Informants? Think about that for a second. In what other sphere of your life, do you have informants?
How is it we so quickly accept this as normal?
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It's amazing what a human being can fit into that category, isn't it? Atrocities are driven by some leading zealot, sure, but the bulk of the machinery progresses via the acceptance of whatever is occurring by the mass of the people. The most horrifying thing you can conjure is just normalcy to some other person at some other time in some other place. We hope to, as a species, be moving generally toward a state where, in each subsequent generation, it is much more likely that the things that horrify were normal in previous generations than that they will become normal in subsequent generations. I believe that we are, indeed, going in that direction; thus, the judgement of future generations weighs heavily. What horror will my behaviours elicit in other humans long after I'm gone? And how far down this thought-path can you go before you become ethically paralyzed?
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There's a fly in the apartment. There's not much life here: just me, the plant, and the fly. I consider my visceral compulsion to smash it. It's bothering me, after all: landing on me, tickling my skin, stirring me from sleep. That killer compulsion. Nurtured from a very young age.
I think of my cat. All the nights he kept me up, mewling for attention and pawing at my face. The money I spent on keeping him alive and well fed.
This living thing is annoying me, mildly, and I want to kill it.
It just wants to be near me. It's not hurting me.
How is it we so quickly accept this as normal?
-----
It's amazing what a human being can fit into that category, isn't it? Atrocities are driven by some leading zealot, sure, but the bulk of the machinery progresses via the acceptance of whatever is occurring by the mass of the people. The most horrifying thing you can conjure is just normalcy to some other person at some other time in some other place. We hope to, as a species, be moving generally toward a state where, in each subsequent generation, it is much more likely that the things that horrify were normal in previous generations than that they will become normal in subsequent generations. I believe that we are, indeed, going in that direction; thus, the judgement of future generations weighs heavily. What horror will my behaviours elicit in other humans long after I'm gone? And how far down this thought-path can you go before you become ethically paralyzed?
-----
There's a fly in the apartment. There's not much life here: just me, the plant, and the fly. I consider my visceral compulsion to smash it. It's bothering me, after all: landing on me, tickling my skin, stirring me from sleep. That killer compulsion. Nurtured from a very young age.
I think of my cat. All the nights he kept me up, mewling for attention and pawing at my face. The money I spent on keeping him alive and well fed.
This living thing is annoying me, mildly, and I want to kill it.
It just wants to be near me. It's not hurting me.
