coberst
September 9, 2006, 07:35 AM
To dominate or to serve, there is the rub.
It appears to me that our human instincts are to dominate or to serve. I would like to suggest that we concentrate our critical skills upon seeking to focus attention upon synthesis.
When I read history I see primarily a dual human need exerting itself—we seem to have a two class social system; we have the few who dominate the vast subservient majority. The subservient take this roll both because humans crave order and stability and because such a roll is the path to power. Humans crave dominance and they crave order and stability. Is their a third way?
When we are dominating objects we are united in a common goal. Our unified goal is to dominate objects as much as possible and we have proven to be very good at it. When we try to serve both a roll as dominant and as subversive we appear to create a society that is constantly at war with it self.
Power is the siren song we all hear. We all want power and we get it by dominating or we get it by being subservient to power. Our newspapers abound with such stories daily of the struggle for power, i.e. power is the means to get what we want when we want it.
Acquisition of power is a human imperative. We can acquire and use power either rationally or irrationally. One of the primary motivating forces behind irrational behavior is considered to be human egocentrism, which is “to view everything within the world in relationship to oneself, to be self-centered”.
To be rational in one’s desires is to use intellectual standards of thinking and to be irrational in one’s desires is to use egocentric standards to determine what to accept or what to reject as true.
It appears to me that our human instincts are to dominate or to serve. I would like to suggest that we concentrate our critical skills upon seeking to focus attention upon synthesis.
When I read history I see primarily a dual human need exerting itself—we seem to have a two class social system; we have the few who dominate the vast subservient majority. The subservient take this roll both because humans crave order and stability and because such a roll is the path to power. Humans crave dominance and they crave order and stability. Is their a third way?
When we are dominating objects we are united in a common goal. Our unified goal is to dominate objects as much as possible and we have proven to be very good at it. When we try to serve both a roll as dominant and as subversive we appear to create a society that is constantly at war with it self.
Power is the siren song we all hear. We all want power and we get it by dominating or we get it by being subservient to power. Our newspapers abound with such stories daily of the struggle for power, i.e. power is the means to get what we want when we want it.
Acquisition of power is a human imperative. We can acquire and use power either rationally or irrationally. One of the primary motivating forces behind irrational behavior is considered to be human egocentrism, which is “to view everything within the world in relationship to oneself, to be self-centered”.
To be rational in one’s desires is to use intellectual standards of thinking and to be irrational in one’s desires is to use egocentric standards to determine what to accept or what to reject as true.