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RE: I'm Charlie Cavell and I don't know why we accept things the way they are
Love and working together are extremely vague concepts that will never work as a base for anything tangible. I don't mean to confront your aspirations - I am all for the beauty in the world myself and I am very critical of education (my field) and would like to see it improved, but I don't think that there is anything actionable in "love" and "collaboration" that can fix the world comprised of 7 billion individualities. They are not "solutions" in any form unless clearly defined and those definitions are agreed upon.
I am curious what kind of world you imagine when all is fixed. What will it be like?
My real-world view on humanity is vastly different than my "dream" for humanity.
What I mean by that is while I believe that the only way we are going to fix everything that is wrong with the world is by working together, I don't necessarily believe that we will achieve that. Yes, I do believe that it will take a collective effort from the majority of the planet because each countries citizenry plays a role on the negative impacts we are not inflicting on us but on the planet/ecosystem as well.
And I wholeheartedly agree with you that education needs to be changed to create the necessary models that put us in the direction needed to invoke the changes we need, in order to fix; as a father I know the importance of our children and how crucial it is for us to put them on the correct path. They are our future after all! I think through the proper education and guidance then yes, love and collaboration can be added to that.
I think the biggest challenge is where to start. The hole we have dug for ourselves is extremely deep and I think you do make a valid point - it will take a lot more than "love and collaboration"....And that I agree..
Lol man I wish I could pain that picture for you..I think my vision isn't so much hugs and kisses but rather a shift from destructive technology to useful technology that moves us from the forms of energy we use today to free energy. I see a stronger effort to clean up the planet from the destruction we have subjected her to over the last 200 centuries. I see a new type of lifestyle that requires less "currency" and more living? Its hard to articulate it but the Utopian model, I think, will never work...At least not until we fix a lot of the inner issues that are mandatory (such as education) first...
And no worries. I love back and forth. Ideas, collaboration and dialogue are the only way we can even begin to start to move into the right directions. I personally feel before we do anything we need to remove the corruption that is taking hold of humanity first.
Hm, I see. Am I right to interpret your position as a call for responsibility? With that I agree. Although the notion of responsibility is pretty vague, too. In fact, I am writing all this because I myself have been very much confused about thing. I just wrote a post about the importance of clarity, and that pretty much summarizes my recent views on any initiative of change. In my opinion, it is extremely important to clarify what you mean by the words you use (most of them can be interpreted in a number of ways, including "love", "responsibility", and "collaboration"). It is also important to agree on the end result that will emerge from the negotiation of the key terms, and only then you can build something.
And that's where the 7-billion-people puzzle begins. How the hell do you get everybody on board? Provided you have already formulated a clear, unambiguous vision of what you are trying to achieve, how do you deliver it to the rest of the people?
Ok, this has just furthered my thinking. =) I should probably mull this over a bit more and write a post about it)
Excellent!
Well let's break it down like this because I agree with the vague nature of some of these words.
Love - not to be confused with that "butterfly" feeling. When I reference love, I mean it in a way that correlates with the ability for each and every one of us to realize that violence begets violence and that this is the only home we have; so lets stop waging wars against one another and start taking more care of our home.
Responsibility - meaning that we each have to play a part individually rather than expecting others to handle some of the issues we are faced with. Relying on government to provide us healthcare when all we need to do is take care of ourselves, exercise and eat foods that are beneficial to the human body. Growing your own food. Reducing your carbon footprint
Collaboration - finding like minded individuals; in your case, finding other educators and coming up with ways to reinvent our education system to benefit our youth and point them in the same direction we need to move. The same is said for the sciences, health, technology and art. I think when these sectors collaborate is when we start to see progress....
And lastly, you are right, we will never get all 7 billion of us to move in one direction, but I think if we "collaborate" in the above manner then we can start to pull more and more people on board. Its a process that will take years, if not decades to accomplish but I imagine that if 5 billion people want to move towards peace, there isn't much the other 2 can do about it. Similar to the current geo-political structure, where you have 7 billion people and a couple thousand elite....their is nothing they can do if we don't allow it!
Well, I had very different definitions of those. I see what you mean by them, though. The universal virtues are all there in your descriptions, often referred to by other names as well. And you also make a concession that you can't get all the people be like that.
In my opinion, if 5 billion people are happy with this new system, while 2 billions are not, what is the difference? There are still unhappy people! I really doubt it is really possible to make a happy world - somebody will be oppressed or punished, and that's exactly what we already have - oppression and punishment for going against it. The question is just who is oppressed and who is punished, and that's what changes bring - a change in who is the oppressor and who is being oppressed. A century later you will have new categories of unhappy people calling for integrity and equality.
Frankly, I feel like we can only more or less talk about our personal happiness as it is situated in the present - with all the limitations and unfairness of the world. I agree that happiness is in our own hands. And since you can't fix the world, making that happiness and protecting it are the very meaning in life to me.
How to make yourself happy without hurting other people, which would arguably be a wonderful world to live in, is a whole different topic, though. And I think psychology has an answer.
Yes...upon reflection I would have to agree that the model in which I am trying to describe still oppresses some, and therefore won't achieve its over all purpose. I do, however believe that at some point in our evolution we will have an event that will more likely than not cause such great devastation that we will have no choice but to visit the aforementioned in order to survive as a species. But I must admit, the road is long and hard and there are a multitude of questions that would need to be answered. I think in the interim, we can start tackling these issues we face on a smaller scale; community based projects, working with legislators that do want to change things in a positive direction and taking personal initiatives ..
Yes, I absolutely agree with that. I read that article a few years ago about change that I can't remember the author of (I guess I could dig it up if you're curious), but among many smart things he said, there was one I particularly remember - if you want a change, start with yourself, take people on board, make it bigger later.
It makes perfect sense, too. And if you think about it, you don't need to scale it too much up. If your community is on board, why would you try harder to change the world? Your personal world is already better and more comfortable.
I know philanthropists wouldn't agree, but the world is so big that for one person changing a small community is already a heroic deed. And who knows, if it takes off, it might as well change the world. I guess I am getting carried away here)
No such thing as "getting carried away"... I feel it may be the only way to start the arduous task of change