? What does the commonality of genocide lead you to believe about humanity?
Genocide is an organized, immoral act of potential slaughter of specific ethic, racial, religious, or national group. It is the ultimate level of pure discrimination and hate. Anyone has the true ability to participate in a genocide despite their individuality. The question is, what makes them do it in the first place? There's multiple ways to answer this in a number of different perspectives.
One would believe the participators are simply insane or possessed. It's a narrow point of view that the majority agrees upon because genocide is bad, right? So the people who participate in such activity is a mad criminal who's condemned to eternal damnation. Very shallow, but you just can't help but to agree. That's one of the first descriptions we would think of without a doubt, but we cannot judge something like genocide. It's impossible to judge something such as genocide, simply because we have not experienced it. We don't know how the victims truly suffered and why the predators participated. Either way, we still have our separate views with varied perspectives. Some may or may not be true, but everyone has the right to believe.
Another reason why people would participate is because they do not know what they're truly doing. They could think what they're doing is an act of heroism. They're being guided by a leader who is feeding them convincing lies. If one would disobey, he would be considered a criminal and sentenced to death. People are blind when it comes to the line: 'What is right and what is wrong?'. And it can be difficult for one to revolt and stay true to his beliefs. Ultimately, it's pressure.
So what if the participators knew what was going on and didn't like it? Well, they were most likely threatened. I'm sure it's a common situation. The person could be surrounded by a group or community who is pro-genocide and it's potentially dangerous to go against and psychologically threatening. They know what they are committing, but they cannot do anything about it. They're simply scared for their life and it makes them a wimp.
The last reason I could possibly think of is bad exposure. This could mean a lot of things such as the person once being in an abusive or sadistic environment or being fed biased impressions of the victimized group. I believe it mainly revolves around past experiences, influences, or personal beliefs. Instead of thinking it as another form of pure evil, it's just mislead guidance. One example of a belief would be supremacy or selection of the most fit. This has been one of the possible reasons for why Hitler exterminated the Jewish in the Holocaust.
I'm disappointed of our humanity especially for taking part of genocide. It just further proves that humanity believes in superiority of races or groups and their only solution for unification are subgoals such as genocide itself. Even though humans first saw it this way and took it to a great advantage, it shouldn't apply to us today.
The fact that participators of genocide deny the crimes they commit makes things so much more worse. I'm certain many former Nazis have gone through denial and it's such a shame. The least they can do is admit their wrong doings despite the fact they will not be forgiven. One cannot expect to be forgiven for such actions. You just can't be that stubborn, not in this situation. Adding onto denial, genocidal acts are still active today. The conflict in Darfur is elevating its status into genocide although major organizations such as the UN and African Union believe Darfur is not suffering genocide. I do not have high knowledge of the situation, but it feels like it will soon develop into true genocide. Another recent trace of genocide was in 1994, the Rwandan Genocide. With a government in favour of the Hutus, thousands of Tutsis were exterminated. It's baffling how the world has not learned from the Holocaust and other previous genocidal acts and the actions of anti-genocidal organizations isn't enough to stop these people. We obviously need to go into greater depth to stop and prevent this.
Genocide is an organized, immoral act of potential slaughter of specific ethic, racial, religious, or national group. It is the ultimate level of pure discrimination and hate. Anyone has the true ability to participate in a genocide despite their individuality. The question is, what makes them do it in the first place? There's multiple ways to answer this in a number of different perspectives.
One would believe the participators are simply insane or possessed. It's a narrow point of view that the majority agrees upon because genocide is bad, right? So the people who participate in such activity is a mad criminal who's condemned to eternal damnation. Very shallow, but you just can't help but to agree. That's one of the first descriptions we would think of without a doubt, but we cannot judge something like genocide. It's impossible to judge something such as genocide, simply because we have not experienced it. We don't know how the victims truly suffered and why the predators participated. Either way, we still have our separate views with varied perspectives. Some may or may not be true, but everyone has the right to believe.
Another reason why people would participate is because they do not know what they're truly doing. They could think what they're doing is an act of heroism. They're being guided by a leader who is feeding them convincing lies. If one would disobey, he would be considered a criminal and sentenced to death. People are blind when it comes to the line: 'What is right and what is wrong?'. And it can be difficult for one to revolt and stay true to his beliefs. Ultimately, it's pressure.
So what if the participators knew what was going on and didn't like it? Well, they were most likely threatened. I'm sure it's a common situation. The person could be surrounded by a group or community who is pro-genocide and it's potentially dangerous to go against and psychologically threatening. They know what they are committing, but they cannot do anything about it. They're simply scared for their life and it makes them a wimp.
The last reason I could possibly think of is bad exposure. This could mean a lot of things such as the person once being in an abusive or sadistic environment or being fed biased impressions of the victimized group. I believe it mainly revolves around past experiences, influences, or personal beliefs. Instead of thinking it as another form of pure evil, it's just mislead guidance. One example of a belief would be supremacy or selection of the most fit. This has been one of the possible reasons for why Hitler exterminated the Jewish in the Holocaust.
I'm disappointed of our humanity especially for taking part of genocide. It just further proves that humanity believes in superiority of races or groups and their only solution for unification are subgoals such as genocide itself. Even though humans first saw it this way and took it to a great advantage, it shouldn't apply to us today.
The fact that participators of genocide deny the crimes they commit makes things so much more worse. I'm certain many former Nazis have gone through denial and it's such a shame. The least they can do is admit their wrong doings despite the fact they will not be forgiven. One cannot expect to be forgiven for such actions. You just can't be that stubborn, not in this situation. Adding onto denial, genocidal acts are still active today. The conflict in Darfur is elevating its status into genocide although major organizations such as the UN and African Union believe Darfur is not suffering genocide. I do not have high knowledge of the situation, but it feels like it will soon develop into true genocide. Another recent trace of genocide was in 1994, the Rwandan Genocide. With a government in favour of the Hutus, thousands of Tutsis were exterminated. It's baffling how the world has not learned from the Holocaust and other previous genocidal acts and the actions of anti-genocidal organizations isn't enough to stop these people. We obviously need to go into greater depth to stop and prevent this.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Illusion
Towards the end of January, I started to write daily entries of my day in a little notebook. The biggest reason why I wanted to do this was because: 1.) My memory has been terrible and I want to be able to remember days of my life, 2.) To remind myself of things such as mistakes, 3.) To see progression of my writing and living, and most importantly 4.) Not only to cherish past events, but also to feel how fast time has went by. The fourth one is kind of strange, but I've been journaling to my advantage. Although I should relax and let time pass by slowly.. I sometimes want it to go by fairly quick. It's an illusion I decided to try for myself and it's working quite efficiently.
Journaling so far has been going pretty good. I'd forget to do some entries, but I would make up for it the next day. Unfortunately, I've caught a similar issue as my blog: becoming less thorough and having shorter entries. It's a disappointment, but I hope it's only temporary. I usually have shorter entries due to my uneventful days. I haven't been seeing much progress so far, but hopefully it's building up slowly. I would throw in a couple of new vocabulary or even write some sentences in a different language to keep my journaling a bit more productive. I also wanted to start drawing a few doodles in there... but it hasn't happened yet.
Keeping a journal has been so beneficial to me. I wish to continue this in separate 'volumes' like one for a school year, another for the summer. It would be remarkable to look back to and it just gets me really excited. Last summer was so great for me, but I was unable to recall everyday which gets me a bit down. I'm really looking forward to next summer so I can take advantage of journaling and bump it to the next level with pictures and drawings.
Journaling so far has been going pretty good. I'd forget to do some entries, but I would make up for it the next day. Unfortunately, I've caught a similar issue as my blog: becoming less thorough and having shorter entries. It's a disappointment, but I hope it's only temporary. I usually have shorter entries due to my uneventful days. I haven't been seeing much progress so far, but hopefully it's building up slowly. I would throw in a couple of new vocabulary or even write some sentences in a different language to keep my journaling a bit more productive. I also wanted to start drawing a few doodles in there... but it hasn't happened yet.
Keeping a journal has been so beneficial to me. I wish to continue this in separate 'volumes' like one for a school year, another for the summer. It would be remarkable to look back to and it just gets me really excited. Last summer was so great for me, but I was unable to recall everyday which gets me a bit down. I'm really looking forward to next summer so I can take advantage of journaling and bump it to the next level with pictures and drawings.
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