Bouncing Thoughts

This morning on the radio, a caller asserted there is no such thing as global warming or climate change because he learned in fourth grade that there was a climate cycle on planet Earth and what we are observing is simply part of that cycle.

I wanted to ask him if he believes that cell phones exist.  Because since he said that he was in fourth grade sixty years ago, and if climate change was real he would have learned about it, then he would have learned about cell phones if they were real.

How can people live in the world where the impossible becomes reality through technology on a daily basis think that scientists don't know more than they do?

A shock comedian did a terrible thing, creating and publishing a gruesome photograph involving a mask of the severed head of a human.  I haven't heard anyone support her action.  But I hear and read people saying that other gruesome photographs existed involving other humans and no one cared.

I think when you only spend time with people who think like you that it is easy to drift further and further into unacceptable behavior and actions, as long as the group think isn't disturbed.  The acceptable boundaries continue to expand since hatred is what you have in common in your group.  The hatred allows a degradation of individual humanity, until inhumane behavior and acts feel acceptable.  When someone outside the group sees the behavior or action, they can still recognize how wrong it is, but the self supporting insular group loses the ability to see that.

The publication of the photos of Uday and Qusay Hussein's dead bodies is a great example of how hatred erodes our humanity.  All of us should have been as appalled at those pictures being published as we are when our enemies publish pictures of our dead, but many cheered instead of being horrified.

The sad thing is that in America, many humans seem to be offended by the horrific only if they like or care about the victim.  The United Nations estimates that around 5000 Syrians are dying every month, and yet most Americans do not want to offer refuge to Syrians.  However, we will mourn and tweet and turn our Facebook pages into a Union Jack because 20 people in Great Britain died leaving a concert.

I don't think it is wrong that we mourn those innocent victims.  I just mourn that we don't mourn all innocent victims.

What in the world does that have to do with whether or not a guy calling the radio believes in climate change or not?

I believe that the very same voices that work to erode our humanity also work to erode our logic.  One time, a long time ago, a friend of mine said about another friend of mine, "He thinks he is so smart."  The "he" in question has a doctorate in geophysics.  I replied, "He doesn't 'think' he is so smart, he IS so smart".  My friend had a voice inside her head that told her that she was just as smart as "he" was, so had no reason to believe he was correct.  Reality was that he had much more knowledge, understanding and analytical ability, and would never argue for the sake of argument.  If he corrected someone, it was out of a sincere desire to educate them to the facts.  Laid back, easy-going guy, but hated to see ignorance persist if he had a shot at correcting the situation.  He eventually gave up on my friend, and realized she preferred ignorance to having her beliefs challenged.

I think all humans can be like my friend.  None of us like to have our beliefs challenged.  But if no one ever challenged the status quo, no progress would be made.  George Bernard Shaw said, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

I want to be the unreasonable man.  I want the world to get better, so I have to persist in trying to make it better.

Reasonable people believe what they hear, they go along and get along.  When we do that, when we are reasonable, we face the very real danger of following a crowd until we lose our humanity, and our ability to see the difference between right and wrong.

Be unreasonable.  Challenge the crowd.  Hold yourself accountable to a higher ethical and moral standard.

People will scoff.  They will mock.  Persist.  Our collective humanity depends on each of us fighting to keep our individual humanity intact.  And if we lose our humanity, we have lost everything.