Walkabout: Thoughts on the Human Condition

By Mark Antony Rossi

Character. Honor. Control. Family. Friendship. All essential elements in the complex matrix called The Human Condition. American futurist Mark Antony Rossi leads an expedition through the conscience to uncover our brightest hopes and stop the forces that punish positive potential.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Soma Publishing
• Release date: Feb 26, 2018

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AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION:

Thoughts on the Human Condition

Any student of history will recognize a vicious rumor morphs into a witch hunt. How does the human condition allow such baseless nonsense to flourish? One surefire method is to bestow credence on generalizations about people until a rationalization is formed and prevents the full truth from being examined. Moral laziness is mother of all stereotypes which ultimately gives birth to sinister prejudgments. And these wicked perceptions quickly become reality in a modern day of instant internet communication.

I am concerned about the quality of the human condition in the 21st century. Superficially, we have conquered deadly diseases of the physical body only to fail to conquer the diseases of the metaphorical heart. The hatred for our fellow humankind is universally practiced and, in some areas, codified as religion. Capital punishment hasn’t decreased murder, assassination or terrorism. Diplomacy, absent a gunboat in the harbor, is purple poetry uttered by failed dreamers.

Technology has improved the quality of our lives; yet places us in the twin vices of moral quandary and mortal jeopardy. And what say you---human condition? Are we better as a civilization than five hundred years ago? Some argue progress such as Democracy, Emancipation, Medicine. These are clear sign posts in the direction of building a better world.

Yet how can we build a better person? And I don’t mean through soulless human cloning or mechanical/chemical performance enhancement. Does it start at child rearing? Raising kids to be smart and respectful. Does it start at the government level? Reminding lawful citizens of their civic responsibilities. Does it start at church? Resisting the urge to lay claim to special religious knowledge. Does it start at friendship? Realizing inner peace begins with external trust. Does it start at marriage? Recognizing love for each other moves motivations beyond ourselves.

I can’t say for certain if these pathways are the best creative conditions to build better people. But I am confident that Alcohol, Drugs, Human Trafficking, Terrorism and War are decidedly in the opposite direction. Humanity is fast closing in on rocket technology that will allow us to explore distant planets. What pity if we manage to export the poor traits of humanity and thus ruin pristine worlds.

We owe it to our species to fix it here first. And how do we do that? By giving a damn about the stranger who just moved next door. By ignoring color and focusing on character. By stopping the false controversies involving privacy in bedrooms and private parts in bathrooms. It starts there. It starts by making Good a priority in one’s actions so that ultimately it influences the greater community. This series of positive habits holds the most promise in establishing and maintaining peace on the planet.

CULTURE

If everybody is looking for it, then nobody is finding it. If we were cultured, we would not be conscious of lacking culture. We would regard it as something natural and would not make so much fuss about it. And if we knew the real value of this word we would be cultured enough not to give it so much importance.

Pablo Picasso

There must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to the scientists, can arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale.

Ralph Ellison

One third the sorrow that the person I think I am must endure is unavoidable. It is the sorrow inherent in the human condition, the price we must pay for being sentient and self-conscious organisms, aspirants to liberation, but subject to the laws of nature and under orders to keep on marching, through irreversible time, through a world wholly indifferent to our well-being, toward decrepitude and the certainty of death. The remaining two thirds of all sorrow is homemade and, so far as the universe is concerned, unnecessary.

Aldous Huxley

We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible. To have real conversations with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.

Thomas Moore

"People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain."

Jim Morrison

"We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all

Eleanor Roosevelt

Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.

Octavio Paz

Child Soldiers of the West

The future belongs to the youth is an adage proven beneficial to fascist regimes aiming to convert the most impressionable members of a population to their sinister agenda. Centuries ago evil Japanese Ninja clans raised their young in training schools to become professional assassins. Ninja training, the art of stealth and murder, is a lengthy, rigorous system requiring fifteen years of daily instruction before a trainee is granted the right of being called Ninja. Ninja training produced scores of hardened and deadly warriors able to defeat the finest of samurai.

In the 20th century, two monstrous political systems took hold of the adage with terrifying results. Lenin and Stalin of the Soviet Communist system restructured an entire continent with a program of ethnic and political cleansing and formed an educational apparatus designed to instill in the best and the brightest the ideals of the State. Russian children became the communist system's best agents---instructed to turn in dissenting parents to firing squads. This ugly practice easily leads to wholesale infiltration of enemy countries. As the Soviet killing machine crushed Eastern Europe it kidnapped the children of its enemies and sent them back to Mother Russia for re-education. In a gruesome irony, often the conquered country's worst enemies were their children and countrymen, indoctrinated in the ways and means of communist domination.

Arguably, Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime, reduced child re-education to its vilest common denominator. German children were recruited into Hitler Youth camps which constituted the backbone of the Nazi regime ten years later. The fanaticism instilled in these students culminated with the oath blood and honour. These students were perfect fits for the Nazi SS and Gestapo units, organizations responsible for espionage, torture and later the construction and supervision of concentration camps where millions died unspeakable deaths.

Basic social science has access to volumes of studies, critical data and evidence pointing to a significant portion of adult abnormal and/or criminal behavior acquired during youth. Tomorrow's dictators will make a good study of this science and history to orchestrate their own youth behavioral modifications. These facts fine-tuned by master manipulators are destined to re-educate the foot-soldiers of future fascism.

The introductions of video game technology in the early 1980's have caused considered parental and sociological debate with much speculation that graphic games have serious negative impact on younger people's social skills. Is the presence of video arcades, strangely populated on the parameters of school districts, contributing to delinquency? Do video games encourage violence and destruction as a means of conflict resolution? Is there any correlation between youth crime rates and prolonged video game exposure?

Recent studies are inconclusive which means there may be a marginal link between violent tendencies and video game exposure. Or is this just another example of parental blame-game by people showering their offspring with everything except love and attention? It has become obvious that those parents blaming heavy metal music for suicide and Satanism conveniently avoid responsibility for their dysfunctional family behavior and its real impact on their children's self-esteem and social interaction. Yet something else is emerging, bound to alter our perceptions for decades to come: the introduction of behavior-modifying digital images.

A theory suggesting video games are industrial toys built to prepare our children for future sophisticated wars was mocked more than a decade ago. Its Nixonian-coverup overtones deemed extreme and in very poor taste. Since then, the Persian Gulf War splashed across our television screens and pilots reported smart missiles and their targeting displays reacted similarly to their childhood video games. The theory has been given new life and further examination is warranted.

Whether these developments are unconscious extensions of parallel technology or pre-planned military-industrial indoctrination of a most subtle and sinister scheme is an open question. What can be said relates to a perverted perception missile-nose cameras relay back to pilot and whomever else is watching. The video view is a vicious form of voyeurism that fosters a moral dissociation with the targets it destroys.

When human feeling with its sense of pain and death is divorced from the act of war: unlimited violence is given birth. Wars waged with advanced technological gadgets are sanitized of its horrid toll: the bloody reality that every soldier must face, reminding him and humanity to seek peaceful solutions whenever possible. The child-like glee of a pilot exterminating hundreds and thousands of people with the touch of a joystick is dashed forever when he is shot down and held by hostile forces intent on educating him with old-fashioned methods. Gone are grid locations, kill-zones, precise coordinates, strategic installations---what remains is the awful truth----death, destruction and a severely burned, beaten kid from Jersey who once thought war games were played on a board.

Devoid of the human context, super machines transform men into unthinking killing drones disconnected from the horror of direct confrontation. To coin the old phrase, War is Hell. There is no fun involved. Limbs are blown apart by searing metal. Gallons of blood paint the earth. Flesh is weak, lasting but a day before the elements digest its substance. Humanity must guard its collective memory pertaining to the terrible price of War. Memory is vulnerable to romantic visions propagated by new dogma or devices designed to diminish our ethical and moral investigation.

Mechanical contraptions can be switched off when battles are concluded, and victory is declared. Who switches off the impressionable impact software murder simulators that have embedded their techniques in the hearts and minds of children seeking comfort, control and entertainment? Are latch-key children, dysfunctional families and video game indoctrination, necessary ingredients to construct future soldiers? Soldiers, pulled on a string, and remotely sent into tomorrow's wars against another land's legions of low self-esteem cannon fodder.

comfort, control and entertainment? Are latch-key children, dysfunctional families and video game indoctrination, necessary ingredients to construct future soldiers? Soldiers sent into tomorrow's wars against another land's legions of low self-esteem.

Conspiracy Theories and Webs of Mistrust

Conspiracy theories have been all the rage in the modern era for about a hundred years. But I am not interested in paranormal conspiracies on boogeyman, Big Foot, UFO's or the Loch Ness Monster. There's no hidden agenda in these tales. It's not unreasonable to logically reach for a missing link or a biological entity from a vast distance in galactic space.

I am more concerned about the sub-rosa theories that revolve around certain cultural groups supposedly capable of pulling strings to rule the world. Such ominous theories often rely upon forged documents, altered histories or discredited publications to support the unsupportable: one group can save the world while another is fast trying to destroy it.

Another set of conspiracy theories is purely engaged in government cover-up and assassination. These theories thrive on the public conscience seeking to erode good will with the belief that democracy is a useless exercise since everything is already fixed. How convenient but also how intellectually idiotic. The very second you adhere to these theories you give yourself the ultimate excuse and begin divorce proceedings from personal responsibility.

Even the keenest minds can fall for the cultural theories which are complex masquerades for hatred and prey upon people tainted by shades of prejudice. The government theories appear to be manufactured by groups seeking to seduce common people into accepting the system is rigged. This deliberate undermining of free societies is a form of sophisticated propaganda meant to lower public participation in the electoral process.

Public opinion manipulation doesn't require drugs or television screens to hold court on revolutionary action. The toughest battle is the struggle during the war of ideas. Words pregnant with multiple meanings yet a decidedly singular result are often the most lethal weapons. Chemicals and melodrama have a short shelf life. Immunity builds against hallucinations and holographic happiness. But dastardly theories of dark hope and fractured truths continue to pose the highest threats to the lands of liberty.

People are intelligent. People en mass are a poisoned lot swayed by unfiltered emotion determined to carve out justice in the most unjust manner. They don't want a gun or a knife or a reason. They want permission to act like devils today and angels tomorrow. Careful the tales you weave. The web you cast will eventually ensnare you and your kind.

Culture as a Positive Construct

I've often wondered if all the major decisions I made in my life were heavily influenced by my cultural background. No doubt economic status, social environment and religion play a role, but I'm primarily interested in the cultural construct. Is there truly an Italian perception of reality?

I know for sure my parents derived a great deal of their principles and morality from their Italian heritage. I can easily trace most of what I practice regarding manhood, friendship and patriotism to my father. Strangely enough my mother's thoughts on those subjects were very similar but contained a sharper twist.

Do we make major life decisions solely based on parentally-derived cultural education and ethics? Are we merely carbon copies of our parent’s physical union? Or do we take from what we learned yesterday and mix it with today's reality to form an answer maybe not available a few decades ago?

I am keenly aware in many parts of the world culture often shapes identity and maybe a person's destiny. Those realities are direct result of cultural impact or what we may call the cultural construct in where a person lives