Question of the Day

[ayoub]

Why can't we be friends?

---

Y'know... All of us... All around the world... :D

Comments

[amante-donne.livejournal.com]

because of greed, and general intolerance.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

You'd think that humanity might eventually grow out of that...

[childeofloki.livejournal.com]

Because humans are a race of individualistic herd animals. You can quote me on that, by the way. But you have to quote it.
Anyways, we are. We are herd animals, pack animals, and individuals all at once. The same tactics one uses on dogs will work on people. That's why we have terms like "alpha male" applied to us. No two people are the same, no two have exactly the same perceptions, backgrounds, experience, etc... So any time you have more than one human, there will be some grounds for contention, even if it doesn't manifest itself right away. I imagine if you isolated a human for long enough, they would find contention within themselves.
We are animals, after all, and on a deeper level, we are all competing with each other, for resources, for breeding grounds, whatever.
Essentially, we can't all get along because we're bastards. No matter how much a group of people longs for peace, no matter how "good natured" they are, at some point, along comes a bastard. Now those peaceful, loving people are either forced to contend with the bastard, give into him, or be harmed by him.
And the bastards are necessary.
And frankly, those loving, peaceful people are bastards too, because more often then not they will declare their own way to be the "right way", causing conflict in someone who has another way.
Everyone is a bastard. Everyone is human.
Thus it is, thus it has been. Does it need to be, always? No. And perhaps it will change.
But I am not placing money on it, particularly not in my lifetime.
You don't have to like, I don't have to like it- and I don't.
But I accept it, and always keep it in mind when dealing with others.

Like Heinlein said, "Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate — and quickly."

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

We're all kinds of nuts...

[4kudzu.livejournal.com]

We can. Just everyone has to be a little less selfish.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

:D

Indeed!

[beatzz.livejournal.com]

There is no one reason why we cannot.

There are many circumstances though, I think, that prevent it.

Mostly, we're just too selfish or scared or cynical to believe sharing our lives with others can be good.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

But shouldn't we be able to work around all that?

[kathyrene.livejournal.com]

I don't see why not.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

That's why you're awesome :D

[heardthatnoise.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that you asked a similar question not so long ago. :)

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

:D

I like to roll out the classics...

Especially when I can't think of anything else that day :D

[jvmatucha.livejournal.com]

A quote I recently heard:

"If everyone fried their food, there would be no war."

- Bill Dauterive

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Ok... That's a pretty cool quote :D

[these-3-remain.livejournal.com]

I wish we could. Unfortunately, all human beings - regardless of race or religion or any other differences - have a unfathomable capacity for greed and hatred. Many people recognize this capacity and actively work to overcome it, but too many people also indulge those negative tendencies.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Yeah...

We need to evolve beyond that...

[mighty-rontor.livejournal.com]

"For nobody would understand,

And you kill what you fear."

~from "Guide Vocal" by Genesis, from the album "Duke"

We can get along, but we are at a base level xenophobic. If it's different , kill it. It's instinctively a matter of self preservation. Once similarities are observed, they become familiar. Once familiar, we can become friends. We are at our root vicious, but it is the divine spark within us that allows us to make a leap of faith and trust anyone. It's even harder and more time consuming if we're talking super-organisms like nations or cultures.

I watched The Kingdom last night, and I was wondering the same thing. I hope that bloody conflict becomes a rare thing between Islam and the rest of the non-Islamic world, because I know that Muslims in general are a good and kind people with an enormous capacity for love. I hate Muslim terrorists only because they put the rest of Islam such a bad light.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

I hope so too...

And yeah... I also hope for evolution to step in and remove xenophobia...

[cmerun12.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware we weren't.

"There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity." ~ Rambler

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

We are... Some people aren't...

[donnickcottage.livejournal.com]

Oh man! Do I really have to go into it? How much paper have you got! Ok, I'll try...

1st. Johnny Butters is a big poopy butt. I only asked him for a lick off his ice cream cone and he smooshed the whole damn thing in my face. We'll NEVER be friends!!!

2nd. Need I go on? I gots 6 billion of em!

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

LMAO! :D

Indeed!

[the-ravyn.livejournal.com]

Because everyone wants to be right.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

But you learn more from being wrong!

(Must be why I know so bloody much :P)

[1-rhiannon-1.livejournal.com]

I think Tommy Lee Jones said it best in Men In Black.

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

While there are persons who believe that we can all be friends and get along if we'd just learn to listen and compromise, people are selfish, violent, and greedy. It's not a happy combination. :(

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

I love that quote...

And yes, not a happy combination... :(

[evergladesqueen.livejournal.com]

great! thank you! now i am singing that song!!!

[1-rhiannon-1.livejournal.com]

Me too! Anyone know a good way to kill an earbug?

[mousie.livejournal.com]

I think 1_rhiannon hit the nail on the head. Because some people are selfish.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Indeed :D

[rosered3017.livejournal.com]

becuase too many things are different about us, even though most of us mean well.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

If there's one thing I like about the French, except for their pastries, it's their saying: Vive la difference!

[fox-bard.livejournal.com]

Primates are extremely territorial and tend to prefer small social herds, which then become a source of pride as well as kinship. Even inside such small groupings, we tend to arrange ourselves according to a stock form of social icons, making even smaller cell group divisions.

In other words, we're slightly evolved animals fighting for genetic and cognitive survival at every level. In the competition for evolutionary survival, there is 'us' and there is 'them', and that is how we generally divide ourselves. Division tends not celebrate difference.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Indeed...

I hope we evolve a little more!

[patchworld.livejournal.com]

Selfishness and envy. Unfortunately it's true. and many people listen but do not hear each other...

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

So true...

[miintikwa.livejournal.com]

I think we can, once we have leaders who are willing to seek the best in all of us.

I believe that Anne Frank was ahead of her time, and if she can see the best in people despite what they were doing to all those around her, why can we not?

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Precisely! :D

I don't know why I am having so many problems...

[childeofloki.livejournal.com]

I've seen a lot of answers mention that most people are greedy/selfish.

Not true, says I. All people are selfish. All people want the best, all people have people they don't like, and all people, no matter how open minded they are, view the Universe from the prospective of "me". It's the way things work. Some people can overcome it in small ways. It's better, in my mind anyways, to be able to look at where the feeling comes from, and try to rationalize actions based off of it that I might consider "good", even if my concept of good is vastly different from yours.
Everyone is selfish, it's human nature. Hell, it's survival. Mankind is NOT a rational animal. But he is a rationalizing animal.
That's why I say that the only true sin lies in hurting others unnecessarily, and all the other "sins" are just frippery.
And that means that moral scales are mathematical in nature.
How far does your moral scale climb? Are you willing to sacrifice something, your comfort, your means, you life, for another?
For a group of people? Your family? Clan? Pack? State? Country? Nation? The whole of mankind?
A complete stranger? Ten? One hundred?

Re: I don't know why I am having so many problems...

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Interesting take... I'm going to let this percolate for a bit... :D

[innerly.livejournal.com]

cause that wouldn't be any fun... who would we gossip about?????

(sorry, everyone got too deep and my brain is much right now)

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

LMAO! :D

*snuggles and smooches*

[23press.livejournal.com]

i agree with you!

thanks for being our friend :) :)

wee could use more anarchists to contribute to our new zine project, if yr interested! check out the journal for info

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

I will definitely write fnord something for the zine!

friends

[lazycatsteve.livejournal.com]

Most of the people I have known have had different ways of coping with the existential dilemma, (that Man is the only creature that is aware of his own mortality). Some, like me, just accept it and accept that once we are dead we cease to exist as conscious beings. Most find comfort in their religious faith, their belief that if they conform to specific standards of behavior they will have immortality, or reincarnate. They will cheat death. This means that anyone who deviates from those standards threatens not only the social order but their individual hope for eternal existence. So long as people are unable to accept the reality of their own death they will kill anyone who threatens this illusion.

When Sarah Palin asks her god for assurance that we are doing his work in slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people in the Middle East, she is betraying her own uncertainty that the system of magic she professes is real. She betrays her underlying knowledge of the conflict between her hope for eternal life (Christianity) and her hope for temporal wealth and power (Republican Party) and her doubt of the veracity of President Bush. I believe most people have the intelligence to doubt, and this can be the opening to approach them to expand their awareness of other cultures, other systems of belief, in ways which do not threaten their own. In this way we can make them, if not friends, not enemies.

Re: friends

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Very well put! :D

[willnobilis.livejournal.com]

Who says we cannot?

Hi!

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Hi!

Not me! We can all be friends! :D

[cookie-chef.livejournal.com]

Just popping by with a quick hello. Stumbled across your journal in the food_for_sight community.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Hi there!

I hope you visit more often :D