What does that mean, exactly?
When we are very young we are all a savages, as bloodthirsty and evil as anyone could imagine. We think of the very young as innocent because they are helpless and harmless, but this is a comforting delusion. Your infant doesn't care that you have to go to work in three hours, he is hungry NOW dammit!
It doesn't really get better as they get older. Just observe how fundamentally sociopathic small children can seem when you remove their cherubic faces from the equation. Sure, that video is pretty funny, but only because you are told at the beginning and end what is going on. Stripped of that context.... well, I don't want to belabor the point.
Humans don't naturally become civilized. Its a process, formally known as enculturation, but most of us know it simply as 'raising kids'. You teach them to share, to consider other people's feelings, to act appropriately. You civilize them, giving them simple, clear rules to follow. And when you don't do it right you get Ted Bundy, you get a monster.
When you have rules you have hierarchy. You have leaders and followers, you make demands based on roles. Selfish men do not rush into burning buildings to save other men's children, but every civilization has firefighters. Selfish men do not walk the mean streets at night to pacify them, yet we have police.
And when Order breaks down, when Selfishness becomes the rule rather than the exception, men in those positions seek safety and comfort, the 'Anything it takes to get home to my family' siege mentality prevalent in our police today. It draws men to the 'blue gang' who want the power and prestige, the social cache and legal immunities, perverting the system from within, which we are starting to see increasingly every day.
Aurini has an excellent examination of the current state of affairs rewarding Leadership today; regarding, essentially, the fallen state of Civilization. If it has a major flaw, it is that it offers no real solutions. We need to rust and respect our leaders, yet our leaders are not worthy of our trust... a true statement yet useless.
Maybe its because I watched Space Battleship Yamato the other day, but I find that, in what appears to be a hopeless situation, that I find myself increasingly appreciating the value of a single lamp in the dark.
The solution is obvious, even simple.
Become the Leader, the man worth trusting and respecting. If there are no Heroes worth emulating in pop culture, become the Hero worth emulating in your own life. Step up to the demand and ignore what the debased pop-culture says about you. Find your subordinates, the people who will follow your lead, and if you are lucky you may inspire the leaders you need.
Not that this is an easy solution. The good things rarely are.
I found a metaphor for the state of our world that I rather liked the other day, that all civilizations pass through a single swing of a pendulum, at one end their foundation, the other their destruction. The Golden Age of such a civilization is the center, the nadir, beyond which it only gets worse until the end.
I know we passed that point long ago. I can think of few struggles more meaningful that putting myself in the path of that inexorable swing, of grabbing hold, digging my heels into the dirt and pushing back as hard as I can, for as long as I can. When Thor wrestled the old woman in the keep of Utgard-Loki and lost, it doesn't merely show the futility of wrestling Old Age itself, but the value in trying. The Giants are impressed, even scared of how well the Gods do in their impossible tasks. The struggle itself has meaning, has value. This is especially true when the cause is just.
Civilization is better than savagery. Selflessness is better than self indulgence. Order is better than Anarchy.
Good is better than Evil.
My hope for the future has been that eventually the barbarians that will tear down our Rome will eventually discover civilization and rebuild, better than before, but that is just a hope. Plenty of barbarians never bootstrap themselves up, never learn. They destroy and feed, and look for the next host, forever parasites. Civilization is Hard, and for the individual it can often seem unrewarding, at least in the short term. No one likes to be told No, after all.
No. In order for that hope to become true, someone will have to remain who wants civilization more, who has the strength and will to bring it. Someone has to be the Light in the Dark. Why not me?
Why not you?
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