The Batlord

The world isn't a joyless place with nothing to love about it, but this is still a world ruled by people who elect people like Trump and Hitler and stand by and do nothing during the Rwandan genocide, the Holocaust, and countless other massacres, not because they don't know about them, but because we are such a provincial race that the idea that we could honestly, TRULY care in a MEANINGFUL way that AFFECTS a wider world beyond the few miles outside of our own immediate knowledge is simply a fiction. That is why those little joys like music and our loves ones are so powerful, because that's what we're programmed to derive real meaning from, the immediate, and not the abstract, like the world outside. We're simply not designed to live on a global scale, which is why the global world can seem to be affected by us on such a seemingly arbitrary, impersonal level, because it is, because that's the most that can be expected of the human race.

Still happy?

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Maajo

Trump being elected just makes me want to push on harder. Struggling is part of societal living, we all live in mostly big communities and we have to take note of what other folks around are saying whether we agree with 'em or not. They're gonna vote for fringe **** just because they feel like there's nothing for them, part of that's because they're systematically lied to for their entire lives and part of it's just educating. A lot of socially regressive types don't want to educate themselves so what chance do they have of being educated by anybody else? Our education system tries to fit everyone into a handful of classes, and anything else that's even remotely rewarding is an extra-curricular and it costs extra money more times than not. Just $20 can be a lot of money to some people, and it's all the same price no matter where you buy your clothes or what kind of car you drive. Some people can afford $500 more than I can afford $5.

Chula Vista

Why would any band want to be consistent? Not only album to album, but even worse, song to song.

It works for very few, AC/DC being an obvious example. But the best of the best were always evolving and stretching the boundaries of conventional popular song structure.

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Frownland

You can be consistent without being monotonous.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

MicShazam

It seems that you are making the argument that the darker, more hopeless aspects of life are always there, right under the surface. I try to remember that in cases of, for example, the Rwandan genocide, there are not only those that commited atrocities agaisnt a minority, but also that minority. I can empahtize with that minority and hold on to that as an example of a just cause. Even if 90% of humanity turned out to be ****, I can still remind myself that those other 10% are worth investing my hopes in.
I think humans are better than that, by the way, even if WWII makes a good argument to the contrary.
TL;DR: I won't give in to cynicism no matter how many horrible things happen, because I still see a powerful strain of grace in the human spirit. Taking this on a much less serious level, I'd say that it's worth trying to maintain a sort of wide eyed enthusiasm for art and human accomplishment, no matter how dark the shadow side of the coin gets.
Otherwise, I could just as well give up and down a bottle of pills and be done with it.

Chula Vista

Or............

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

Frownland

Yep. My point was that being consistent isn't really a good or bad thing or that it equates to a monotonous artist. I guess it all rests on what it is that they're being consistent...of, with, at? You know what I mean.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Chula Vista

Whoa.

I just called the funeral home folks to change the inscription on my urn.

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

MicShazam

Maybe it's a bit sentimental, but I just think that... when you can only see how **** everything is, you've sort of given up on everything, and I don't want to go there.

The Batlord

In the Rwandan genocide the government handed out machetes to the Hutu populace and expected them to contribute, and they did, without resistance or complaint. That's one reason why the death toll was so quick so soon, because there was no escape for the Tutsis with the enemy being next door. The massacre wasn't carried out just by death squads, but by people just like you and me who'd been conditioned to hate, which is something that humanity as a whole is very easily conditioned to do. The human race is tribalistic by nature, and it doesn't really take much to bring it out. Basically just not having a comfortable lifestyle is enough to make people take their frustrations out on an outsider group, so long as it's easy, because they have different color skin, or a different religion, or simply a history of being seen as different. Just look at America with Trump and Hispanics, or Europe with Muslims. Just how different would it be if Europe wasn't such a comfortable, 1st world place to live in? How accepting do you think your country would be? How many would die?

How much did it take the Germans to take their frustrations out on the Jews? How much did it take to let the Jews be the scapegoats? How much did it take for the majority of Germans to turn their heads away from what they knew was happening and go about their lives as if nothing was happening because it was simply easier than doing something about it? That's the real issue. Not that some Germans killed a bunch of Jews, but that the majority of Germans didn't care enough to do anything about it. People simply don't care enough to try to stop genocide if it's too hard. Or if it's hard at all. Or simply if the people in charge say "do it" when they can make a case for it that jibes with some narrative that seems plausibe. That's honestly all that's needed to change civilization to barbarism, because ultimately the difference is imaginary.

And no country is different. Under the right conditions, nearly every single human on Earth could be so callous and indifferent. We might sing to our children and sing Christmas carols and give to charity, but nearly all of those same people could look the other way in the face of state sanctioned murder because it's simply difficult to do otherwise. There's a quote from a Holocaust survivor that I think sums up the human race pretty well, "This world is not this world." The human race and its civilization is simply a front to pretend that we are not simply animals capable of monstrosity at the drop of a hat the same as any animal.

Still happy?

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