Possible World | Freewrite Tuesday prompt (Ideas worth spreading)

in #freewrite5 years ago (edited)

Greetings, everyone

This is my entry to the #freewrite 5-minute exercise hosted by @mariannewest. See details here.

When I think about Ideas Worth Spreading I can’t help thinking about ideals or the idealistic image of a possible world. It has been said in both religious and non-religious circle that if the human mind can conceive something, that means that something either already exist or is doable.

Why would humans think of a perfect world if such a world were not possible?

Source

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The first words that came to mind were those of Lennon’s song: Imagine

No hell below us
Above us only sky…

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace…

It is comforting to know that one is not alone in this “madness”. Of course, there is a social pressure to remain down to earth and pursue practical goals, but no technology, no science, no advanced knowledge will do us any good if it is not preceded by some moral grounds.

[end of five minutes]
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Source

I use the image fully aware of its controversial meaning. In this monument we have African-American leader Booker T. Washington lifting the veil of ignorance from a former slave. It has been said that he seems to be pulling it down, instead. We know how populist or accommodating agendas can serve the wrong master.

We have been making mistakes over the millennia, even with the support of “science” or whatever quasi-scientific notions are in vogue at a given time. It is the ideas of men and women capable of combining low and high matters what makes us transform ourselves and the world we live in. From Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream these lines come to mind:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

We are political animals; we are meant to live in poleis and we demand things that sometimes collide with the demands of the societies we live in. The words of Ralph Waldo Emerson in Self-Reliance stand out: “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.”

Source

and then we have another favorite of mine, contemporary of Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, who in Civil Disobedience affirmed:

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

I think that these ideas, among others derived from or contributing to these ones are worth spreading. Our youths are fascinated with facts and gadgets, but what do they become without a moral compass? Where do they get that moral compass from?

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¿Por qué los humanos pensarían en un mundo perfecto si tal mundo no fuera posible?

Muy bueno. Coincido contigo en esta interrogante. Somos capaces de dar más en todo sentido, pero las convenciones sociales y los hilos del poder que gobierna el mundo mantienen la ilusión de que "esta pesadilla es nuestro único sueño posible", como dijo Eduardo Galeano.

Así es, amiga. Lo vemos en la actitud de lagente ante fenómenos sociales como la corrupción. "Esto siempre ha sido así", "esto no va a cambiar", son frases lapidarias que dan por sentado la inviabilidad de un proyecto de sociedad utopico.

I think we have an innate moral compass though most of us do resign our conscience to the legislator or employer. At work many of us do things we would never do in our private lives, as if when we arrive at work we leave our moral compass at the door.
It’s the Wednesday prompt delivery team here with the shapely prompt for today:
https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-656-5-minute-freewrite-wednesday-prompt-contour

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Thanks for stopping by. I'll try to go over the posts (pretty busy morning and it feels like I caught a cold).
I agree with your assessment. As many humanists have asserted througout history, society, far from making us more human, takes away or distorts our innate humanity/goodness

When desiring peace is madness we are all doomed.

Well, that's how most people see pacifists.
You see the warmonger rhetoric around the world and people willing to give their lives for their mother/father land, etc, and they make you feel like there is no other way because that's the way it's always been for ever and ever, amen...

It makes little sense to me, but I think some governments in some prosperous and low-profile countries around the world can take the first steps towards a zero agression progressive and inclusive society

They used to get it from their parents. Today, they get it from the apps and the insane social media sites, though I'd be lying to even suggest that they're being provided a moral compass.

I agree. If there is even a compass, it is broken. Social media provides way too many mized messages, most of which on the wrong side of history.
Kids are growing up to be individualistic, to defy parental authority, to venerate the false idols of show business (they know more about their favorite celebrities than about their relatives), to ignore any basic cultural knowldge that would make them feel part of a group, etc.

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Perhaps when enough of us want peace then it may happen

Excellent essay!
The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. I especially love this statement, and am finding it more and more difficult to do this in the US. Every day there are new laws passed restricting or regulating everyday behaviors, so that we all have to spend time verifying we haven't broken this law or that: the dogs have to be licensed and vaccinated, the taxes have to be paid well before time, the plumbing needs to be filed with the city, the kids need to go to the dentist or they can't attend school. It has gotten absurd the time I spend proving I've been a good citizen.

So the moral compass is difficult to find for oneself, because our legislators are forcing one on us that has no true north, but rather must point wherever the whims of the day in Congress point. Now they point toward removing privacy protections in the name of gun control. Very frightening in the US right now! Not as frightening as in Venezuela though, not yet.

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