Many people base their political philosophies on their emotion. So often is this the case when protecting the weak or supplying the poor; it is all too easy to look at an unhappy person and think “I wish I could do something to keep them from being unhappy!”. There is nothing wrong with wanting to help someone! Unfortunately, not everyone can, but they still wish to do something. Blinded by this overwhelming desire, they turn to the people that do have money and ask “what will you do for this person?”, and cast their unhappiness upon any men who dare say “I shall do nothing.” or ignore their outcry altogether.
So, a recap: This person’s emotion has caused them to feel pity enough to take action, and has also made them unhappy when help was not supplied by someone that could offer it.
This is about the point where they look further to solve this problem. They have assumed the poor are poor because rich are rich, and look to their government to balance this out. The rich are in debt to the poor, they would declare. They wish they could do all the things rich people do, and decide for themselves that they do not deserve it. This is the only way to solve this problem! They would at this point decide how to get their ideas embedded in their government and take action. This is the path of the emotional policy maker.
This isn’t to say emotion should be ignored completely in politics, but it shouldn’t be a foundation for anything, as you may well know, your emotions change all the time, and (hopefully) your home’s foundation does not. Would you want a government to act on emotion in all things, or just on a particular thing that you feel emotional about? Odds are you would, deep inside, want the government to think what you think, which at a personal level isn’t a bad thing to think; just don’t act on it. An emotional government would be whimsical. A group doesn’t have an emotion, it has people in it that have emotions. If a government is acting on an emotion, it is acting on the ideals of a single individual. This feeling could change at any moment, and the amount of people that share the feeling is irrelevant, for they can change at any given moment as well.
As I can’t be sure if my emotions have formed this logic or not, I shall still ask the question, would you rather put a gun in the hands of an artist or a philosopher?
The Grand Philosophies of Facebook Users
Among Facebook’s several design flaws are a number of things that can be avoided if you take the right steps. What I’ve noticed that you can’t avoid are the little angsty preppy teen quotes everyone copy/pastes into their wall. Some of it has been made into business by turning them into things you can like on a “like site” with ads and such on it. Still, these little quotes can still plague your feeds.
Occasionally, emotions will overrun someone’s mind, and force them to post things like “men are awful” against their will. It can be happy emotions, too, like “I have the best girlfriend/boyfriend”. In any given moment, at least 90% of the population that is in a relationship would say they’re in the best one (or at least perfect!). If you ask that same group three years later, unless they were in the same relationship, they would definitely say it wasn’t the best.
Sometimes, they’ll even go as far as condescending to those who don’t happen to have learned from the faults they had in the past. Here’s a quote I saw earlier today:
“(Name) Doesnt care about “girls like bad boys” stereotype. I am dating a nice guy, assholes are overrated and I refuse to date them. Keep your dangerous rebels, emo boys, guys who are more jaded then a hobo living under a bridge hooked on meth, guys who like to seem distant so that the girls will chase them(nice reverse psychology). Ive got a good guy and Im not another statistic.”
Sure, that’s nice. While on the outside this is just another “I’m glad I’m not single at the moment”, it’s only slightly more than that. This person may also want to legitimately help someone else be as happy as she as, but in doing so, she has only formed a statement that fits that claim of a “Perfect relationship” status. Other people will tend to cheer these posts on, with even less insight:
“Amen girl! The good guys are the ones who will still cherish you when you’re old and wrinkly.” & “Scream it sister! Amen“. This will happen regardless of the positive/negative qualities of the post they care commenting on.
I’ve seen this sort of thing hundreds of times. It’s generally an early relationship thing, where one is just happy to be with someone, and the arguments haven’t started yet. This happiness from just being with someone is what prevents relationship-straining topics like “What is your opinion on abortion?” from coming up early on. There’s a point in the beginning of a relationship where you’d prefer to be floating in your brain’s happy chemicals than know if the relationship is genuinely going to last. But I’ve arrived at a tangent at this point.
There are also some religion propaganda to help deepen your level of indoctrination, but that’s another topic for another day.
I could just be overthinking this, though. Maybe Facebook is just somewhere thinking doesn’t belong. I went there to connect to people, and I got way more than I wanted. I guess the general public is whatever the popular social site at the time makes it, which would mean Facebook is to blame for enabling these people to feel good about their existence without actually doing anything of value. It’s no place for my social commentary, art, inventions, psychology, or philosophy. That’s quite a shame, really, since these things (not mine in particular, but everyone who provides such things) bring legitimate lasting pleasure to people in the big picture. After all, it’s nerdy stuff (computers, smart phones, and other tech you’re spoiled with at this point that only nerds had three years ago) that you’re using to read this and post stuff on Facebook.
Related Blog Post by Bob Waack.
Minor note: While I’m aware I may upset people with this post, the intention is to educate, not anger.