Ignorance, apathy, and irresponsibility

Ignorance, apathy, and irresponsibility

I claim that the citizens of the US (and probably most other Western style democracies) cannot continue with the level of apathy, ignorance, and irresponsibility that has been the condition with past generations. Technology and population conditions demand that the citizens of democracies must become more intellectually sophisticated if we hope for the species to survive beyond the next 200 years.

I think that a cursory examination of the twentieth century and our present conflict with what are labeled as terrorists dictate that we can no longer afford the luxury of the apathetic slumber that is characteristic of today’s citizens.

I also think that we can no longer afford to indulge in the very long incubation period that our species provides to the young. It is not unusual for youth today to remain less than responsible adults well beyond their twentieth year.

The inertia of the present customs and culture make it almost impossible for these changes to take place from the top down. I think that if drastic change is to take place it rests upon the new generations to force that change.

Young people can do this by quickly becoming more self-reliant, courageous, and enlightened citizens. They can do this through the development of a hobby that I call self-actualizing self-learning. They can do this by quickly becoming more intellectually sophisticated. All of this requires a larger dose of curiosity and caring.

 

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Funny, many are saying we meddle to much in everyone else's affairs yet you seem to think just the opposite! :shrug:

 

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It seems to me that our hand held gadgets have allowed the young to ignore anyone out side of their peers. These gadgets allow the young to escape even further from the world of adulthood.

I think that our civilization is at the cusp of moving from an adolescent stage to an adult stage. I am pessimistic that we shall make the transition. I suspect that we will self-destruct within the next 200 years.

The reason that I say this is because our civilization is being driven by the technology we have created and we cannot match that degree of sophistication or the speed at which it moves. Our technology moves at the speed of a rocket and our sophistication moves at a turtle’s pace.

We must become more intellectually sophisticated quickly and I see little indication that we presently have the sophistication to recognize this fact and to act upon that recognition.

 

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The changes you advocate place a demand on the individual. A person can be ignorant, apathetic, and irresponsible but in societies like the "Western civilizations" you mentioned, no matter how large the groups get, those behaviors still stem from individuals. Parents may raise a child who exhibits ignorance, apathy, and irresponsibility (furthermore referred to as IAI). The problem may be exacerbated by the inability of the parent(s) to teach, and they may be IAI as well. Systems of government can easily exhibit IAI which causes half of the complaints on this forum. Even though the child is protected by systems of law, education, and parents who try to coach the child to change for better or worse, it is the child who must take an effort to succeed.

Diving into escapism through technologies like cell phones and computer screens only enables an individual to feed their IAI. However the technologies themselves are not the problem as they offer opportunities for growth. It is the way in which the technology is used. I agree with your argument that people must be educated at a higher quality and to greater lengths than they are at present. I believe that maturity comes with good education, and the population of full-grown infants would dwindle as a result. However I think that the offer to minimize ignorance, apathy, and irresponsibility should not be limited to Western civilizations, but instead it should be offered worldwide, and it should never be forced.

 

The problem may rest in what value is placed on having a child and the child's value to the parents as well.
In todays western society there appears no time to even enjoy a life long partnership with someone let alone children.
It takes investment of time and energy, both emotional and intellectual to raise children to respect values.
As society is focused on efficiency and expediency instead of sustainability and reliability etc we are shooting our selves in the foot as a race.

example:

IN the state I live in Victoria Australia they have deregulated working hours. The working week now has no week end per see and women are now more encouraged to enter the work force.

The main issue with this is that it has effectively destroyed any chance of family life where both parents are available simultaneously to take pleasure in their children and allow the children to take pleasure in them. [ parents rarely spend time together [ due to different working hours/shifts let alone spend time with their children]
So time is of the essence when the parent [ note the use of the singular] needs to talk to the child and of course that discussion will be all about the usual nagging that parents seem to do leaving no time for the loving and caring that parents used to have time for.

How often do parents consider their children as a liability rather than an asset?

Sure they wouldn't say so to their child's face and even deny their own thoughts on the subject. The reason being the issue not enough time in the day to everything that they want to do.

It takes time to raise a child to adulthood and it takes emotional investment. So much of which is lacking in todays attitudes to child nurturing.
So it is time for society as a whole to re-assess what it values, cold technology with little robotic people running it or a humanly warm community.

 

Marshall McLuhan “The High Priest of Pop-Culture” in the mid twentieth century was the first to announce the existence of the ‘global village’ and to express that “we become what we behold”. McLuhan sought to understand and express the effects of technology on modern culture.

McLuhan was particularly interested in “Technology as Extension of the Human Body”. “An extension occurs when an individual or society makes or uses something in a way that extends the range of the human body and mind in a fashion that is new. The shovel we use for digging holes is a kind of extension of the hands and feet. The spade is similar to the cupped hand, only it is stronger, less likely to break, and capable of removing more dirt per scoop than the hand. A microscope or telescope is a way of seeing that is an extension of the eye.”

Going further in this vein the auto is an extension of the foot. However there are negative results from all such extensions. “Amputations” represent the unintended and un-reflected counterparts of such extensions.

“Every extension of mankind, especially technological extensions, has the effect of amputating or modifying some other extension… The extension of a technology like the automobile "amputates" the need for a highly developed walking culture, which in turn causes cities and countries to develop in different ways. The telephone extends the voice, but also amputates the art of penmanship gained through regular correspondence. These are a few examples, and almost everything we can think of is subject to similar observations…We have become people who regularly praise all extensions, and minimize all amputations. McLuhan believed that we do so at our own peril.”

McLuhan was concerned about man's willful blindness to the downside of technology. In his later years McLuhan developed a scientific basis for his thought around what he termed the tetrad. The tetrad is four laws, framed as questions, which give us a useful instrument for studying our culture.
"What does it (the medium or technology) extend?"
"What does it make obsolete?"
"What is retrieved?"
"What does the technology reverse into if it is over-extended?"

McLuhan’s gravestone carries the inscription “The Truth Shall Make You Free." We do not have to like or even agree with everything that McLuhan said. However, we would be wise to remember that his was a life of great insight and it was dedicated to showing wo/man the truth about the world we live in, and especially the hidden consequences of the technologies we develop.

In the book “The Birth and Death of Meaning” Earnest Becker provides us with a synthesis of the knowledge about the extensions of the human body that McLuhan spoke of and science certified through research.

Becker informs us that the “self” is in the body but is not part of the body; it is symbolic and is not physical. “The body is an object in the field of the self: it is one of the things we inhabit…A person literally projects or throws himself out of the body, and anywhere at all…A man’s “Me” is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his mind, but his clothes and house, his wife and children, [etc].” The human can be symbolically located wherever s/he thinks part of her really exists or belongs.

It is said that the more insecure we are the more important these symbolic extensions of the self become. When we invest undue value onto such matters as desecrating a piece of cloth that symbolizes our nation is an indication that our self-valuation has declined and this overvaluation of a symbol can help compensate that loss. We get a good feeling about own value by obtaining value in the pseudopod as the flag.

In conceiving our self as a container that overflows with various and important extensions that our technology provides us we might appear like a giant amoeba spread out over the land with a center in the self. These pseudopods are not just patriotic symbols and important things but include silly things such as a car or a neck tie. We can experience nervous breakdowns when others do not respect our particular objects of reverence.

Do you think of yourself as being extended as a result of using technology? Do you think such extensions are a representation of reality? Do you think that consciousness of such claims to be useful?

 

Our technology does not move at the speed of a rocket.

 

Except for the technology of the rocket and any technology that the rocket may be carrying, of course..

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oke:

 

What do you mean 'intellectually sophisticated'? On another note, What happens to children when because of the culture of labels that has festered in recent years that through "self actualization" they realize their role in this 'culture of poison" you describe is less than inviting?

I

 

No idea. Fuck, who cares; not as though it's my fault anyway.

 

Coberst: Do you think of yourself as being extended as a result of using technology? Do you think such extensions are a representation of reality? Do you think that consciousness of such claims to be useful?

1. I used to think I was being 'extended' and then I realized this wasn't true at all, that I was actually experiencing a 'narrowing' of self not an expansion. What did I do? I minimized the tech in favor of actual engagement.

2. I do not believe that these extensions are representing reality we simply engage further in hyperreality

3. Yes I do.

rjr6 makes a good point. Intellectually sophisticated is a loaded term.

How does one know when they have attained even a glimmer of it? How is it qualified? It would have to be a process whereby an individual is constantly engaged in self-criticism as well as being able to critique their environment, not to mention exposing themselves to such a wide variety of ideas that they are able to continuously reformat stale ways of thinking etc. and at the same time feel sure of their assessments.

I don't believe its always possibl to critique ones environment from within, I think it takes some distance and, as was mentioned, something else to compare it with.

I actually agree with Cobert's opening but its not easily outlined nor achieved, its a hero's journey and that can never be a 'group' journey.

Coberst have you read Slavoj Zizek's 'Welcome to the Desert of the Real'? Or anything by Baudrillard? Toffler's Future Shock? I haven't read Becker but it sounds as if he is describing the same phenomenon as these others (or vice versa).

 

You claim it but what supporting evidence do you have?
Maybe the technology will fizzle out to match the intellectual "requirements".
200 years? Based on...?

Or alternatively we should become more apathetic and insular and leave other countries alone. Then there won't be any "need" for terrorists.

You think? Considering that's the way the trend has been going for umpteen centuries what is your reasoning for for bucking this trend?

Ah, how appropriate for a thread including the words apathy and irresponsibility in the title: YOU think X should be done, but you're going to leave it up to others...

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Courage being required for? Enlightenment is a null term: it depends on who's using it and what THEY mean. Why should anyone follow your agenda?

Oh goody, a super-duper title for what? Psycho-babble terminology for something you haven't defined... How enlightening.

Specious, meaningless.

And the curiosity is going to instilled how? And see above about caring. If the cared less there'd be less interference with others.
Maybe we need increased self-absorption and a lot less "caring".

 

Oli: Or alternatively we should become more apathetic and insular and leave other countries alone. Then there won't be any "need" for terrorists.

Or rather what gives a lost ignorant, apathetic and irresponsible population that doesn't know itself the moral high-ground to decide what the rest of the world needs?

 

Oh, I love me some Oli.

Maybe I should just marry a doctor, you know, since I'm young, irresponsible, and naked.

 

QED, we have too many people who are insufficiently apathetic.
The truly apathetic don't claim the high ground, it's irrelevant to them.
It's not IAI population that are deciding, it's the insufficiently apathetic (hmm, dare one say politicians

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) claiming the high ground because, for some inexplicable reason, they (claim to) care.
Is it actually worth caring about?

 

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Oli, I'd say humanity is worth caring about so long as the preservation of oneself is worth caring about. At heart, I'm a romantic who believes we matter and hold worth so far as how we affect the world and feel for it.

 

And by "caring" we interfere. Less "caring", more apathy and everyone gets on with their own business. In that way everyone is ultimately cared for because they're left to flourish under their own auspices.

[Edit]Caring about preservation of self?
Surely the less you care about yourself the more you can care about others?[End Edit]

We hold worth due to how much we feel?
Pfft, smacks of Marxist theory on actual value being the effort put into the product regardless of the quality or utility of the finished article.
Feeling without actual result is meaningless, self-gratifying and worthless.
So there!

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No argument on affecting the world though, but there are ways and then there are ways...

 

I see your point Oli but even the apathetic have 'sphere's of interest' or things they do care about its just that they don't see anything outside of those sphere's of interest or they don't care about any outside perspective. Having an opinion, making one known or trying to have impact isn't necessarily a sign of 'caring' empathy. Taking a stance on matters outside of ones immediate sphere of concern can simply be a means of control (self-interest), it doesn't necessarily a sign of 'curiosity' or 'caring' lack of apathy.

Though I do agree that more of us should just mind our damn business in the interest of world peace.