Social Conscience is defined as an attitude of sensitivity toward and sense of responsibility regarding injustice and problems in society. This is the focus of my blog though I occasionally take liberates to broaden its scope to include societies other than just the U.S., as well as abuses to the environment which is largely helpless to defend itself against our onslaught. Injustice is prevalent everywhere civilized man exists.
I have a theory that civilization suppresses the caveman in us, something very much still a part of us 20,000 years later even since the beginning of human existence, when we were little more than hunters living sustainably off the land and warriors marking out our territory and vigilantly keeping our families out of harms way. The suppression of our primal nature has created problems because we live in a social environment very alien from that which we evolved more than 10,000 years earlier. That prehistoric existence is what is imbedded in our DNA. We have evolved little since and none at all since the industrial revolution just 200 years ago. However we have taken a quantum leap forward in science and technology consequently leapfrogging our social development to its present precarious and unnatural state.
As we have become more civilized over the centuries we have deviated progressively further from our natural caveman ways. We have learned to standardize through the written word, fantasize through our dress, religions and customs, and materialize through our pleasures, entertainment and technologies. Each generation has grown progressively more distant from our natural genetic roots than the previous creating more conflict and a greater sense of loss and confusion.
To compensate we have created a darker side to us in a hopeless attempt to bring ourselves closer to our natural caveman existence where survival and protecting ones turf were an essential part of perpetuating the species. However in the modern social context, where survival and protecting ones turf are much lower in priorities, this translated into looking after number one to the exclusion of others. In this modern-day scenario everyone else is the enemy. So paranoid are we that we often alienate our own families. Thus in highly developed cultures all the social issues of crime, hate, ego and selfishness manifest themselves to great heights resulting in social injustices and conflicts that extend into every facet of life and living. At least that is the way I see it.
This blog is meant to draw attention to the ills of modern society that man has managed to create in self-serving and destructive behaviors. Writing this blog gives me an opportunity to express many of the social deficiencies and injustices I see, experience, and perpetrate. In my senior years I feel I have gained greater wisdom and a realization that to perpetuate our species into the distant future we need to change our behaviors to take a step up the evolutionary ladder towards a more cooperative, engaging and caring world otherwise we are doomed to ultimately self-destruct. This blog is as much about hope as it is about disappointment and despair.
Also see About Me and my background.
ouR Social Conscience 