Molière (1622–73), French dramatist. Philinte, in Le Misanthrope, act 1, sc. 1.
The death toll in Pakistan and India after the Oct. 8 earthquake has reached 53,000, according to the New York Times. Yet, these two countries are acting like little kids offering relief and rejecting it, coming up with proposals and counter proposals. Meanwhile, people’s lives are hanging in the balance. Surprisingly the Bush gang is not even involved.
I read Kurt Vonnegut’s “A Man Without a Country” and while I am not even trying to include myself in this group, I do have to say I join them in their belief:
Albert Einstein and Mark Twain gave up on the human race at the end of their lives, even thought Twain hadn’t even see the First World War.
Like my distinct betters Einstein and Twain, I now give up on people, too. I am a veteran of the Second World War and I have to say this is not the first I have surrendered to a pitiless war machine.
What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations, and made it their own?
6 comments:
I could never give up. There is too much good, too much beauty that overwhelms the ugliness I see around me.
That is a good outlook to have. I get discouraged because we don't tap into the good we can do on a regular basis. We continue to perfect killing devices, gathering wealth, ruining the planet, when it would be so easy to change for the better, but humans never will.
I hear you. I feel like giving up too sometimes, but what would that lead to? For me, I don't think I could ever give up wanting to change it, or to just be with people wo ARE somewhat more awake/intelligent/compassionate than the mob. I stay here for people like them, who do care, who are smart, and who do make it worth while.
I'm an Aquarian, and we're supposed to be the humanitarians, but I can't stand humanity, generally. Individually, it's a different story. That's the opposite of the Aquarian ideal.
Humanity will always suck. Humans individually are amazing.
To be a WW2 survivor is a real gift. One I'm glad I was never given. I hope I don't say I'm a ww3 survivor some day. That's another reason I live, to do my part in avoiding ww3.
When I say I have given on humans, I do mean as a whole. Humans as a group are incapable of changing beyond sporadic moments of greatness, which is truly the sad part.
Humans as a group are incapable of changing beyond sporadic moments of greatness, which is truly the sad part.
But those moments can do amazing things. Last year my father came awfully close to dying. He had a triple bypass and recovered in a relatively short period of time in large part because of the incredible advances in medical science.
It isn't all that long ago that people had 10 kids because they might lose a third to diseases like smallpox or TB.
There are still problems, but the good outweighs the bad.
I have to admit you guys help me keep what little faith I do have left.
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