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Message Subject When the air runs out...
Poster Handle IfYouInsist
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All these things still happen; often, you don't even need to call them different things, as many feel compelled to do. Still rarer than the societies or groups which don't do these things are those that do whose members reflect upon them and find themselves to have been mistaken.

Children go down with their parents, because parents own their children. Just because somebody's got to be the bad guy in order to be the good guy doesn't mean that anyone actually will. The job of the centurions is filled, with piles of applications still waiting to be read. As is the job of Caesar. As is the job of Pilate. As is the job of the mob preparing to shout 'crucify him.' No one wants the single job that is actually necessary here. If you say that this is because people are selfish, well, they are about to be taught a lesson for it that history indicates quite clearly they aren't built to learn.
 Quoting: IfYouInsist


Chuckle

If people such as those your describe did not exist, those practices would be much more common.
But at certain times, humanity does reflect.

Parents own their children?
Mate, they don't own me.
Can't speak for your relationship, or how you'd consider your children.

And just look around the board mate, or the world.
Plenty step up to the position, or martyr themselves in the cause of thru various ways
 Quoting: Sol-tari


These things stopped happening in the areas they did because tastes changed and new victims were found. The name changes, but the general outline stays the same. As for parents and children, I don't know if you've got a Parent-Teacher Association meeting where you live, but I've heard from the teachers how the interactions go, and it is certainly more on the parents' side than the teachers that children fail. And after the parents, it is usually the community they belong to and that family's relative place in it. This is how societies work, for better or for worse.

As for martyrs, we weren't talking about martyrs in a general sense. There are many martyrs for causes that aren't even important. Given the apparent gravity of the situation, more than a martyr is called for here, and I'm telling you why the soil isn't right for that kind of flower.
 Quoting: IfYouInsist


Not everyone is interested in victims mate.
Oh you're correct in that regard - teachers, parent, society dynamics.
But when those such as you describe are in charge, how they act echos down to the people - be it conscious knowledge of said events or not.

I'm sure if you were to go back, such would be said by people in those times.
But sometimes you're not their to reach everyone.
Just enough
 Quoting: Sol-tari


Look at the post on "Finnish nightmares" that's still on this page. The purpose of this kind of joke isn't to be a mea culpa, but a way for them to dissipate the feeling that something is *wrong* here, and to subtly signal to all those that would attempt to change the culture that despite the people themselves knowing its shortcomings, such attempts are wholly unwelcome. That is the point: you versus US.

And here's where we differ. When responsibility or sin or guilt or shame or what have you come into play, yes, there are individuals. But only then. At all other times, we are speaking about races, ethnicities, religions, tribes, clans, families, pecking orders--in short, what make people feel comfortable. Should this shortcoming about Finnish society prove to be something more than the funny quirk it's made out to be--a fatal flaw in the worst-case scenario--this ends up being the fault of everyone in the society, irrespective of whatever factor, human, viral, extra-terrestrial, was positioned to exploit it effectively.

If you want, say, a German or a Japanese to say "We screwed up," that requires a Dresden or Hiroshima--nothing less. Otherwise then, yes, people *are* interested in victims, because that's how people do things. It is something to fault them for, otherwise people wouldn't joke about genuine flaws as though they were simply foibles. They feel uncomfortable about it simply by comparing themselves with other societies, no gadflies needed.

It is these two facets of human societies which make stepping up to help them both an ineffective and undesirable thing to do. You're asking some poor jerk to sacrifice their ego, inclusive of their feeling of vulnerability, their reputation, their autonomy, their privacy, and even their right to speak candidly on their experience, just so that the societies composed of these putative 'individuals' do not have to. This applies doubly for the elites of those societies. It's a moral hazard.

My question in all this is: why? Why are you sticking up for the mob, even to the extent of positing them as individuals, and rational ones into the bargain?
 
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