May 2010
Freedom and responsibility
People are restrained in their acts by personal characteristics and by influences from the environment. People are brought to do what others want from them through education, through public standards, through misinformation and threat and compulsion. Sometimes there is really no choice and sometimes it is hard to find an alternative solution.Does freedom exist?
Because I am as I am, I will react to a repetitive situation usually in the same way. How a person reacts can be predictable as an absolutely stable human will supply under consistent conditions, predictable results. For a man with a really difficult inheritance confronted with a difficult environment, it will be difficult for him not to become a criminal. On the other hand, for humans with a favorable inheritance confronted with an convenient environment, it will be easy work to become successful and popular. Can we compare a human with an automat that is programmed and simply unwinds when triggered? Can a human give his a specific direction? Do humans have a choice?Humans are not simply the way they are. We can influence our personality. A change in humans personality inducts a change on its actions. Healthy humans can learn also from experience.
Self manipulation
There are things in our life that we can not change. This we have to accept. We can meet life however, with open eyes or we can first lock our eyes to what does not please us and delude ourselves. We manipulate ourselves, if we deny the facts, for example the sorrows of others so we do not have to offer assistance. The petty huckster pursues exclusively that which is to his own advantage. He avoids thoughts and feelings that would call into question his own actions. The truth and the quality of life of other people are insignificant for him. Therefore the petty huckster is capable of an assortment of terrible acts. We intend to redline facts and people who do not fit into our world perception. The fixation on a selfish world view appears to us as profitable so we take the risk of developing a world view, that does not fit with the reality. A lucrative reality-correction can become self-propelling. Extremely said that if genocide is in demand, we may commit genocide and find it appropriate or somehow in order.Where is the difference between the innocent citizen and the atrocity perpetrator?
A perpetrator of atrocities has chosen only the path that seemed most profitably to him. The truth does not appear to be sufficently attractive or too risky for him. He has developed a blindness to inconvenient facts and turns this into a routine. He has been led by his own euphemism yet ends up very far from it. If he is forced to see things more clearly, he would be a different person. Although he may have committed serious crimes, he views himself mostly as a good human, who has only acted accordingly to a situation. Lucrative reality-corrections can lead to a personal or a social disaster. History proves it repeatedly. We apply euphemisms for our comfort. Normally we apply them only to certain topics or areas in our life. Therefore, it is quite possible that a man does horrific things while still considered a good and valued member of his family and friends.Freedom and responsibility
The basis of a petty huckster is his own self-interest, even if this leads to a distorted world view. The responsible human, unlike the petty huckster does not follow crooked pictures of reality. He tries to understand situations and copes with them, even when people or problems are unpleasant or painful. Normally, we move between an integrity and a petty-huckster-personality. We have a choice between a petty, exclusively selfish life and one that is more open and more honest.It is our freedom and our responsibility to choose how much openess and truth we choose to accept or allow.