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As few as 10 percent of the adult population can convince the rest of the population to disbelieve “The Fantastic Truths” represented by our natural-born gifts. As few as 10 percent of us peddle the harmful lies and propaganda that is consumed by the many and which causes us to distrust one another.
Although they are relatively few in number, detached people (who lose their sight between remarkable and ordinary) have an oversized influence on society: They tend to overestimate their own importance, are the loudest in the room, talk the most when they should be listening, think they know more than they actually do. They also operate with just as much passion to fulfill a purpose, no matter how destructive. They often have nothing to lose and turn against society.
Negativity becomes their identity because they have detached from their natural born gifts. Once a human mind closes it's almost impossible to open.
It only requires a few detached souls to define what society thinks of itself. For example, a song comes on the radio… Telling our President to Go F#@! himself and the rest of us to suck testicles. Such things entertain our primal side! But it is these crude jokes, the hurtful memes which collectively, gradually, add up to define the society that we are living in.
It’s the temporary time outs we take from being virtuous, which we think are harmless. It’s the moments when people clearly know they are crossing the line, but they do it anyhow. For example, calling each other “lib-tard” or “red neck” in public. The unprocessed moments. The feel-good emotional moments. The ones without any thought, direct from the “brain stem” (as opposed to our “frontal lobe”) which come to define what we think about each other. Our entertainers and comedians call it their art form, not realizing they would sell just as many tickets if they didn't cross the line. Most of us do it. We get swept away into the negativity funnel without even realizing it. We slowly shrink to our lowest form. We each make our casual contribution to the negative attitudes about each other, and about government.
The process of succumbing to our robotic, unremarkable mode is extremely subtle, we rarely stop to think about it and that’s what makes it so destructive. It starts with the few and turns into the many. It’s hard to believe, that we could be the cause of our societal problems when we try our best not to be. But look around us, our social norms become defined by our worst traits, rather than our best - unless we are more careful and turn the tide.
Quotations to discuss:
“Hurt People, Hurt People” Anonymous
“It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow man … who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from such individuals that all human failures spring.” Alfred Adler
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