The Higher Cause meme

[Verbal Mike]

While reading Cram's diatribe on why he puts up posters, something interesting occurred to me:
It seems that everywhere you go, you bump into the strange expectation that what you do has to have some kind of lofty goal; people seem to think if you don't have a Higher Cause in mind, what you're doing is useless.
And yet at the same time, we live in an era of such complacancy and docility as could hardly be imagined just a century ago. People both expect activity to be driven by lofty motivation, and at the same time spend heartbeats watching goddess-damned American Idol.

Either these two trends are simply opposites in a state of dissonance, or they are somehow corelated. As unintuitive as this may seem, the latter seems to make sense in a way.
For humans, like all living things (and most inanimate objects), are not wired to strive for higher causes all of the time. No, we're rather predisposed to hanging out, indulging in selfish pleasure, being lazy and generally not living our lives for impersonal forces or imaginary goals. Yet at the same time the entire thrust of most major Western ideologies of the past 2-3 millennia seems to rest on making people feel guilty for doing what comes naturally to them. Judaism tells you not to eat delicious ham and seafood (and also to thoroughly limit your enjoyment on the Sabbath). Christianity tells you, in many interpretations, to limit your sexual adventures to only the very limited area considered acceptable by the Church. After these had their run for a while (particularly Christianity), the Industrial revolution brought along a new, secular social ethic, which came with a new schooling system, which came with an ethos based entirely on limiting your present indulgence to enjoy future pleasures. Study now so you can succeed later. Do your homework and we'll let you go out tonight.

In small amounts, any of these would be tolerable and probably even succeed in guilting one into limiting themselves, to a point, and focussing on some imaginary goal, to a point. But now I wonder if perhaps at some point we simply overload and go into a state of perpetually unmotivated laziness, believing we should be doing Something For The Greater Good or should even Just Do Something Good For Ourselves, but continually preferring to sit on our asses and grow fat.
I can see this tendancy in myself - the will to ignore whatever has been hammered into my superego and just indulge in inactivity and base physical pleasure. The laziness coupled with an unfaltering belief that I should be doing more than I am, as should everyone else.

Discuss.

[Verbal Mike]

Oh right, duh, I forgot to point out the point. Writing at work is so distracting.
The point is, doesn't this whole plethora of SRS shrapnel look like an excellent way to induce docility while appearing to preach activity? Doesn't it seem that as a whole, the preaching parties might be bombarding the audience with guilt and moralizing precisely in order to cause an overload? Could it be I lost my train of thought and don't know quite how to put what I originally had in mind at this point?

[Adios]

Confusing people IS a Higher Cause.

100 extra points awarded if we can get their eyes to glaze over.

[LMNO]

This glances off the rant in my head about The Machine, but in a different way... It would seem part of what fuels the Machine is apathy and inertia.

[Cramulus]

I wonder if perhaps at some point we simply overload and go into a state of perpetually unmotivated laziness, believing we should be doing Something For The Greater Good or should even Just Do Something Good For Ourselves, but continually preferring to sit on our asses and grow fat.
I can see this tendancy in myself - the will to ignore whatever has been hammered into my superego and just indulge in inactivity and base physical pleasure. The laziness coupled with an unfaltering belief that I should be doing more than I am, as should everyone else.

Discuss.

That's a good observation.

About a year ago, somebody (Faust or Felix?) ranted about trying to squelch that voice in your head which is saying "You should be doing more," because it saps the fun out of your relaxation. I think it's a healthy vibe - in moderation.

[AFK]

While reading Cram's diatribe on why he puts up posters, something interesting occurred to me:
It seems that everywhere you go, you bump into the strange expectation that what you do has to have some kind of lofty goal; people seem to think if you don't have a Higher Cause in mind, what you're doing is useless.
And yet at the same time, we live in an era of such complacancy and docility as could hardly be imagined just a century ago. People both expect activity to be driven by lofty motivation, and at the same time spend heartbeats watching goddess-damned American Idol.

Either these two trends are simply opposites in a state of dissonance, or they are somehow corelated. As unintuitive as this may seem, the latter seems to make sense in a way.

In my opinion, the trick is to find the happy medium.  I've known the lazy people who waste away in front of the tube.  But, I've also known people who are obsessed with saving the world.  These people who think if they don't "acheive something" in their lives that they are utter failures, and thusly, put immense pressures on themselves and end up not really making ANY progress whatsoever.  I dated someone like this.  She thought it was the goal of her life to make some Earth-shattering, monumental change in the world.  But she was way overthinking and it actually hampered her motivation to the point where she was pretty much paralyzed. 

For myself, I am in a field of work where my work is expected to have impact on others and to improve their lives.  However, I try to be very disciplined about it and not shoot for Mars where what I really need to do is just focus on landing on the Moon. 

To bring it to our BIP/Machine metaphors, it's that changing a small cog and hope that it can exert some change on surrounding cogs.  Maybe, over time, you effect enough where it can start to alter the direction of The Machine, even if to a microscopic degree.  To expect or think you can make some monumental 180 degree shift in its course, I think, is foolhardy and will get you just as far as the bum on the couch watching the Flavor of Love marathon. 

It's cliche, but I think its about finding a way to be satisfied with baby steps.  Patience and discipline are essential components of thinking for yourself. 

[LMNO]

It also perpetuates self-guilt though.  A friend of mine is now incredibly depressed.  "I'm 33," she says, "and all I do is go to work at a dead-end job, come home, have dinner.  On weekends, I may hang out with my friends.  Where did I go wrong?  I was supposed to be famous and important by now."

"But you've got a good life, and a boyfriend you're in love with," I say (the 'oh, then stop' trick doesnt work on her). "You should be happy."

"BUT I'M NOT IMPORTANT!"

[Verbal Mike]

I think basically if people didn't keep trying to make things better, things would just be okay on their own. Most of our large-scale, impersonal problems are the result of attempts to improve the world. (Which nicely ties in with my rant about how The Solution Is The Problem.)

[Jasper]

If there weren't people who tried to make the world better, the world would be nice?

That's what I'm getting from this.

[Cainad (dec.)]

If there weren't people who tried to make the world better, the world would be nice?

That's what I'm getting from this.

It might be a start. There are, of course, people who make the world shitty because that's what they do, rather than screwing it up with their "solutions." It's never as simple as pinpointing a single cause for all the world's shit.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

Scientists and doctors aside....  Look at the people who have made major changes in the world, what they were trying to change and how they did it. 

Am I lazy because I'm not another Ghandi?  Another Lincoln?  I don't think so. 

Will whatever I do in my life have an impact on the whole world, probably (most likely) not but then again that has never been my goal in life.  To be important, famous, remembered?  Is that important to me?  When I was 20 maybe, before my kids were born.

I guess that is what really changed the way I look at what I want out of my life, is my children.  Now do I want THEM to change the world, OH HELL YES.  Will I be disappointed if they don't?  Nope.

However, if I can, in my own way make others question the whys and wherefores of the bullshit we have in the world today, then I'll be a happy camper!  It will be the icing yanno.

[Verbal Mike]

I have a hunch that most of the people who actually did change the world for the better, did this out of indulgence - out of curiosity, out of keen interest, out of compassion.
But I have been known to fall under the influence of hippie-scented optimism, so who knows.

[hooplala]

I was supposed to be famous and important by now."

This, I think, is the problem. 

We were the first generation constantly told how 'special' each and every one of us were, and it turned us into a civilization full of people who think they are already famous, and are wondering why the checks aren't coming in yet, and why nobody is snapping pics of them coming out of the Piggly Wiggly?

Nobody TRIES to do anything worthwhile to become famous because they think they already are.  And if they are somewhat smart enough to realize they aren't famous, they are depressed because they aren't famous.

Few seem to stop to think about the kinds of lives people who are already famous live.

[PeregrineBF]

On Judaism: No pork/no seafood make sense. I wouldn't eat lobster from Mexico, for example, and that's similar sanitary conditions to the ancient world. Hepatitis and Trichinosis are nasty diseases.
The "seethe a kid in its mother's milk" probably had more to do with not liking some other local tribe.

Not that the point is invalid, or that those laws make sense today, when one can get healthy Maine lobster and can cook pork to eliminate Trichinosis.

[Verbal Mike]

That's entirely beside the point. The point is that - completely regardless of the reasoning behind it - these prohibitions are excercized through moralization and (especially) by making people feel guilty when they "go wrong". Whether this is for an actual reasonably logical reason or not is simply irrelevant.