How can we stop it? How can we accept cultures that support it?

[BloodyWilliam]

I'm suffering... well, I suppose it could be called a crisis of humanity. I've read about these two incidents and I'm honestly reeling. I want to know how this can happen among human beings, and how we can possibly stop it... even if I'm tilting at some really damn big windmills.

The wife of the bomber at that Jordan wedding was ready to blow herself up, too. They are by no means unique. They're not the majority or really any significant portion of the population, but they are a byproduct of the culture still. The murder of civilians, of innocents, and the destruction of oneself in the process is considered not only acceptable but laudable by many in the culture.

A 16 year old kid broke out of prison in Venezuela. At 16 he's already killed 17 people, including an American DEA officer. He's a likely member of the Mara Selvatrucha, or similar South American gang (that has roots in North America as well), a gang in which murder, in which outright butchering people is considered acceptable. A gang formed in reaction to a government and authority structure willing to slaughter civilians every bit as much, if not to a greater extent.

Even our own culture is full of puritanical psychotics, mysoginists, and truly hateful bastards. We torture. Period. The people we rely upon to protect us has torturers among them.

Ugh, okay, honestly I'm not even sure where I'm going. I just find myself rather affected by two extremely sickening examples of cultural byproducts and I'm curious about how so many people can become fucked up. Sure, it's easy for the fed and the comfortable to lament on this, but I really want to know... how can any individual become a suicide bomber? A gang member? A death squad gunner? A clinic sniper? A torturer?

More importantly, how can we change our own culture and society, and how can we possibly accept other cultures and societies that can foster these sorts of... byproducts?

[Aimah]

1. I don't know where you're going.

Murdering innocent people isn't accepted in those cultures just like it's not accepted in ours. It's a stain in humanity in every culture there are people the majority would rather not deal with or have others see them as an example.

[BloodyWilliam]

3. I think I'm just more troubled by this shit than usual.

And in some cultures it is... stoning women in Iran or Taliban Afghanistan if they're out without male escorts, or slaughtering political opponents in South American or African countries. Even if individuals don't accept it, the leaders do, and they have followers and people who believe. Just like the sick fucks in this country who support Bush by any means necessary and ar egung-ho pro torture...

Maybe I don't know where I'm going, I'm just feeling sick and need some humanity reassurance.

[melody]

2. 20% of the population is at least borderline sociopathic

I'm beginning to sound like a stuck record on this, but the reality is this in every population - not just ours. In communities with more shallow central governments (meaning they have a smaller population to control), it's easier to control this population. In a country as big as the US, it's much harder.

[undergroundpanther]

8. You are not the only one

Repeating this,I do too.

[melody]

11. I know, UP, it's just I have it now in memory as a subject line lol n/t

[lildreamer316]

4. Dear, that is a big, big question

and one that cannot be answered easily. The only thing you and I can do on a regular basis is to make sure that we are not perpetuating siutaions in our lives (or anyone else close to us) to allow this kind of thinking to take hold. It all starts from how you grow up and the way your parents and loved ones treat you. (not ALL, but 95%).

[MatrixEscape]

5. A simple answer you don't want to hear.

We do not have the ability to grapple with the fact that we do not exist at all.

That is going to be a real point of contention for thinkers and the more reasonble amongst us.

We may be physical entities with somatic, bodily experiences that happen in time and space. We may see referential evidence of this or that in time and space. I do not object to or argue that.

But we do forget that we are far more basic and inherit to this Universe than our words or ideas ever pretend to surmount. We learn, for safety and pragmatism, to engulf ourselves and wrap ourselves in verbal buffers to the point that they matter more than any potential reality that may exist above or beyond them. In other words, we accept and embrace cultural safety and a sense of potentially controllable certainty for any freedom or reality/actuality that may exist above and beyond the scenario we find ourselves in. If survival is a primary issue, then consider the possibility that it can easily be pre-empted and distracted to no ends as we attempt to procure it. This is the course, I think, of our current Humanity to date.

Certain people manage, by the law of the survival of the most adaptive, to see the trends and aspects of our species in ways that we do not. Their motive is to use that to direct us all in ways that they see as most befitting for their needs and, in some form of perverse, pseudo-altruistic way, our needs.

Word magic is one very viable and powerful form of controlling the thoughts of those who are capable of being subservient to it. It prevails today, as did the superstitions, curses, and magical incantations of days of yore.

We start out with a strong idea that is imposed upon us that we ¡Èexist¡É as separate and distinct entities and that we, and others, bear great responsibility for our actions and deeds in perpetuity. While that can and should make sens pragmatically, it ignores the larger picture of an existential relationship between the field and the ground, the person and the environment.

If we are ever going to break some ground here, we are going to start seriously questioning the seemingly concrete and practical idea of our own existence as if that is not a serious threat or upheaval to our being in this here and now as it is. This idea was inserted into us so well, for the sake of our own ability to thrive and survive within a culture, that it replaces any real concrete notion of what existence is, or may be, in the first place.

Instead, we are all mired within the framed context of those who are alpha-beings amongst us and we are subject, in one way or another, to their precise and premeditated distortions and projections on what we call a ¡Ècommon reality¡É.

Once we question our own existence in earnest, as odd and contrary as that may sound, we begin to hack at the very underpinnings and designs of those who have always been way ahead of, and beyond the rest of us, (no matter how learned and intelligent) in this tribal, species game of money, blood, and endless desire for power.

[leftstreet]

6. Sometimes it helps to step away from the news for a breather.

It can get overwhelming.

[undergroundpanther]

7. End social domination.

End inequality where some feel such intense shame the only way they feel self acceptance is by self destruction.

People don't wanna talk about how it feels to be humiliated for being different asking questions or disagreeing.People don't like to think they are unworthy of being accepted by others.People do not want to talk about shame and what it is,what it does and how it maintains or ruins relationships in I am an island unto myself in America..where we all pretend shame does not hurt and embarrassment must not be felt or expressed. Where we pretend we are invulnerable to the rejection of others.
We need to look at our relationships and asses is it healthy do I get my needs met? Do the other party get theirs met or am I being a dominating narcissistic pig and ignoring their signals that things I do are harming their relationship with me?

In a world with social dominance or some are worth more,shame and humiliation ,a stoic self negation and a life and happiness denied is the situation of the sub missives.
Until we reach out and care, RISK and put ourselves in the position to feel for others without our self being controlling ,and if we see every suffering complaint as a narcissistic threat to our ego nothing will change.


But also there are a few people without the capacity to feel shame and so lacks the regulatory effects it has on maintaining healthy equal,fair,loving relationships in keeping them equalized or the strife resulting from unregulated denied and deferred shame that acts as a dissolving agent to relationships that causes stress when imbalanced, and boredom..and the persons lacking shame are sociopaths,psychopaths..They don't feel shame guilt remorse or love.They don't have a conscience.
Thus they cannot regulate THEMSELVES or their behavior in a relationship and tend to hurt everyone they encounter and exploit them because they do not care.Caring comes from empathy in a relationship, shame comes when you pretend you do not care and you break the relationships mutual respect,when you do care.That is a kind of self deception that hurts normal people but sociopaths don't feel it.. The psychopath has too much self esteem he thinks he is entitled,and can do no wrong.He lives to dominate and win. Once shame has progressed this far into who they are.. the person is a toxin to humanity.

..

[applegrove]

9. You are describing psychopaths - I'm all for testing for that in

childhood.

[me b zola]

10. cultural byproducts

:wtf:

I would first focus on our own culture, and it's byproducts, ie radical fundamentalism, racism, sexism, homophobia, classicism etc, which are born out everyday here in the good 'ol USofA in violence & death.

Do you really want to talk about death squads & torture??????

I find it interesting that you focus on Muslim & Venezuelan culture as your examples. How very Patwaish of you.