You Can't Change Anything

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

At one time, I felt that my attitude towards other people (after being refined with philosophy) was flawless - that I knew what was truly “right and wrong”.

I felt that I had figured out how society could be improved - that I knew what it had been doing wrong, and how to fix it:

Judeo-Christian morals are what is holding society and the human population back from reaching its full potential. It would be best for civilization to revert back to the set-up of ancient Greece - where “you get what you put in”, where you can be your own master and finally find life fulfilling once again.
No more materialism, no more “accumulating shit that we don’t need”. We should keep only the technologies that are absolutely vital, and disband the rest.

But then I began to contemplate evolutionary psychology - that is, the traits within the human minds are products of evolution; just like how primates evolved for opposable thumbs, humanity has also been evolving to gain better and more refined psychological characteristics.

The reason that people in western civilization are lazy and materialistic, is because we evolved to gain those qualities. “Moral restrictions” are only accepted if people “intuitively feel” that those moral restrictions are correct - perhaps these moral restrictions have even been necessary.

For example, maybe we have morals against sex in our society because ancient societies that didn’t have moral restrictions against sex would become overrun with STDs, and the children would grow up without parents who truly cared for them.

The reason why “beautiful people” are more desired for reproduction, is because our mind registers their “beauty” as healthiness. Ancient societies which did not value “beauty”, where people would reproduce with anyone, would end up falling apart. What we find “attractive” or “unattractive” (excluding variances in personal preference) is rooted in our collective unconscious - those “attractive or unattractive” traits are traits that our ancestors needed for the species to overcome a certain ailment or affliction.

In these complex ideas concerning the “causality of evolution”, it is easy to get lost. You also come to find that “society can’t be improved in one way without having to sacrifice something in return”.
You then might come to realize what society’s morality truly is, it is an equation - an algorithm used for preparing the human race for the next step in human evolution - whatever that step may be.

Societies build themselves up and grow larger, until a flaw in the structure of that society is exposed and exacerbated and causes the collapse of that society. Then, the ones who are left - the ones who had the trait to overcome the flaw in that society - rebuild and start the process over again.

Once this monster was created in my own mind - once I realized that “what I like doing” is merely what my ancestors needed to “like doing” in order to survive - I found myself paralyzed.

I then created a new monster to defeat the old one: “Humanity is in an equilibrium - by coincidence, humanity has reached its most ideal point for human existence in our lifetime. The human race will not be able to be refined, and this is as good as it gets.”

2

When speaking about “refining” the human race, you must realize that you are essentially implying that the human race stands to benefit from enforcing a strict adherence to specific principles, ideas, etc. We do this already in the hopes of “refinement”, but have found historically that cultural refinement is only as strong as that of the respective leaders (because they are the actors that put on the faces of the masses).

If anything I would argue that humanity is not at its peak, though it may seem so in consideration of our decadence. I think we have more accurately reached a plateau (thus the advancement of decadence) caused largely by the very ideas of politics, refinement, betterment, advancement, success, strength – and, over all, perhaps power? Man has ‘vented’ his power over his environment so meticulously that we have nearly exhausted our options for new avenues of “refinement” or “betterment” to become reality. We are at a point that preexisting social constructs must be abandoned or destroyed to allow for such a manner of improvement. Unfortunately it seems that extremists are the only ones getting attention in this capacity since an intelligent decision made by a government that, in the end, contradicts itself will cause dissension among its people. Governments and other similar ruling bodies (including religion) can only really allow for so much “refinement” because they need to utilize the human capacity for ignorance and naivety.

That is to say human ‘refinement’ will only be tolerated, by humans, to a certain extent.

That being said, can you really change anything? Yes. You can change yourself and your perception of the ‘dark comedy’ of life. Free thinkers are burdened with refining themselves, that is unless you wink at the kind of fate Socrates was offered for his influence.

3

It’s a good job I disagree or I’d put my head down and run straight into a brick wall. This is a contradiction because the result is already decided and any monster can’t defeat the inevitable. I don’t believe in predeterminism or that man is limited by his intrinsic structure in our lifetimes. I have to believe that or I would become depressed. :slight_smile:

4

This is not possible; cultural evolution takes place orders of magnitude faster than genetic. Ideas are not tied to the genetic carrier - I had different ideas at 18 than I do now, and I expect to have different ones again when I’m 50, and I don’t expect my son to have the same ones. Find me a gene for materialism and we’ll talk.

Firstly, if you’re talking evolution, it’s not a coincidence.

Secondly, evolution is always a step behind the present day. The current environment weeds out the least suited of the current generations, meaning that future generations are adapted to the current (hence for them, past) environment. We’re always becoming.

5

And this is where it must stop. for good. Reason being is that anything further will require destabilization and individualization. 10000 tards will always be more powerful than one elite in quota enforcement.

6

If you really question the solutions, you will have to question the ones who have offered you those solutions. But sentimentality stands in the way of your rejecting not only the solutions, but those who have offered you the solutions. Questioning that requires a tremendous courage on your part. You can have the courage to climb the mountain, swim the lakes, go on a raft to the other side of the Atlantic or Pacific. That any fool can do, but the courage to be on your own, to stand on your two solid feet, is something which cannot be given by somebody. You cannot free yourself of that burden by trying to develop that courage. If you are freed from the burden of the entire past of mankind, then what is left there is the courage.