03.29.07
Apathy - The Greatest Threat to Western Civilization
The year is 2007 and as we gently glide into our 21st Century something seems to be nagging our collective sub consciousness. Something is hidden or somewhat occluded from conscious day to day thought. It exists more of a feeling than thought, not quite tangible enough even to power some kind of collective thinking. It exists, however many times we try to ignore it, always at a distance.
Can we describe this feeling as a calling within the deep sub conscious, that not all is right in the universe, not all is in balance? Can we even describe this feeling at all? Well if you are feeling it you are indeed one of the few!
The 21st century heralds the dawning of a New Age where spirituality melds with science, religion and technology to enlighten, guide and develop the human race into co existence, peace balance and harmony.
What exits today however could not be further removed from the dawning of a New Age. We stand on the edge of a darkness in our time where it’s a dog eat dog world. One in which an eye for an eye is accepted, where keeping up with the Jones’s is worldview and the haves have more and the have not’s have less.
Global positioning satellites can plot our every course and take a caption of our humdrum day. Communication is at a level unprecedented in history.24hr news all day every day into the heart of every household. Death, misery and depression broadcasted in real time and the luminous in society are prime time. Cascading images flow into our minds at a seconds glance with an imprint that lasts considerably longer. We can talk and share across a wireless sea, where space and time has new meaning. Reality and science fiction have more synergy than before where one can even begin to shape the other.
Many statements above have a generalisation to them and can be viewed through any spectrum of thought. What runs constant however is the feeling, whether you feel it or not, it is there! Even if you choose to ignore it! It will always be there like that sixth sense, that knowing without thought!
Our choice is to engage in the feeling and power this to thoughts or not. In engaging this feeling and empowering our thinking we become aware and awareness is the key. Many excellent statements exist today in our buzzword society and one which is relevant here. “Think globally, act locally”
Collectively this is where Western Civilisation fails. Many of us are conditioned to think locally and, that global picture, well that’s for someone else to think about. We go about our daily lives, many of us in a conscious vacuum, oblivious to information that may well have consequence to our existence. We wake, we interact, we sleep and the cycle begins again. Some of us don’t even have the interactions at any level.
For want of any better way of delivery! Western civilisation has an ailment. A kind of virus that has effect on our conscious and sub conscious mind. This apathy is within us preventing us from feeling. Preventing our thinking and limiting our power for collective thoughts and change.
We have the capacity for change! All we need is the will. To obtain the will we must have the feeling and to have the feeling we must be aware!
Awaken yourself from your apathy!
Latest posts by Scott MacFarlane
- Smile - You're On Candid Camera! UK the most photographed citizen in the world! - April 15th, 2007
- When a Superpower corners the Market - April 4th, 2007
Scott MacFarlane said,
March 31, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Scott MacFarlane just authored a new book, “The Hippie Narrative: A Literary Perspective on the Counterculture” (North Carolina: McFarland, 2007).
ripcord said,
April 3, 2007 at 8:09 am
The apathy is fed, as you have pointed out, by a constant barrage of unwholesome stories, images, music, news and other media content. Unfortunately, apathy is self-serving. The more a person lets themselves drop down the well of apathy, the greater the effect will be from the incoming barrage. Apathy sinks even lower under the weight of hopelessness and despair.
It makes one wonder. Who stands to gain from the collective apathy of the world’s citizens? What is the master plan?
I see incredible apathy among many young people in my line of work. They care little for anything beyond their next sexual encounter or social event. They seem to be irreversibly bonded to their mobile phone and MP3 player. Forget world events. They have little concern for what is happening in the neighbourhood around them.
The path they are taking will not even prepare many of them to be peasants among the nobility. At least peasants had skills and a will to work.
One solution is to open their eyes to a small glimpse of reality. It varies due to age and circumstances, but I have found that simply asking them questions about who they are and who they are becoming is enough sometimes to start them on their journey back up the well of apathy towards the light of reality.
Scott MacFarlane said,
April 3, 2007 at 11:06 am
I too work with young people during my day to day vocation and empathise with the last post comments. I believe with young people, prevention is better than the cure and the sooner the interventions into behaviour is made the better.
Many studies in the UK are revealing that interventions in pre school on certain behavours may have a real cause and effect in young people and their transition from eductaion into teh world of work.
In many cases as you have outlined someone, usually an adult or peer taking the time to get into the “stuff” so to speak is all that is needed to awaken the person from an apathetic state.
Guest (im the only one muhahaha) said,
April 14, 2007 at 11:06 pm
What the….?…..so what do we want?
Frank said,
May 15, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I’m sure it is all down to routine and ignorance. The truth is that apathy exists within everone within the Western Civilisations, and not surprisingly. Due to lives spent purely for financial and econimic gain, people feel empty, and from that foundation, depression starts, and forms the basis of routine, and of the automatic thought, lack of imagination and therefore a self-absorbed subconcious develops. It seems that the people who feel a sense of something unbalanced are generally happy people, who can see others going about business that does not have significance. The key I think is to retrieve minds from this lingo, and try to reach rebuild confidence and innovatism. I’m only 16, but even I can tell that this is happening in the older generations. I am happy to reveal though, that the younger generations seem to feel the ‘feeling’ you described alot more, and this is noticable. The feeling that we are not our own people, like a thorn that can’t be dug out.
Please respond with any thought you may have on this…
Marc said,
May 20, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Frank, i think you are right, as well as others that have posted on this blog.
I most certainly have this feeling, i am 32… a bit older…
I have always had a feeling…bit like Indigo, but without the bullshit.. but in the last few years it has intensified with me greatly.
My insights into actions and realisations have opened an unknown world of horror and intrigue for me.
I ccan see some people could never accept the truth..
Something that would hurt so much and being horrified by is for the cinema, not for real life… they cant handle it.
It takes a strong mind to actually realise, accept and try to understand what is happening..
It can send you mad.
Focus on your awareness and find peace in joining your thoughts with a universal consciousness.
No religeous speil or bollocks,
Awareness is the key.
Knowledge through study can achieve high levels of knowledge and enlightenment.
Intelligence helps…
This is real but not that real.
bigglesworth said,
July 5, 2007 at 11:30 pm
The machines at work here are monstrous! Did you see the size of that crocky! (It rears its’ ugly head in defiance.) The stage is set. Oil is running out. War is inevitable. The US spends 500 billion a year on preparing for war. Why, you ask. Return on investment) is the answer. The more we spend on war, the bigger the return we expect in terms of global power gained. Let me rephrase that. The more “they” (the all powerful they at the center of all known conspiracies)spend on war, the bigger the return “they” expect in terms of global power gained.
Besides, “they” would rather bargain from a position of strength. The Illuminatti, Bilderbergs, Bohemian Grove, Skull and Bones . And to think, our founding fathers believed in seperation of powers. Unfortunately world power concentrated into the hands of the few, is are sad state of reality.
War is what we do. War is who we are. The history of humanity is the history of war.
In the fictional book Nineteen-Eighty-Four, author George Orwell talks about a state of constant war being used as one of many ways to distract people. War inspires fear and hate among the people of a nation, and gives them a “legitimate” enemy upon whom they can focus this fear and hate. Thus the people are prevented from seeing that their true enemy is in fact their own repressive government. By this theory war is another “opiate of the masses” by which a state controls its people and prevents revolution.