Change Requires Sacrifice?

[Scholar]

I've been thinking about this notion for quite a while. Life is a play of forces, each going into a different direction. This is true for collectives just as much as for individuals themselves.

For example, there are parts of me that want to be lazy, and then there are parts of me that want to accomplish goals. It is a war between these two parts, and for one part persist, the other must suffer. If I want to get healthy and excersise, my lazy part will resist and suffer until it is exstinguished. In many cases the lazy part is so overwhelmingly strong that it requires an explosion of force to just give the health oriented mind a chance to act. How many people keep attempting to exercise but fail over and over again. A lot of people need a real wake up call. But even if they manage to do it the "slow and steady" route, they still will suffer. Parts of them will hate it, and these parts might even be killed in the process.

This goes the same for the ego. The rational mind attacks the ego with such force, with for example the Zen Buddhist method of getting enlightened, that the ego is literally tortured and mutilated until it gives up, until it dies. It's a war between two forces. 

 

The same goes for collectives. Revolutions are the Zen Buddhist method of trying to change and kill parts of a collective radically, which requires suffering on the parts that are aimed to be eradicated. This is what Hitler tried to do, obviously, but the resistence was simply too strong, so the "revolution" simply failed. 

Now, climate activists try to do the slow method, where as Islamic Terrorists try to use the radical method. Both want to achieve change, but both face incredible resistence. From the perspective we could see us, the western world, being the ego, and the terrorists rational parts that want to stop a behaviour of the ego, or simply try to eradicate it completely. Now, this desire stems, of course, from suffering, just as the rational mind suffers from the egoic actions. We destabilized and terrorized the middle east in gruesome form, so now there is resistence that is trying to brute force and change this behaviour. Quite interesting just how similar this works to the individual mind. If our ration parts recognize that we are taking a path that will lead us to more suffering, it will resist the rest of the mind and try to take over.

So, the two methods for change seem to be either resistance or harmony based. Creating so much resistence that one part simply crumble to dust, or using harmony to slowly pull the other part into the desired direction.

Of course the harmonic method probably wields the more effective results. It seems as the the resistance based approach usually requires many attempts, but at the same time it works faster than the harmonic approach. But the suffering is greater too.

 

If we take this an apply it to problems we face today, we will see that a resistence based approach will cost human lifes. This is what terrorists do, and without the terrorists, it's farely certain to assume that we would not have any public awareness over what is going on in the middle east. The terrorists are achieving their goal, even though it is no their ideologic goal, it is the systemic result of what created them. They were created due to us fiddling around with the middle east, and the public slowly starts to realize that maybe it's not the best idea to fiddle around with the middle east. Maybe we should not be bombing innocent people if we want peace in the west. This idea might not even be around if it wasn't for people commiting horrible acts of terrorism to raise awareness. They are not doing it to raise awareness, but their suffering is so great that they act in ways that create awareness. 

It's much like a heart attack for an obese person. The heart attack did not happen to simply wake up the person, it happened because the person did not care for their health. The terrorist do not exist so they can raise awareness, they exist because we completely and utterly destroyed the middle east. But still, just as the heart attack, they might cause the person to start thinking about their actions. Now, if the person does not change their actions, it will lead to more and more heart attacks, just as for us it will lead to more and more terrorist attacks.

At some point either the obese person dies, or the heart attacks frighten him so much that he changes behaviour. Of course it's not as simple as that with the terrorists and us, but it basicly works the same way. Extreme suffering caused extreme resistance, and extreme resistance will cause extreme behaviour change.

 

This is what we need for climate, because climate is an existential threat. The problem is that climate is not really like a heart attack, climate is more like a slow developing cancer. There is no wake up call until it is way too late. With cancer it usually takes the rational mind to change behaviour. And what climate activists do is basicly like telling a person who smokes that they "might" get cancer if they keep smoking. Even if you tell them that they will get cancer, they will not care.

The problem here is that there is noone willing to blow themselves up for a truly significant cause like climate change. People who care for climate are empathetic and will not kill to save lifes. I belong to that category, but I can still recognize that his might cause the end of civilization. This unwillingness for the rational mind to resort to extreme measures for the "greater good", especially because this has been demonized by our culture, might in the end be what really kills us.

Even if we resort to extreme measures, there is no certainity that it will help, simply because the resistance will be so great. It would take a great amount of force to actually radically change the behaviour of the collective organism that we call mankind. A heart attack is probably not enough, and even if, causing something proportionate to a heart attack would probably be like having a hurricane eradice new york city completely, and kill millions of human beings in the process. That might wake us up, but that will not happen. It's a slowly developing cancer, and it will be a slow and miserably death.

 

Just like with individuals, suffering is usually what motivates them and brings them on the path to enlightenment. There is not enough suffering in the western world to get us on a path that is not self destructive. Realistically seen, isn't mankind just like a smoking obese person, who we have to hope for somehow gets onto the path of enlightenment? What are the chances of that happening? That smoking, obese person has a higher chance winning the lottery.

 

Maybe it's better to accept the failure of mankind? Maybe it is simply the inevitable fate of any intelligent species? Maybe that's just how nature works...

[Sevi]

But also, isn't evolution the inevitable motion of the nature? In spite of all the crises or the resistances? 

[Spiral]

To grow you must first suffer in both muscle and mind.

[The Monk]

@Scholar That's right! In all religions some form of abstention must be made to grow oneself spirituality. Although, it differs from religion to religion it seems like they've all caught onto the same idea.

But, in order to grow yourself physically and psychologically all doesn't have to be given up. It's fine to watch a movie from time to time, but it's the attachment that really destroys lives.