Shackles of a mindset adapted to society

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Warning: Philosophical topic

I've been thinking about this for the last 4 minutes, wow

Kinda hard to express with words, as with so many other topics, but here it comes...

The etiquete and the rules of behaviour that apply in a normal society are normaly quite strict and all too often just made up&still stacking by a type of people who build their self-confidence by abiding by some rules only a small group of people know about. Kinda like costumes party, banquetes official visits and stuff. Makes people who are involved easier to behave, because they have a model a pattern by which they can behave so they wont stand out.
So we have a major group of people like these, some living a life like this, others wanting to, but as they're unable to due to various reasons, creating their own illusions why they dont, so they dont feel as lesser people. Maybe creating their own small groups, setting another small, petty code of conduct to feel special.

Whatever, i strayed from the topic again, and if i edit what i've written, i'll just mess things up more, since things i wanted to say wont be said clearly enough.

The conclusion i wanted to come to is how this behaviour rules limit us. What a man could be, if he wasnt repressed by society. Interaction with other people is neccessary of course, otherwise we get adoults with a mindset of a ten year old. But interaction without criticism, without judgement and condemnation.
This is sorta what Budhism teaches. Perceiving reality without expectations, hopes, desires. Those who read a Song of Ice and Fire, martin described it well with Syrio and his water dance martial art. Look with your eyes, not your mind. Something like that is what i'm talking about.


As i see it, this is a typical phylosophical topic, with so little boundaries, which makes it difficult to respond to in any sensible way. That's why just respond to it as you see fit, explaining it as best you can, but not decending to the level when you water down what you want to say to make it easier to understand for others. That's what i tried to do, that's why it must be difficult to discern what i'm trying to say at all
I was just wondering how others look at this

 

Hmm... okay. First, maybe the origin of rules of behaviour could have been different? Something ritual, as in, making every little thing a moral decision, including the way you greet people, serve dishes etc? Or maybe certain rules of engagement to avoid unwanted affronts and conflicts? Many factors intertwine in this, I think.

As for unfitting groups making up their own rules, I suppose it works like with children. They can't learn the language properly, so they make up words and even forms, so as to feel equal. Then we can think of AOL kiddies who can't speak proper English, so they flaunt their stupid l33t instead.

Perceiving reality without expectations would mean the abandonment of logical thinking. Expectations are a probable course of events calculated basing on previous experience. If we removed this, perhaps we wouldn't be able to learn aymore.

Then hopes. Realising that it isn't always possible to calculate a probable cours of events and that probable doesn't mean certain. Realising many possibilities and acknowledging one as more favourable than others and welcoming that possibility. This is a pretty logical thing.

Desires. Adopting an emotional attitude towards a certain course of events more favourable than other possibilities. Projecting a state of matters different from the current one and more favourable in the light of chosen criteria. Wanting something the more the more favourable it is. This is also a pretty logical process.

Still, I think it's a good idea to avoid excessive attachment to an expectation, hope, desire or anything one already has. A firm reality check is always much in order. Similarly, it's also in order when forming judgements. Judging actions instead of people who perform them is a good attitude. Still, positive actions naturally give rise to hopes, negative to fears and all form expectations if there is any logical consequence or sometimes even without it.

By judging actions we don't have to understand a full and detailed judicial judgement. How exactly good or evil it was, where exactly on the plausible or condemnable scale. No. But trying not to judge people shouldn't lead us to affirming all their actions. That would defy reason and push us into hipocrysy by jumping into a false conclusion that all possible states of things and all possible outcomes are equally favourable. Of course, a positive result will not render us immune to future mishaps and after a negative one we will still have to move on, so ultimately we will have to get over ourselves and keep going, but there is a difference between the two.

But excessive concetration on the moving on seems to be close to an excuse for inaction. If we will have to move on anyway and the result will ultimately be immaterial in the scale of eternity, why do anything? We might ask. This will be true for any one of us or a small group. But if all single persons started believing that each single person's actions were immaterial and thus inaction made no difference, what would happen? Inaction would make difference. If a single voter doesn't show up for the elections, it won't matter. But if 40% voters adopt this view simultaneously, the difference is easily felt. We have barely valid elections and the elects are hardly representative. If the majority voters adopted the view, the exact percent depending on the jurisdiction, we wouldn't have valid elections and would thus have elected no authorities.

Imagine a hundred men carrying a stone. If one decides to take it easy and stop tiring himself, the burden will distribute between the remaining 99 people. They will hardly feel the difference. But if he were to find followers, the rest would have to increase their efforts and they would likely fail in the end. If all men followed the example, the stone would fall on them and crush them all.

If someone decides that he isn't going to follow the rules but still wants the benefits, he acts like the one in hundred who wouldn't put effort in carrying the stone. He doesn't enjoy the prospect of overworking himself and feeling tired but neither does he want the stone to fall and crush him. In this, he counts on others for sustenance. He thinks he outsmarted the system. But what if the road were long and harsh, the number of men had been calculated to hundred as a just enough number and the men didn't know this before setting off? Each slacker's tax on the group effort would accumulate and close to the end of the journey, all men would have to increase their efforts to superhuman levels, including the slacker who initially refused to take part in bearable hardship. Because the other men would be tired, he would have to try even harder if he didn't want the stone to fall on his head. Thus he would repay it to the last penny and in a very unpleasant fashion. Almost certainly he would wish he had been less smart at the beginning of the way and he would likely curse the illusion of being better off. If his efforts were to prove insufficient and the stone to fall and crush all men, he would surely not have been better off. If he had participated in the burden from the beginning, he would be tired but alive.

Of course, he could announce his rejection of the burden more openly. If other men followed suit, maybe they wouldn't be crushed but the stone wouldn't move. The task wouldn't be done and they wouldn't be free in anything more than being able to preoccupy themselves with vain consumption instead of working. But what when the reason why they were to carry the stone in the first place comes into play? What if they are a part of a bigger community which depends on them to deliver the stone to its destination? Will they not suffer themselves from the suffering of the whole community? Even if they again find a way to shift the burden on others, won't they perish without a community to drain, like a parasite without any living organism to feed on?

Even if the goal of carrying the stone isn't known to them, what guarantee do they have that failing to meet it won't affect them? Farmers who don't plough their fields and don't sow their wheat and barley will eat bread and drink bear all the summer and maybe autumn. But what when winter comes? When will they find wheat for their bread and barley for their beer? They will have to turn to other farmers for help, if there are any, and rely on their generosity. Maybe they will be generous, but this way everyone will have less and there will be no partying. If they wanted to have enough and still be able to party, wouldn't it be easier for all of them to work harder where the result depends on their work and not the natural cycle of vegetation and party later, when they are all done and their granaries are full for the winter to come?

[ June 22, 2005, 12:54: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

First lemme thank you for sharing your view on the subject.
For now though, i'll withhold my comment and rather read your whole post again and think through it thoroughly rather than making a hasty responce.

Edit...

Agreed, it's too hasty to place the fault for all the rules on man's desire for superiority, to feel special. People are different, so they probably had to find some common and neutral ground to communicate.


Expecting and hoping for a future result... I should have explained this in more detail. There's nothing wrong with coming up with hypotetical situations. What i hoped to say is that one should try to addopt a distant view on things. All too often people get in heated arguments, loose themselves in their own idea, unreachable by reason. Looking at it from different points of view equals looking at it untouched by it, passively and without emotion.
Thing is, our own future scenarios bear too much of ourselves in it. They depend too much on the person imagining it. If someone is depressive by nature, future will naturaly look bleak to him. It's natural for everyone to perceive reality a shade different than anyone else. Common example is half full/ half empty glass. People decide what they see differently based on what they basicaly are, how they think, observe, see,...

Here's the catch now. A grand majority of people think and perceive reality in generaly the same way. It's derived from the surroundings they live in, people they encounter, spirit of the age they're living in, etc. They are considered normal, because almost everyone else is like them in most views.
On the other hand, there are people who view things completely different. It's impossible to judge whether their look is better or worse than our own. No matter which we decide it is, foremost it is different. The way they think and express themselves. And these people are the ones that have most of the impact on our history. Famous leaders, poets, generals,...
If one takes a general look at the most important people, who turned the times, in most cases one'll stumble on something weird to our way of thinking, in any case, different.

IMO that's a mind that's not hindered by common mindset of the time. What caused such an abnormality is the question though.


To the thought of society.
IMO, people who live together can only live freely, like self-reliant individuals if they are equal to one another. Equality, though, eventhough being a nice concept, is simply not possible in reality. There is constant struggle for supremacy, you can see it at every turn, anywhere there's a bunch of people on one place, where they depend on one another, there'll instantly form a social ladder, based on simple strenght. Same rule as in a pack of wolves, survival of the fittest. In different groups, different type of being the fittest. Either stronger, smarted, more sly, backstabbing, etc.

In such a society, how can you be yourself, or even work towards improving it?

Sure you could argue, if everyone thought the same way as me, there's no way it can change, if not everyone is working to improve it. Again, a nice concept, an ideal world, where everyone helps others, cares for the neighbour,... What Cristianity teaches and one of the major reasons why it's such a global religion. A prime example how it turned out. Think of the middle ages, inquisition. People invariably destroy anything great that takes seed. Just like a sandcastle, it comes and goes.
Why?
Because people are different, that's all. While a lot of people are "nice" as most understand the word and work towards the ideal world, others decide the world is theirs for the taking and exploit the weakness of the idea for their own satisfaction. Of course, only their own, who gives a damn about some fool with some foolish dreams, as long as he's as easily used as he is. So, still, looking at the world in the big picture, strenght rules supreme.


Enough for now, this is my view, share yours with others, if you please.
(be back in three days)

[ June 24, 2005, 23:27: Message edited by: Gothmog• ]