A conversation with Ammiel Alcalay contextualizing the present moment as genocide continues in Palestine, as American universities unravel, and the grip of authoritarianism tightens worldwide.
Along with our ‘intelligence’ comes a proportionate reprehensible potential for evil behavior, e.g. malice for malice’s sake. With our four-legged friends, however, there definitely is a beautiful absence of that undesirable distinctly human trait. While animals, including pets, can react violently, it is typically due to reactive distrust/dislike or necessity/sustenance. But leave it to us humans, with our higher capacity for intelligence, to commit a spiteful act, even if only because we can.
Most of the immense violence committed by humankind is against largely defenseless animals — mostly for food but also trophy hunting, perceived medicinal uses, and gratuitous body wear — their blood literally shed and bodies eaten, or wasted, in mind-boggling quantity by our predator and omnivore species.
It even leaves me — a big fan of Christ's unmistakable message and miracles — wondering whether the metaphorical forbidden fruit of Eden eaten by Adam and Eve was actually God’s four-legged creation.
I'm not a vegetarian (let alone a vegan), but I can still see that act really angering the Almighty — a lot more than the couple’s eating non-sentient, non-living, non-bloodied fruit. And maybe animal slaughtering and eating is as bad for one's spirit as it can be for one's body, not to mention the natural environment (e.g. large-scale beef-cattle farming requiring mass deforestation).
Also, as strange as it seems, when I do eat meat (however relatively little) I distract my thoughts from what I’m actually eating — indeed once bloody animal flesh — which, for me at least, is one small step below cannibalism.
In the past but apparently now more than ever, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has seen undeniably widespread partisanship via Internet and news commentary. The politics of polarization outside of Israel and even the Middle East, perhaps in part for its own sake, has gotten quite disturbing. Within social media especially, the angry and thoughtless two-dimensional views have been especially amplified, including the majority posted by non-Jews and non-Palestinians.
It all arouses a spectator-sport effect or mentality, with many contemptible trolls residing well outside the region yet actively supporting the ‘side’ [via politicized commentary posts] that they hate less. I anticipate many actually kept/keep track of the bloody match by checking the day’s-end death-toll score, however extremely lopsided those numbers.
I often see the human race as perhaps desperately needing a unifying existential/fate-determining common cause; so much so that an Earth-impacting asteroid threat or, better yet, a vicious extraterrestrial attack may be what we have to collectively brutally endure together in order to survive the longer term from ourselves.
Humanity would unite for the first time and defend against, attack and eventually defeat the humanicidal multi-tentacled ETs, the latter needing to be an even greater nemesis than our own formidably divisive politics and (mis)perceptions of irreconcilable differences — especially those involving religion, nationality and race.
During this much-needed human alliance, we’d be forced to work closely side-by-side together and experience thus witness just how humanly similar we are in the ways that really count. For me, the movies Independence Day and, especially, Enemy Mine come to mind. [Albeit, I've been told, one or more human parties might actually attempt to forge an alliance with the ETs to better their own chances for survival, thus indicating that our deficient human condition may be even worse than I had originally thought.]
Yet, maybe a half-century later when all traces of the nightmarish ET invasion are gone, we’ll inevitably revert to those same politics to which we humans seem so collectively hopelessly prone — including the politics of scale. And, yet once again, we slide downwards.
Largely relevant to the present social and political turmoil, both domestically and abroad, are the words of American sociologist Stanley Milgram (1933-1984), of Obedience Experiments fame/infamy: “It may be that we are puppets — puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception [and] awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.”
At least as individuals, we can try to resist flawed human nature thus behavior, however societally normalized it may be, once we become aware of its potential within ourselves. Once cognizant of it, perhaps enough of us could instead perform truly humane acts in sufficient quantity to initiate positive change on a large(r) scale.
Currently, however, there’s relatively little compassion in the world when compared to the very plentiful anger or rage. I’ve noticed myself getting angrier over the last few years, especially about domestic and global injustices, or at least how I perceive them as such. Maybe my anger is largely related to the Internet’s ‘angry algorithm’ sending me the stories, etcetera, it has (unfortunately correctly) calculated will successfully agitate me into keeping the (I believe, overall societally-/socially-damaging) process going thus maximizing the number of clicks/scrolls I’ll provide it to sell to product advertisers.
This is excellent...
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me down to lie
Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by
With bright knives He releaseth my soul
He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places
He converteth me to lamb cutlets
For lo, He hath great power and great hunger
When cometh the day we lowly ones
Through quiet reflection and great dedication
Master the art of karate
Lo, we shall rise up
And then we’ll make the bugger’s eyes water!
https://griobhtha1.substack.com/p/x-rubicon-thanksgiving-and-christmas-3
Along with our ‘intelligence’ comes a proportionate reprehensible potential for evil behavior, e.g. malice for malice’s sake. With our four-legged friends, however, there definitely is a beautiful absence of that undesirable distinctly human trait. While animals, including pets, can react violently, it is typically due to reactive distrust/dislike or necessity/sustenance. But leave it to us humans, with our higher capacity for intelligence, to commit a spiteful act, even if only because we can.
Most of the immense violence committed by humankind is against largely defenseless animals — mostly for food but also trophy hunting, perceived medicinal uses, and gratuitous body wear — their blood literally shed and bodies eaten, or wasted, in mind-boggling quantity by our predator and omnivore species.
It even leaves me — a big fan of Christ's unmistakable message and miracles — wondering whether the metaphorical forbidden fruit of Eden eaten by Adam and Eve was actually God’s four-legged creation.
I'm not a vegetarian (let alone a vegan), but I can still see that act really angering the Almighty — a lot more than the couple’s eating non-sentient, non-living, non-bloodied fruit. And maybe animal slaughtering and eating is as bad for one's spirit as it can be for one's body, not to mention the natural environment (e.g. large-scale beef-cattle farming requiring mass deforestation).
Also, as strange as it seems, when I do eat meat (however relatively little) I distract my thoughts from what I’m actually eating — indeed once bloody animal flesh — which, for me at least, is one small step below cannibalism.
In the past but apparently now more than ever, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has seen undeniably widespread partisanship via Internet and news commentary. The politics of polarization outside of Israel and even the Middle East, perhaps in part for its own sake, has gotten quite disturbing. Within social media especially, the angry and thoughtless two-dimensional views have been especially amplified, including the majority posted by non-Jews and non-Palestinians.
It all arouses a spectator-sport effect or mentality, with many contemptible trolls residing well outside the region yet actively supporting the ‘side’ [via politicized commentary posts] that they hate less. I anticipate many actually kept/keep track of the bloody match by checking the day’s-end death-toll score, however extremely lopsided those numbers.
I often see the human race as perhaps desperately needing a unifying existential/fate-determining common cause; so much so that an Earth-impacting asteroid threat or, better yet, a vicious extraterrestrial attack may be what we have to collectively brutally endure together in order to survive the longer term from ourselves.
Humanity would unite for the first time and defend against, attack and eventually defeat the humanicidal multi-tentacled ETs, the latter needing to be an even greater nemesis than our own formidably divisive politics and (mis)perceptions of irreconcilable differences — especially those involving religion, nationality and race.
During this much-needed human alliance, we’d be forced to work closely side-by-side together and experience thus witness just how humanly similar we are in the ways that really count. For me, the movies Independence Day and, especially, Enemy Mine come to mind. [Albeit, I've been told, one or more human parties might actually attempt to forge an alliance with the ETs to better their own chances for survival, thus indicating that our deficient human condition may be even worse than I had originally thought.]
Yet, maybe a half-century later when all traces of the nightmarish ET invasion are gone, we’ll inevitably revert to those same politics to which we humans seem so collectively hopelessly prone — including the politics of scale. And, yet once again, we slide downwards.
Largely relevant to the present social and political turmoil, both domestically and abroad, are the words of American sociologist Stanley Milgram (1933-1984), of Obedience Experiments fame/infamy: “It may be that we are puppets — puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception [and] awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.”
At least as individuals, we can try to resist flawed human nature thus behavior, however societally normalized it may be, once we become aware of its potential within ourselves. Once cognizant of it, perhaps enough of us could instead perform truly humane acts in sufficient quantity to initiate positive change on a large(r) scale.
Currently, however, there’s relatively little compassion in the world when compared to the very plentiful anger or rage. I’ve noticed myself getting angrier over the last few years, especially about domestic and global injustices, or at least how I perceive them as such. Maybe my anger is largely related to the Internet’s ‘angry algorithm’ sending me the stories, etcetera, it has (unfortunately correctly) calculated will successfully agitate me into keeping the (I believe, overall societally-/socially-damaging) process going thus maximizing the number of clicks/scrolls I’ll provide it to sell to product advertisers.