In life, there is so much we do for the sole purpose of obtaining that “first time high” that we had the first time something happened, or we experienced something. Like a drug, we experience something that is good, and we want to get it back gain. This is what leads to nastalgia, and in some ways conservatism. People searching for that high they got the first time it happened.
What people fail to realize, however, is that with so many things, they were only exiting because they’d never happened before, they were new and different. Of course, a little of that high is obtained by clinging to something old, playing an old record, reading a farmiliar book, and yet it can never fully acheive that first time high.
People cling to the past, to tradition. These people are moral conservatives. What they cling to can often be irrelavent, and clinging to it serves no purpose. Why do they do so? It is that first time high. They have these traditions engrained in them, on their concept of right or wrong from the time that they were young, and it becomes a sort of nostalgia. These people cling to old traditions or customs, trying to revive the way it was for them, and for this reason, they inflict or force these on other people. They such traditions or ways of thought on younger generations, who then associate such traditions with their youth when they grow older, regardless of whether these traditions had anything to do with their youth or not, save for being imposed on them at that period in their life. And so the cycle starts agian. Children must be taught to examine things objectively, and form their own opinions. If they find a tradition or jaded belief wrong or outdated, they should be free to reject it, and if they find one right, to accept it. Only through choice may people come to respect and belive the right things, and only through giving that choice can we be fair to our fellow human beings.
Wow, nice summary of Western society. Actually, the view of ‘the past was better’ or ‘the first time was better’ is a very old thing. Even back during the Chivalric Age, the Dark Ages, Medieval Times, they thought “the past was better”. It’s deeply engrained in the Western mindset. It’s Biblical in origin. Think of a point on a plane, and a lind moving from that point, the line has a downward slope, never positive. We once were in Paradise, now we are not, the Past was Better. It’s a very old thought, and neither new nor unique to Republicans.
I sold my soul to Satan for a dollar. I got it in the mail.
I’m glad to see you made the jump to a real message board, Vlad.
-your Auntie Chirst on the PM5K board-
“People must think it must be fun to be a super genuis,
But they don’t realize how hard it is
to put up with all the idiots in the world.”
– Calvin and Hobbes
(__) /
Yup, Auntie, I did. People here are pretty cool, when you said this was a philosophy website, I assumed it was some old jaded dudes w/ degrees or something!
You know Vlad, if you were posting this stuff over in Great Debates, you’d probably get more discussion and interest. This part of the board is generally used for goofing off, so people aren’t always in the most philosophical mindset in this area.
Then again, it says great thoughts in the description of MPSIMS, so, it’s your call.
–John
'Twis brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gymble in the wabe.
Mimsy were the borogroves,
And the momeraths outgrabe.
I would imagine there is some suvival value in sticking with tradition, so it might be deeply ingrained in our habits.
e.g. Someone finds out that eating the red berries from the xyz bush can make you sick or die. So you tell everybody “don’t eat berries from the xyz bush!” After a while, a generation is born where no one has probably tried the berries from the xyz bush, but everyone still avoids them.
That might help explain our affinity for what’s familiar and tested by time.
Well, the people posting in this thread actually seem to care a bit more than the people responding to my other messages: I’ve so far been called “arrogant”, “pointless” and I’m nicknamed Vlad the Impaler. Yeah, I think I’m gonna be posting in the Great Debates from here on in!