Age
I am not sure how nor why you would consider any thing not nature. Do you have a list of what is natural and what is not? If yes, then I would love to see it.
To me, absolutely EVERY thing is a part of Nature.
Animal natural Man is a part of nature but this doesn’t mean that what it does is natural for our species. The big example here is the expressiion of negative emotions. If they were a part of our essence our situation would be hopeless but they are learned and have become natural for the human condition and become destructive influences. Take the word skepticism for example. It has a positive intellectual value. Yet emotional skepticism and the habit of blind emotional denial ruins what the intellect is capable of.
NO society adopts any thing. Each and every society is just the result of all the individuals within it. A society is just the sum total of the aggregate of human beings.
Quite true but the question becomes what creates the sum total of the aggregate of human beings. An ant hill is the sum total of all the ants but it is logical to ask what creates it? IMO you are implying the quality of choice where it doesn’t exist.
You are part of the "beast", so what is it that you want to hear?
And what is it that the so called "beast" wants to hear?
Also, what are you trying to get at?
The Beast wants to here what bolsters its prestige. Otherwise it would revolt against manipulation. Flatter a woman’s vanity and she can be manipulated. Tell her the truth and those undies will stay on as if glued. The art of manipulation is the backbone of advertising.
“The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so they believe they are clever as he.”Karl Kraus
Without the support of the demagogue life in Plato’s cave would be impossible..
Humanity, by definition to me, is already a part of a living organism, which is already defined as 'us'.
This 'us' is obviously made up of thinking individuals. "Free" thinking is for another discussion.
The quality of thought is the question. Free thinking and indoctrinated thinking are not the same.
Remember the "beast" is only a tiny, minuscule, and in real terms, insignificant part of 'us'.
The only parts of us that are not part of the Beast are impartial conscious attention, and objective conscience. It is obvious how miniscule a part of our lives they play. The rest is taught by the Beast and allows us to be content as a part of the Great Beast.
Survival of the fittest is defined by a society as meaningful adaptation serving its needs. Animals adapt to changes in nature by changing its features. They may become smaller or larger depending upon food supplies. However survival of the fittest is not defined by nature but my collective human egoism.
Take then question of abortion for example. A mother bird decides a young bird must be removed from the nest and die because nature has determined it unfit. A human mother may abort its young for reasons of convenience having nothing to do with nature. A normal attribute for the Great Beast which lives by vanity unnatural for the rest of organic life on earth.
There have been many individuals with great thoughts and ideas who have been rejected and tossed aside by the "beast", but that in no way infers that the "beast" has some sort of control over the all of 'us'.
Transcending all these "beasts", and looking from the collective of 'us' instead, quickly diminishes any fear about being rejected by "beasts" or societies.
Once the true objective meaning and purpose for human life and for Life, Itself, is understood, then the "beast" is nothing anyway.
I don’t know what you mean by great thoughts. The demagogue expresses many great thoughts and the Beast smiles approvingly on all of them.
It is a matter of transcending all these beasts. The problem is transcending what has corrupted our human nature as it takes place within us. “Know Thyself”. Is easier said than done.
We understand many things intellectually but deny them emotionally. So what do we really understand? Peter in the Bible learned that the hard way. Jesus told him that he would deny him three times. Peter thought this ridiculous intellectually yet he did it three times as an emotional reaction. We are the same. We lack inner unity.
I have already explained many times how to become what a human being is Truly capable of.
I must have missed it.
I thought this topic was about How we can defeat "us vs. them" mentality, which is a true sign of the "beast".
But this isn’t clear. Us vs. them isn’t necessarily bad. Once we deny relative value and how it is understood by different people the idea loses its meaning. People open to objective value are different by definition from those who live by societal whims.
Furthering the needs of the young individuals through what the "beast" must reject is done with one word, that is; LISTENING.
If the human species started LISTENING to their young (and Truly LISTENING that is) instead of listening to their elders, then this would turn absolutely everything upside down and instead of heading deeper into a hell, as human beings are finding themselves now, they will find that they start heading back up into a heaven, like paradise.
True, but who listens? Before wondering who should listen to who, why not consider why we do not listen? Jacob Needleman offers an experiment he did with his students and its positive result. Kids learned how to listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSOs4ti0sm0
As continually shown throughout this forum 'I' must be rejected.
Welcome to the club. Just remember the words of Mark Twain: “"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority it's time to pause and reflect."
Simone Weil never worried about rejection.
The Director of Career Placement. Ecole Normale Supérieure wrote:
We shall send the Red Virgin as far away as possible so that we shall never hear of her again
However Albert Camus wrote in a letter to Weil's mother in 1951:
Simone Weil, I still know this now, is the only great mind of our times and I hope that those who realize this have enough modesty to not try to appropriate her overwhelming witnessing.
For my part, I would be satisfied if one could say that in my place, with the humble means at my disposal, I served to make known and disseminate her work whose full impact we have yet to measure.
Rejection can be a mixed blessing.