Ignorance

People talk endlessly about causes for things like war and hate crimes, often bringing up the infamous "them" as the perpetrators of said crimes, or of acts that "force us to war". It seems to me, and I know this is not a new thought, that the main issue tends to be ignorance. When people don't know about a particular group of people, they form their own image of them based on rumors, stereotypes, and other inputs from their surroundings. I have experienced this many times myself, being told that all members of my religion went extinct in the 18oo's, or I tell someone that I spent a year or so performing as a clown, and their informed opinion on the matter is that all clowns are creeps/child molesters or deadbeats who can't get any other job. I know I do it too, often coming up with reasons for peoples actions that make sense(or don't) to me, or making assumptions about people after hearing something about them. It's easy to say that this is a source of many of our conflicts, but it's really hard to avoid. I've been told about something a friend of mine did, and since had a struggle not to superimpose that one action on their whole being. In a way, it gives me a window into the mentality that leads to the consept of mortal sins and eternal hell. We hear something bad about a person, and are ready to shut that person away for all time, regardless of what good they did in the world; or we hear something good about a person, and will hear no evil spoken of them. For mos of us, most of the time, the truth about the world and about ourselves can be very uncomfortable, even painful. We all walk around in our seperate little realities, narrating the stories of which we are the heros. Every once in a while, we are truly forced to face reality, but very few of us actually do anything about it. In the movie Hotel Rwanda, a reporter tells the antagonist that people back in the "civilised" countries of the world would see footage of a massacre, say "oh that's terrible" and go back to their dinners. How true that is. Even after reading this (and writing it) and knowing it for the truth, we will continue to rationalize our current non-involvement. "I give to charities". "I pay my taxes". "Give me a petition and I'll sign it". We all have our own struggles, and they are very real, and the help that we do give is also very real, and yet somehow I feel that living in a country where families pay over $120,000 for their children to know about the world, where the government spends trillions of dollars ever year on weapons and weapons reseach, I feel that something more should be, and could be done if the right person would come forward and bring us together. We have so much potential as a nation, yet it all seems to go towards guns and junk food.

As I've worked to get into shape for a summer's backpacking, I've been aware of what a huge market there is for quick fixes. Almost every time I go online, there's an ad telling me that if I pay only a small monthly fee, I can get in great shape and look sexy without having to change my normal schedual. Although it's nothing new or surprising to me, I'm always fascinated by what seems to be a general fear of having to face consequences. In case the connection's obscure, let me elaborate. These "get fit quick" schemes wouldn't last if there wasn't a significant market for them. People want all the benefits of a good workout schedual without having to actually work out. They know the consequences of an inactive lifestyle, but they refuse to change, and so go taking drugs that have had no long-term testing, or they buy devices that give them small electric shocks, despite a lack of data on long term effects on the nervous system. It seems people are almost willing to risk sacrificing their health to avoid working out. They are afraid of the consequences of their lifestyles, and so they go to extremes to avoid facing those consequences without changing.

The same is true for many other issues. People suing companies for making their coffee "too hot", or blaming other countries for the presence of mercury in our atmosphere and water. Never mind that lukewarm coffee would be unsatisfying, and a little care would prevent burns. Never mind that we can't get other countries to change their habits, but we can change out own. We are moving rapidly towards the time at which we run out of the resources we depend on, and yet there is no significant effort spent in trying to find another way. In 80 years, there will be essentially no iron left to mine. Our source of steel, which we (the human species) so rely on is measurably finite, and yet we still chargesimilar amounts for steel as for potting soil. At this point, I won't discuss the situation with fossil fuels because it's being discussed so much i can't think about it right now.

We are living in a particularly shortsighted era. The president of the United States of America believes that the best way to stop forest fires is to cut down forests, and that lumber mills exist to "serve" national forests. The mental health of out nation's children is considered less important than coal prices. Thousands of people are killed for ever changing reasons. Thousands of people are starving and dying of treatable diseases while the American government spends trillions of dollars on new way to kill large numbers of people. All this, and the big political debate of the year is whether or not homosexuals should be allowed to have civil unions. Does anyone else see a mixed up order of priorities?