Time Out of Mind

I understand that life can be cruel. I also understand that time can help in healing pain or misery. This is not to say that there cannot be any human intervention in the healing of wounds. If we simply throw our troubles into the unruly wind, then where do we draw the line between accountability and impunity? Impunity – or absolution – seems to be the drug of choice for most people in life.

Take our current administration, for instance, which thrives on this “rarified delicacy.” Those in power are not held accountable for their actions as they use the “natural course” of events as an alibi in both foreign and domestic matters. The amount of influence government behavior and disposition can have on a society – both consciously and subconsciously – is immense. This cannot be denied. The reckless abandonment of accountability trickles down from the top and penetrates our personal lives, as citizens and as neighbors.

However, this influence very rarely stems from the government itself. It stems from a network of interconnected private interests, which currently have the government under their thumb. I could go in to a diatribe of how the private elite has strategically designed a society in which people are immersed in decadence, relativity, and apathy. But the bottom line is that it is up to the current administration at any given period in time to fund and cooperate with these aloof think tanks. I’m not saying that this administration is responsible for every action of its citizens. But the fact that our environment is greatly influenced by the “powers that be” – is irrefutable.

There is a conscious force behind any social system – and if systems are selected and created, then systems can be changed. But first, we must understand the alternatives and objectively choose the one that best promotes the general welfare. If the end-all and be-all is “self-expression” and “relativism” and you would add an exploitative and manipulative media, then the end product will ultimately be decadence.

Moreover, to think that there is no common humanity is absolutely preposterous.

Here is why:

1.  We, as humans, are aware of the idea of a universe.
2.  We can think about systems such as the nation-state, an engine, a solar system, and the idea of a supreme, supernatural being …a.k.a. God. (And yes, this includes atheists, since one has to first be aware of an idea before he can oppose it)
3.  For all other species, the universe is only what they experience through their senses
4.  We can think about the past and a future
5.  Humans are also capable of thinking about the “self” as an object.
6. And only humans have the potential to set out to understand the world for the purpose of changing it.

There is a higher morality based on rationale and reason to be sought after, rather than putting a blind faith in something with no tangible proof and something that one has no conceivable control over. Furthermore, all minds should be concentrated on a particular problem so that they might come to a common decision and exercise a collective power in implementing that decision. I’ve read that the inability to envisage the transformation of society in the future is mirrored by the inability to recognize and comprehend transformations which have already taken place.