Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
“The Sound of Silence,” Simon and Garfunkel’s iconic melody, could be this week’s mantra. “Garfunkel once summed up the song’s meaning as ‘The inability of people to communicate with each other, not particularly internationally but especially emotionally, so what you see around you is people unable to love each other.’” (1) We have, once again, been inundated with brutality: most noteworthy in North American and in the Middle East. It is quickly becoming a tedious and boring concept. The most stunning counter point to all of this is that the world is actually getting more and more peaceful. The average (and the doomsayer would suggest, lucky) individual simply has not be subjected to the reality of being shot, stabbed or blown up: why? This is because violence, as conceptualized, literally does not exist. The intelligent person would thus be forced to ask, “Why then am I made to feel so afraid?” For one, the yellow journalistic prowess of Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer is still with us. Secondly, our fear has been commandeered even further by the industrial-military complex: this industry is in the business of selling weapons and war. Peace and tranquility do not sell. “The remarkable fact in this debate (on societal violence) is that the fundamental premise … is utterly mistaken — violence is not careening out of control. Quite to the contrary, it is actually on the decline, both within the U.S. and worldwide. As a single example, violent crime in the U.S. has declined precipitously in recent years, from 757.7 violent crimes per 100,000 persons in 1992 to 386.3 per 100,000 persons in 2011. Crime rates even declined during two recent severe recessions, from 2001 to 2003 and from 2008 to 2012, confounding predictions by sociologists and law enforcement officials that these downturns would send crime rates soaring. As of the present date, the most detailed and comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon is a 2011 book by noted Harvard social scientist Steven Pinker, entitled The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.” (2) Another small example would be Taiwan: citizens believe that Taiwan is getting to be a more and more dangerous country. “The reality is that Taiwan is actually getting to be a … safer place to live.” What we are left with is our personal perception of the world. If we want to see the concept of fear and danger in the world: it exists. If we desire happiness and serenity: this supplants the terror.
An historical note: Prior to World War Two, the U.S. was a community coming out of a nasty depression — after FDR’s New Deal, (3) its intrinsic entrepreneurial spirit “swung into high gear.” It reached its apogee during the war. So much money was made by the conflict that it became impossible to neuter the industry. This has implications up until today. Now you, Generation Y, are placed in a moral dilemma. Our worldwide economy is predicated on aggression, yet you as young people are not aggressive by nature – and, therefore, the average person does not want to fight. It is very possible that our world will now change not because you are pacifists, but because your group will not join the world’s warriors, not willingly, not consciously. This is where the trickery is the vilest. All people are the same worldwide. This is regardless of whether you are pink, blue, orange, black, white, etc: when you cut your skin, and blood flows, it is red. How then can the “terrorist” be truly different from me? He or she can’t be. Why then insult my intelligence and call them psychopaths — some may be, but not all: is that true? If yes, then we can only create a peaceful and dynamic world through dialogue and understanding. The great peace promoter, Leo Tolstoy, (1828-1910) leaves us with a thought: The chief difference between words and deeds is that words are always intended for men for their approbation, but deeds can be done only for God. … All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.
A small joke: There were two friends who worked in the same office. George was industrious and hardworking, while William was indolent and a time waster. The great irony was that William did not comprehend that he was lazy. One day, he stood at the office window and looked at the street below. “George,” he said. “It is hard to believe how people like this can actually get a job. I have been staring at that street cleaner down there for the past 30 minutes and he has done virtually no work at all!”
This week, please reflect on how we can begin to repress violence.
Every day look for something magical and beautiful.
Quote: We must aspire to live a hopeful and positive life. This is not naïve, not fanciful. Reality is created by the individual: by you.
Footnotes
3) New Deal