Over the past several days I have willingly inundated myself with information gathered from a number of cable channels. I enjoy participating in athletic displays but am not so keen on watching others making millions of dollars while 'playing'. Being a holiday period my choices of non-sports oriented viewing was somewhat limited. But I can say that after three days of visiting the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, the Travel Channel, and A&E--I have come to some postulations that are going to take me some time to work through. I mean, besides the obvious conclusion that we live in a very screwed-up hedonistic world. Just the advertising alone tells you that.
Here are some crudely distilled, admittedly unrefined conjectures that are being processed in my head:
1) It is asinine for humans to dislike and/or hate other humans because of their ethnicity or skin colour. It is asinine for humans to be prejudiced towards other humans for matters they had absolutely no choice in or control over. Humans are stupid.
2) Oceans, rivers, mountain ranges etc...are geological formations. Nature created them after billions of years of aesthetic consideration. Humans turned them into 'borders' then pissed territory. Humans are stupid.
3) When you look at photos of the Earth from space or look down from an airplane there are no coloured lines denoting where one county, state, province, country ends and another begins. Mother Nature didn't go around with a big box of markers. Humans drew the lines. called them borders and pissed territory. Humans are stupid.
4) There is only one race--the Human race. They have different ethnic origins but are still only one race. The human race once inhabited a single pan-geologic continent. Therefore we all lived together in one place at the same time. Eventually the tectonic plates shifted. Part of that aesthetic consideration. Humans went from being neighbours sharing a common experience to drawing lines and pissing territory. Humans are stupid.
5) With the exception of indigenous Native Americans, none of us are 'from' here. Our ancestors came from beyond these shores for whatever reasons motivated them to leave where they came from. Now a great deal of time and energy is devoted to the debate of whether we should allow other members of our race to live amongst us or not. For the very same reasons that brought our ancestors here in the first place. And to do to them what our forebears did to the people who were here before them. Humans are still pissing territory. Humans are stupid.
Well, that's what I've been able to sift from all the media saturation I've undergone while digesting the Thanks Giving revels. Political posturing, xenophobia, economic self-interest, and territorial urination are very much alive and thriving between all the pretty coloured lines traversing the planet that humans call Earth. Humans are stupid.
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Yabbut.
ReplyDeleteYabbut!
THEY started it!
They look different. They act different. They aren't us!
WE built this country, and now they want a piece of what we've built!
It ain't fair, I tell ya!
(tongue-in-cheek)
No, Virginia, life isn't fair. But wouldn't it be nice if humans were?
ReplyDelete(tongue sticking out--raspberry ensuing)
Meh. I don't know about humans being stupid. Enterprising maybe. The Indians are probably kicking themselves for not drawing borders first. Besides it's not like we all lived in peace and harmony on the same continent at one time. We fought then and we continue to fight. What's the saying about good fences making good neighbors?
ReplyDeleteIt seems to have been like this since the garden of Eden and sadly will most likely continue.
ReplyDeleteRed--Native Americans didn't draw borders because they knew the Earth didn't belong to them. Is 'enterprising' the same as 'greed'? Enterprise brought the Spanish here initially and everyone else afterwards. I guess we'd have to ask some of Robert Frost's neighbours how the fences worked out. I'm pretty sure the cows didn't like it much.
ReplyDeleteLady H--'tis sad but true. Stupidity is fatal. We are doomed.
Animals are territorial and so are people. Native Americans may not have drawn borders but they still fought amongst different tribes and I'm sure part of their fights involved territory. Enterprising and greed could intermingle but they aren't the same.
ReplyDeleteAnimal, vegetable, mineral--yup, humans are definitely in the 'animal' column--though there's some blurred lines where 'vegetable' is concerned. Being part of the animal kingdom we are naturally prone to territorialism. My unrefined opinion is that, having the most cognitive brain in the animal kingdom, we should rise above nature rather than go antler-butting. Native Americans were indeed regional and territorial and pretty much respected the boundaries. Which is exactly why they became hostile after a few months of 'us' showing up. They were initially willing to share but not prepared to surrender. Enterprise, greed, or avarice--a rose by any other name...
ReplyDeleteWell, I consider myself a "native American" despite what PC rules would have me say. I was born here therefore I'm from here. Sure I have European ancestry but I was born in Gretna, Jefferson parish and have been a southern girl all my life. I don't call myself a Scottish-American. That would be dumb IMNSHO (in my not-so-humble opinion). Now if I immigrated directly from Scotland I would still celebrate my heritage but once I've taken the oath of naturalization, I'm American sans hyphen.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I have always preferred saying I'm an American of Irish descent. It's good to have pride in your ancestry but I think it's far more important to have pride in your country. IMNSHO--(I like that).
ReplyDeleteThought you would ;-)
ReplyDelete