Society et al.

[derrida]

Originally Posted by O71394658

Interesting question.

I don't necessarily think we're driving ourselves into the ground, but I just think humans are more or less biologically programmed to deviate towards discontent. No matter what the situation we (as humans) find ourselves in, we usually only remain happy for a short time before we start pointing out the flaws and fallacies. I don't know why. Perhaps it's in our nature. The Darwinian desire to be the strongest, the most powerful on the evolutionary ladder. Perhaps that's why we're never happy with the government.

There have been several cataclysmic events in history in which all-out revolution is at hand in order to change the status quo. Of course, after much chaos and bloodshed, the discontent are content, but only for a short while. Such events, like the Revolutionary War, the French Revolution, and the Haitian Revolution are prime historical examples. There are even more local examples. The L.A. riots, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Iraqi War can also fit into this category. The people we look on as heroes today are the ones who can actually bring about this change with little to no violence or bloodshed. Perhaps that's why Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Jesus are so popular. They're figures who deviated from the norm and were able to bring about great changes in society peacefully. Of course, as it can often be seen, many of these changes are only idealistic in nature; they can never be fully implemented in real life. But the pattern of content and discontent, is in my opinion, cyclic. We gravitate towards discontent until a breaking point, in which we are satisfied. We remain in that place for a while, but then begin to gravitate towards discontent once more.

I think it's more of a question of the problems of human nature vs. the problems of human government.

The instability you're referring to is more symptomatic of modernism than indicative of any transcendent human nature. Examples abound of homo sapiens living for millenia in unchanging social conditions.[/i]