Competitive Brutality

     They could never understand their own brutality. To them it's normalcy, like the cook who's handled hot foods for so long he can with his fingers pull sausages straight out of a deep fat fryer, and though immersed to the first knuckle, feel little or no pain in oil hot enough to fry that sausage. The sad truth is, as with all things when dealing with people, what difference it makes is significant only to the individual. There is no impetus to reason beyond that. If you don't want them to brutalize you, then leave. If circumstance forces you to remain, then deal with it. They are never clear about what deal with it means. Conceivably it could mean force them to change. (Engage in brutality yourself.) It is more likely to mean endure it. If you're going to suffer, suffer silently.

     It must be admitted that sensitivity is an attribute of one who is more sharply-focused on the particulars of experience. The more sharply-focused the more information is derived. With more information greater understanding is possible. Greater understanding is beneficial to the people. The people ridicule those who are sensitive. Thus is compounded the effects of brutality. Empathy for the one brutalizing you, for the reason that you can't help but derive greater understanding through experience, piles onto the extreme disappointment of not being taken seriously when clearly trying to convey something needed to be known to those who need to know. Surrendering in the face of this dilemma is abandoning life; it is accepting defeat. Not only that, it is also giving up on the attributes which characterize the species that you are. It is recanting evolution itself.

     Yet, in a competitive world success requires someone's defeat. To defeat someone requires insensitivity to the plight of the defeated. Were you sensitive to the well-being of the one you are to defeat, you would never take the final step bringing about your own advancement. That is no way to make it in a competitive world. The only alternative is to adopt an anonymous, featureless life; to accept one's inferior condition and the commensurate lackluster existence ascribed to you as a result. To be someone, be brutal. To be no one, don't be brutal. However, neither the competitive nature of society, nor the accompanying need for brutality have been demonstrated to be necessary. It isn't the only way things can be done. It is but a preferred way. The reasons for this preference by a supposed majority could well be attributed to mental illness, rather than some advanced insight into progressive development.

     One unassailable fact is a clear majority of people are unhappy with their lives and wish they were someone else. Whatever advantages this competitive existence is supposed to bring, a beneficial life to its practitioners appears not to be one of them. It may be a life with more "goods and services," economists like to generalize, from having more money to spend. However, possessing goods and being able to contract for services are fabulously decried as a means to one's well-being. Rather, it is legendary in the same culture that the condition that accompanies this sort of success is being possessed by one's possessions. So it behooves one to ask why people engage in such self-destructive behavior as though there is no alternative. Why is there no rebellion, other than adopting a rough shave, or racy clothing, pretending to flout convention and thereby appearing to be a rebel?

     It is certain those at the top of this economic system, this competitive social structure, gather their superior wealth from the endless efforts of those beneath them trying to achieve their stature. This, those on top, have ensured will never happen. They structure the economy to ensure their own supremacy increasing the odds against competition (in a competitive society). Should the majority of people decide enough is enough and begin to seek alternatives, it has been demonstrated in the past this upper crust will use their vast fortunes to machinate the majority's defeat. Their most potent tool was convincing the majority of the population it would "destroy the world" if any rebellion succeeded. Sowing mistrust among individuals has been achieved, as well. "What if I'm the only one who walks out on this?" Some other less deserving person would stay in and occupy the position you once held. This is painted as self-betrayal.

     Having rationalized the impossibility of resistance it's but a small matter to then invent justifications for brutal behavior, while at the same time claiming outwardly while believing inwardly, "I'm still a humanitarian. I'm not a goon. It's not my fault I have to do this. If I had a choice, I wouldn't." This seems to suffice enough to suspend even the concept of morality as something that doesn't even exist. That humanity thought such a thing as morality existed in the first place is evidence of backward, unsophisticated thinking. "We've moved past that." You could almost call it accomplishing constant self-

hypnosis. However, choosing to pretend something isn't there when it is doesn't qualify for that level of abandoning the senses. It only qualifies as negligence. If anyone is hurt in the process it then becomes criminal negligence.

     There are those in this, a sizable number of people though not a clear majority, who claim their rights have been incrementally revoked. They blame what they call "government." However, governments are people in positions doing jobs dictated to them by law. If one person's rights are curtailed, so are that person's. One can't curtail one's own rights attempting to curtail another's rights and gain any kind of advantage. It's not logical, yet those in this sizable minority believe that's precisely what has happened. They can't accuse individual people, either. They accuse the general government. "The government is stealing our rights." It's an interesting declaration, but an absurd concept. Furthermore, these self-same people will for money willfully surrender their rights to their employers, and tell you they had to. The job required it, as though this is a justification. They then accuse "the government" as the culprit who stole what they just gave up. They either don't see the connection, or they're being less than honest in their complaint. Unfortunately, as people's grasp on truth unravels, the latter is most likely true.

     Holding the upper crust harmless as though that process has nothing to do with government, or power in this competitive society is what allows that upper crust to operate with impunity. As Mahatma Gandhi said, "Poverty is the worse violence." Threatening to revoke someone's livelihood is threatening violence. More than that, refusing to hire people is administering violence. Yet, more disassociation is employed here. "I'm not doing anything to anyone if I don't hire them." Everyone acting as though they are individuals charting a course through life "trying to make a living" cloaks the reality of their system which requires possession of their means of exchange as their own bodies require blood. Without it, you don't eat. You have no roof over your head, or a dry floor under your feet. Pretending a fair system with no moral implications is advantage through cleverness warranting prosperity, where those who are not so clever merit no consideration, is probably the greatest self-deception in the history of humankind. It at once absolves the individual from any responsibility to the greater whole (species preservation) and reorders the intrinsic value of material reality around arbitrarily drawn values based on this means of exchange.

     Though there are rare examples of the sort of criminal behavior found in humankind, for the most part, the animal kingdom (as it were) does not engage in behavior where members of a species relegate other members of the same species to live in destitution, turning them out with nothing or no one, then congratulating themselves on the advancement of their order compared to other species. In fact, only humankind has created a condition where individuals of this species are relieved of the responsibility to the second imperative; species preservation, rewarding only those who practice highly-refined self-preservation. This could hardly be evidence of advanced evolution. In fact, it looks like evidence of subverted evolution. The idea that humankind's lives are readily defined as miserable, or severe, when no other species has that complaint is further evidence of same. However, it cannot be denied humankind victimizes itself as a matter of course. The supposed order of laws serves only to try to limit the kinds of victimization to be allowed; pretending to contend there is a humane limit which it is wrong to exceed. There is humane torture, and inhumane torture.

     The final insult is to look at this collection of indictments and then make the claim it's only natural. That is the nature of the species, so there is nothing wrong with the situation. This is to claim brutality is necessary, though as was mentioned before, no demonstration of this supposed necessity has been presented. Also, the fact (again mentioned before) that no effort of significance has been made to explore alternatives, while at the same time alternatives already known are being ignored, further condemns this point of view with regard to competitive society and the necessity of brutality. It is a fool's argument made by disingenuous people who have agendas they mask. The only profit possible in this environment is in the means of exchange. The only reason this behavior is endorsed and persists is people can make money from the situation that exists as a result. Remove that component you remove any motivation for this level of negativity. Therefore it is not human nature. It is the nature of the system being employed to organize humankind into a competitive society. Since humankind is a cooperative social species, how could any good come from organizing themselves in a way opposite to their natures? The plain answer is it can't. Is five percent of the world's population owning 85 percent of the world's wealth worth this? Decidedly not.