How do people do such things? I’m an historian, and all I see is one war, massacre, Inqusition, Crusade, dictatorship and invasion after another. Sure, there are a handful of nice people—I’m told George Clooney is kind to animals—but people as a whole? Evil, evil fuckers.
I’m glad my life is more than half-over and I’ll be out of this mess soon.
I keep telling everybody that people are evil, stupid, pathetic beings. Does anyone ever listen? Nooooooooo.
I’ll have to paraphrase a couple of quotes from Terry Pratchett books:
“There aren’t any good and evil people. They’re all evil, but some are on our side.”
“Evil is seldom defeated by the good guy in the real world. Evil is defeated by another kind of evil, which is better organized.”
Sums it up for me.
Yesterday, I left my headlights on in the parking lot while I was at work. I got out of my car, and saw a guy walking to the back of the parking lot with a duffel bag. I assumed he was going to his car, and asked if he could give me a jump. Turns out he was actually taking a picture of some of the street art (i.e. grafitti) on the back wall, but said that he’d be happy to help me out when he was done. While I was waiting, though, the owner of the car next to me showed up, and without prompting, asked me if I needed a jumpstart. He’d seen my lights on when he parked that morning, and figured on having to help someone out later when he came back that evening.
So some folks aren’t all that bad.
It is rather difficult to see the “goodness” of humanity when most of what is cited as good is merely a response to evil.
Again with the sunshine and rainbows, Pollyanna?
I offer a quote from Babylon 5 that might offer some consolation:
How exactly, and with no snarkiness intended, is a quote from a fictitious character concerning fictitious circumstance consolation for someone who is overwhelmed by the capacity and willingness of humans to inflict misery upon one another?
And another:
Yeah, then they both probably went home and stabbed their wives to death.
That’s art’s purpose–to hold up a funhouse mirror to reality, to console us in hard times through reminding us of the truths we’ve temporarily forgotten.
I bet he didn’t use his turn signal either, the jackass! :mad:
Well I respect your opinion and am all for art and all that (I even make a little art every now and then), but art is only truthful when it is. Sometimes it lies like a bitch. To think that some homily about “making a difference” reveals some truth about humanity that palliates the thousand horrors we see every day is to be pollyanish to the extreme, IMO.
And has anyone ever read Pollyanna? She was run over and crippled by a car at the end!
Probably by some bastard in an SUV, on his cell phone, not using his turn signals.
I believe our phrase that pays is actually: “Hacked to death with a kitchen knife”
But thanks for playing. We have some lovely parting gifts for you.
Tradition is tradition, Eve.
Palliate horrors? Not possible. The dark is all around us, which is why keeping our small candle lit is important. Life is dangerous, and even on a tropical vacation, a tsunami can sweep you and your family away in an instant. Your kids can get cancer and die. Your parents can succumb to Alzheimer’s or strokes.
I’ve seen a lot of horrors in my life. . . lost friends to AIDS, lost my dad when I was a kid, my mom’s crippled from bad hip surgery and is in danger of losing the marginal employment she has. . . my sister is in the hospital right now recovering from having her stomach removed. Life is chockfull of horrible, awful events.
That’s why loving people and taking care of those around you is a shout of defiance at the workings of a hostile universe.
And if you think that passage form B5 is just “some homily about ‘making a difference,’” I suggest that you watch it and learn how people deal with sorrow, loss, and the deaths of millions in a horrific war.
And smoking.
Maybe, but who gives a shit about them? I got where I was going. That’s what’s important.
Anyhoo, I’m starting to sound like a poster boy for optimism, and you know what that got Dr. Pangloss, so let the misanthropic rumpus continue!
Well once again, with all due respect, I fail to see what lesson about life there is to be gleaned from a TV science fiction show. (Disclaimer–I don’t have television and have never seen the show.) I am reminded of a (probably apocryphal) remark from William James to his brother Henry when the latter complained about writer’s block. To wit: “Writer’s block? You* make that stuff up*. Every thing I write is carved from the living rock of truth.”
How about you show me how people deal with sorrow, loss, and the deaths of millions in the real world, and then show me how that amounts to more than pissing in the wind. And then tell me how people deal with death of the heart.
Please.