Healing Humanity

Healing Humanity
By L. (Written on Jule 23, 2008)

The problem with humanity lies within its current mindset. We favor tradition instead of evolution; quantity instead of quality; education instead of knowledge; religion instead of truth; convenience instead of righteousness. What's worst however, is that we're introduced to this mindset by our parents even before we learn to speak, and continue to have it force fed throughout our school years to have it be finally confirmed by society as we enter adulthood. If we are to change as a society for the better and save ourselves from the impending ill fate that we are currently building for ourselves, we must understand why this mindset is destroying us, replace it with a better one, and finally, teach it to our children.

1. TRADITION.

“... all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” - US Declaration of Independence

There are many problems with this principle of choosing tradition over evolution. The first is within the principle itself: to say an evil is sufferable is to assume that people suffer the same way or that it is tolerable to everyone. Regardless of what the problem may be, people suffer differently, in different degrees, some more, some less, but it is generally inevitable that it will be unbearable to some. Therefore, no evil is truly “sufferable.” Next, take a leak as an example, left unattended it is bound to worsen. The same is true to all “evils,” to leave them be because they're “sufferable” instead of righting them is to allow for the creation of an insufferable evil. Finally, the principle goes against the very idea of evolution: everything can and should be improved. The priority should never be to protect tradition but rather to break it for the good of the future.

2. QUANTITY.

“Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?” - Henry David Thoreau

Democracy is, in all its “justice” and “freedom,” a very dangerous principle. Outrageous? Possibly, but just as true nevertheless. Consider this, can among ten persons one be right and the rest be wrong? One would most likely jump into Probabilities in order to answer that there's a greater chance for the nine to be right and the one to be wrong. Then I must propose yet another question, is Right, or Truth for that matter, defined by chance, or by conscience and knowledge?
Let me answer this last question by reviewing a bit of History. There was a time when the majority of people, including some of the greatest thinkers of the time, thought the Earth was flat. Was the Earth flat then because the majority thought so? Was the Earth ever the center of the Universe because at one point people thought it to be? I'm sure anyone would find these questions to be silly since we are now taught as little children that the Earth is round, the Sun is in the center of the Solar System and nobody knows where the center of the Universe is; the very idea that it was once thought otherwise is silly. The people who discovered these truths were persecuted by the majority, their lives even threatened. Why? Because they went against the majority and against tradition, both of which should not be important when deciding right from wrong, mainly when opposed by knowledge.
This is one of numerous possible examples that demonstrate that Truth, or Right, remains true and right regardless of who or how many people if any, believes in it.
Am I saying that the voice of the majority should then be ignored and the power of choice bestowed upon the minority? Not at all, to empower a group because it is either a majority or a minority is the same mistake made in different ways, that is, to base right and wrong on the number of people who believe in it instead of knowledge.



3. KNOWLEDGE

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” - Albert Einstein

The way we educate ourselves and others has two fundamental flaws. First, we pass down knowledge instead of trying to improve it. What I mean is that when a person teaches another, they should not limit the knowledge to what they know, but rather use the present knowledge as a tool so that he(she) and the other person can improve the existing knowledge. Most of the time when a student is able to actually improve on the knowledge and becomes more proficient than the teacher at it, the teacher feels somewhat offended. They should instead be proud as this is the one time when they did their job right, in fact, it should be their goal from the beginning for the students to know more than they do about the subject in question by the end of the course. This also applies to parents, Parents don't generally accept when there's a situation in which their children seem to be more right than them. Personally, I would be extremely proud of myself if my child was able to surpass my knowledge, the younger the better. The Second flaw is that education is often based on tradition. If education is to serve the purpose of improvement then it cannot be based on tradition since tradition is based on keeping things the same. The only tradition allowed in schools should be to not allow any traditions that impede the evolution of knowledge. Parents should also not keep any traditions at home that keep their children from learning more.

4. RELIGION

“In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination.” - Mark Twain

People often use their religion and beliefs as justification to do wrong. All religions are based on and for one purpose, to do good and right. People who fight for religion, be it a personal fight against another person or a war between peoples, are doing anything but following a religion. It doesn't matter what the God's name is, if there are more than one God or not, to whom He or They speak or spoke to, or when or where it happened, if one carefully analyzes all religions they will find that they are in fact the same. All religions, be it Judaism, Islam, Christianity, or any other religion, can have all their beliefs summarized into one principle: to love the next person. Anyone whose actions go against this principle is doing anything but following a religion and should be barred from doing so.
Once religion is appropriately defined as loving the next person, it should be the basis for everyone's actions as it obviously benefits everyone. Governments should then, instead of separating themselves from religion, be an expedient for it by means of laws and education. This would in fact be a much better form of government than Democracy, as it would ensure that right is done rather than the will of the majority, who's not always, in fact generally not, right.

5. CONVENIENCE

“All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.” - Benjamin Franklin

If we are to, for once, change for the better rather than for the worse, we must start paying attention to problems that have troubled humanity throughout all of its existence rather than worrying about mere inconveniences of the present. For one, the solution to these inconveniences, due to the fact that they're not well analyzed before being implemented, are often responsible for the creation of new inconveniences. Secondly, by solving the real problems that afflict humanity, such as living space, feeding everyone, keeping a clean environment, etc, these other emergent inconveniences that seem urgent will fall into place.
Now, this applies mostly to governments as they're the ones with the authority to make such decisions. When it comes to everyone else, they too should stop making choices based on what's convenient at the time and instead make them based on what's right and wrong for everyone. True, at first, it will most likely seem like it's not working since everyone is accustomed to the quick fix of doing what's convenient, but as more and more people start analyzing the outcome of their choices and doing what's right, things will slowly fall into place and their lives will become much easier.

GETTING PEOPLE TO CHANGE

1. HOW MANY?

There's no specific number of how many people must change. The more people that change, the easier the change will be, with less conflict between the two sides. The important thing is that there should always be people changing for the better, for as long as everyone is stuck the way they are, nobody is going anywhere but down.

2. WHO MUST CHANGE?

At first, parents. As said at the beginning, they're the first ones to introduce a person to the mindset they're most likely going to have. So parents need to change first so that when they start to educate their children, they do it in such a way as to bring up good persons. It must always be the goal of a parent that their children become a better person than they are. For that to happen, they must always be a good role model so that their children have someone to serve as a point of reference (People who smoke, drink, etc, don't make good role models as these attitudes can't be explained by reason). They must teach their children how important it is to think for themselves and make their choices in such a way to benefit everyone and not just themselves.
Next, teachers, for they are responsible for good part of a person's education, they too must change. Once parents start to change, they will definitely require schools to change accordingly. Schools must stop emphasizing titles, diplomas and grades, and start emphasizing actual acquirement of knowledge; and stop rewarding students for simply following instructions like little pawns and instead reward them for their ability to think and learn. True, schools serve the purpose of instructing and therefore must show the right path for students to take, but taking the right path is an expedient for a greater goal, that is, to learn. Moreover, different people learn in different ways, some faster than others; therefore, it is the job of the school to accommodate these differences and, if it is their job to teach, that they grade based on the amount of knowledge learned and nothing else.
If enough parents of a generation are able to change, and then force schools to change accordingly, then even though most of the present generation will remain the same, the next will grow up differently, and when they become adults they will have the necessary tools: knowledge, willingness, righteousness; to change the world for the better.

HOW WOULD I CHANGE

I already did. Even though I never starved or had nowhere to live, my life wasn't easy. My parents divorced when I was only ten months old and my mother and I went to live with my grandmother. My mother was never very responsible, and generally, when she wasn't working she was partying and wasting the money she made. My grandmother on the other hand, was never very healthy, and always had to struggle to make do with what little she could earn as a hairdresser and what even littler my mother contributed. They were always having arguments because my grandmother wanted my mother to help more and my mother didn't want to. There were times when the conflict became physical, even a few times when my mother hit my grandmother hard enough to make her bleed.
What does this have to do with anything? Some consider me lucky, for I was extremely intelligent since I was little, to the point of having to see a psychologist because people couldn't find the right place for me in school. My IQ, it was well above the 170s. I don't think I was so lucky however, personally, I wish I had been dumber than the average kid, for it would've made things a lot simpler. Being as intelligent as I was and having to see what I saw, I had to make sense of things in my head somehow, and so, from the time I was little, I've been spending all my life analyzing everything and everyone in order to understand why things are the way they are and how they could change for the better.
One could safely say I had no childhood due to that. I had practically no friends. I would analyze the kids I went to school with and see that they were a mere reflection or their parents, who in general, save for a few exceptions, weren't that great and definitely not someone I would like to be like, and so I distanced myself from them. Even my own mother, after analyzing her for a while, I came to the conclusion that the best she would be for me was as an opposite role model, in the sense that she was in general an example of what I should not be or not do.
And so, I educated myself, with as little interference from other people as I could. Even in school, I often couldn't see the point in being there. Teachers in general cared about whether the kids did what they told them to and not about whether they were learning or not. This became a lot more evident after I entered High School here in the US. I would learn everything the first time a teacher explained if I didn't already know it, and so, I wouldn't do homework because the purpose of homework is to help the student learn, and if a student already learned, then it's useless. And yet, more often than not teachers threatened to fail me because I wouldn't do homework even though I had the highest grades in all tests and used to stay after school helping other students by explaining to them what was said in class.
Most kids assimilate the adults around them and end up becoming like them. I however, did mostly the opposite; I would see an adult doing something that I thought was wrong and would tell myself to become different. After 20 years of living these dynamics I became the person I am today; a person who is a result of analyzing other people and assimilating the good and changing the bad. Unfortunately, there's so much bad and so little good in the world, that I became a person that is too different from the rest. I'm not trying to say that I'm all good, for nobody's perfect and everyone can and should improve, but unlike most people who just live their lives and assimilate the characteristics of their parents and their peers, I've been carefully making sure not to do that, to instead, become the person who, after carefully analyzing the people around me, I think a person should be.
I'm ready to do everything I can in order to help the world become a better place. However, so long as people remain the way they are, there's absolutely nothing I can do. People must realize, like I did, that living their lives the way they do is not really beneficial for anyone in the long run even though it might seem good in the short term. I can't force them to change; they have to do it themselves. Moreover, it seems like I can't even mention anything about people changing, it seems that whenever you say to a person that they should change, regardless of how carefully you pick your words, the more unlikely they become to change. So not only do people need to change for themselves, they also have to see it for themselves that they must change.
What would I do if people did change? I would probably become a teacher; I already did a better job of teaching my friends in high school than our teachers, and after I graduated I taught English to Portuguese speaking people in the community I live in for a while. What would I teach? That would depend on what seemed more important for people to learn in my opinion at the time.
What can I do while people don't change? I can’t do anything. For one thing, being around people generally sickens me. The way they act, the things they do, the choices they make, I just can't accept it. I believe in freedom, but only in the freedom to do good. Moreover, I don't want to help a malfunctioning society become worse by contributing to it in anyway that won't lead them to change. And if I can't make them change, that leaves nothing.