Dealing with other people can be difficult at times. Everybody has a unique perspective, and unless those you are dealing with are open-minded and willing to adjust their views, we often reach an impasse\u200a\u2014\u200aa point where neither side will give ground or compromise in the least. It is those instances when you might want to give up or resort to more drastic action. The friction created through disagreement causes frayed nerves, anger and resentment\u200a\u2014\u200aand in the most extreme case violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to avoid this kind of contention a kind of truce has been called, and the creation of a code by which people can resolve their differences so that things run more smoothly. A peaceful, civil environment is generally less stressful and arguably yields better results overall. The quest for this kind of peace and stability has led to the enshrinement of certain laws that provide a basic foundation, establishing what is and isn\u2019t acceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the institution of these laws a certain complacency develops. As long as the rules are in place and everyone agrees to follow them, there really appears to be no need to give it much thought. Everyone does what they must, behaves as they should and life goes on predictably. Because of a general distaste for putting out extra effort\u200a\u2014\u200aespecially when it appears there\u2019s really no need to do so\u200a\u2014\u200amost of us are content with letting things go on as they are, making no adjustments unless a glaring need arises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why we have legal frameworks that are applied broadly and across the board, with little consideration as to how they might affect specific individuals. This allows us to process people through the system without having to take the time to deal with each person on an individual basis. And if there is justice\u200a\u2014\u200aif someone is falsely convicted\u200a\u2014\u200awe can claim that this is the price of having a system that otherwise functions in a way to maintain overall order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While this may relieve us of concerns about our safety and security, the habitual use of a means to provide immediate relief without acknowledging long term consequences is really like a narcotic. It can numb us to the need for change, particularly when that need is inconvenient and forces us to leave our comfort zones. We don\u2019t want to be reminded that we don\u2019t live in a perfect world, or at least not in a world that can\u2019t be managed by the schemes we\u2019ve already cooked up. Many of us just want to be left alone to live our lives in a kind of peaceful dream, pretending that all is well even when it may not be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This complacency exists in degrees, of course. And it can even accommodate a certain measure of awareness that things aren\u2019t quite right. But the recognition of problems may not lead to any kind of direct action on the part of those who can see them yet may feel that there are already mechanisms in place to deal with them. Or perhaps it\u2019s believed that those problems that can\u2019t be dealt with in a mechanistic way are essentially insoluble and part of the human condition. In other words, if the system can\u2019t fix them, they can\u2019t be fixed and we just have to accept that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is easy, of course, for those who are not directly affected\u200a\u2014\u200awho have led a \u201ccharmed life\u201d and managed to avoid such unpleasantries as disease, poverty, violence, mental illness and whatever else that can happen to the less fortunate. They may feel a certain amount of compassion for those who suffer, but that suffering occurs on such a large scale and lacks the kind of immediacy of either going through it personally or watching someone else who is close to you going through it. By believing that somehow all of that suffering will be sorted out spares us from feeling in some way responsible and obliged to do something about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact is, there isn\u2019t much that we, as individuals, can do to cure the world of all its ills. But we can, however, do things and approach life in such a way that we can help to make the world a better place for those who are in some kind of pain. By looking at the way our society functions\u200a\u2014\u200aat how the system works and imagining different ways that it might\u200a\u2014\u200asteps can be taken to improve conditions. To do this, though, requires us to no longer believe that either things will take care of themselves or that the responsibility for changing things can be off-loaded to others, whether that be government bureaucrats or those who are hired to clean things up. Having the opinion that we can go about our lives without questioning or being aware of what is happening around us only makes it possible to ignore the dire circumstances in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing that enables our complacency is our insulation. It isn\u2019t so much that our tendency to cruise through life on autopilot is the actual source of this attitude\u200a\u2014\u200ait is the attitude that encourages us to find moral and ethical cover so that we do not have to act and entangle ourselves in the tribulations of our fellow human beings. We want to believe that we needn\u2019t act, so we find a way to avoid having to do so directly. This is perhaps the greatest obstacle to healing the cultural wounds that have afflicted so many. Those with the means to change things\u200a\u2014\u200awho have the knowledge, skill and resources to set society on a different course\u200a\u2014\u200acan avoid their sense of personal responsibility by blaming everything on the system and society at large. This gives us all an easy out\u200a\u2014\u200aa way of passing the buck and going on with our relatively comfortable lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what is the solution? What can break the pattern? First, we must realize that we can\u2019t live our lives on autopilot. Doing so only creates a thin veneer of comfort. More often than not there is a simmering anxiety that Thoreau referred to as \u201cquiet desperation\u201d. We see the suffering of others and, even the most callous among us must imagine \u201cWhat if?\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200awhat if that soul I see writhing in pain might be showing me what I might someday suffer myself? Purely out of self-interest might I not want to create a world where that kind of suffering is eliminated or at least significantly reduced\u200a\u2014\u200ajust to reduce the possibility of my finding myself in that predicament?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The basic fallacy of the autopilot approach is that in our search for a simple, elegant, low-cost solution we can create a world that will trundle along without much thought or effort. But once we set about creating a system that functions in this way, we tend to stop thinking and evaluating our circumstances\u200a\u2014\u200aand that leaves us open to unexpected consequences. If we really wish approach our lives in a way that can accommodate our needs and provide for the best possible life\u200a\u2014\u200aavoiding the potential problems which we mistakenly might believe we are doing through the construction of an autonomous, anonymous methodology\u200a\u2014\u200awe must instead be ever aware and fully engaged in co-directing the way things are done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dealing with other people can be difficult at times. Everybody has a unique perspective, and unless those you are dealing with are open-minded and willing to adjust their views, we often reach an impasse\u200a\u2014\u200aa point where neither side will give ground or compromise in the least. It is those instances when you might want to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}