This article is a commentary on modern culture and the direction of humanity in the light of current events. It attempts to address and question the reasons why our species is unable to address its challenges constructively, in particular in the western world. It is also an appeal for greater unity.
“Doomed” or “Dumbed”?
“Those who have eyes like the dawn:
Ride on,
and turn the people on”
~ Finlay Quaye – “Ride On”
Some people think the human race is inevitably doomed. Some people say there’s nothing you can do about it. Some people say we deserve to be. - I talk to people who show remarkable acceptance and faith in our politicians’ decisions, and yet when I ask too many questions they cant answer, I’ve noticed a worrying number feed me lines like:
"There’s nothing you can do about it” and” well we are all doomed anyway......."
But if we deserve to be doomed, doesn’t that imply we would have had some control or responsibility prior to our “inevitable” demise?
Further more, if we are blessed with any control, wouldn’t it suggest that our collective and individual sense of responsibility would ultimately be our true saviour, in the face of self destruction?.
Does the idea that one person can’t save the world mean that nobody can save the world? - What about working together? - .How is it that a flock of birds can change direction simultaneously– and we can’t?
Why exactly is there “nothing” that can be done and what precisely is it that makes us so irreversibly “doomed”?
- These kinds of responses tell us a great deal about the age we live in. They smack of an apathetic world where disempowered individuals are manufactured through social isolation, where individuals lack inner confidence and education, and are subsequently robbed of the imagination to see solutions for themselves.
Who can blame these “dumbed” individuals when their leaders actually thieve the opportunity to understand the destructive nature that dwells within all of us; a tendency that leads to war and environmental catastrophe? This shadowy theft leaves a reasonless vacuum filled by an apathetic population powerless to think for themselves, people who become unpredictable, who have nothing to live for, and people who are prepared to defend at any cost their identity because their trust and sense of self has run so painfully dry. It is this modern culture driven hysterical by the fear of everything from pedophilia to terrorism, that ultimately manufactures an impotent flock of “sheeple” who are unsurprisingly prepared to accept that “they are all doomed anyway”. How inconvenient for the many, and how very convenient for the few.
Does anyone remember how Heathrow airport was dramatically besieged with tanks two days before the anti-war protests on 15 February 2003? Never happened like that again has it? How very convenient for the few… - and what’s a bunch of tanks going to do anyway?!
These are issues we must address on both an individual and collective level if we want to overcome them.
I don’t hear Bush talking about how the destructive effect of ignorance and apathy threatens the well-being of life on this planet, or how power and greed plays its hand in leading thousands to their deaths.
Nor do I hear Blair acknowledging that the causes of terrorism are inherently connected with a grotesque corporate machine that, through willful ignorance, greed and insensitivity, divides people and leads poor, starving, and under developed countries to desperate measures.
Instead I hear our “leaders” claiming higher moral ground to justify their immoral actions!
I see democracy “liberating” people under the barrel of a gun!
I feel purse strings tightened by taxes on one set of innocent people to pay for weapons to kill another set of innocent people!
I see billions spent on wars waged while people are starving to death!.
And the list goes on, and on, and on….
- “Oh well we’re all doomed anyway?”….”Oh there’s nothing we can do about it?”
Brothers and sisters wake up please and divorce yourself from the lies. I think the human race has a few ‘responsibility issues’ here we need to address, and none to soon. Do you feel like you are going crazy in this “Village of the Dumbed”? – then read on, you are not alone!.
Asylum Earth Analogy:
- Picture if you will that you live, with the rest of the human race in a psychiatric ward where almost everyone is taking sleeping tablets every night to rest. One fateful night, a cigarette hits the mattress and the flames spread effortlessly around the fast asleep...
Now imagine you have just woken up in a ward stuffed with beds, and the fire is leaping about the room, licking up the curtains choking the air. Even though the smoke and shadows obscure your visibility, you don’t need to see awakened ones like you to know that they must be there. Listen for their call....
-You can hear them, and they can hear you.
But to get the message out over the noise of this roaring inferno and in order to penetrate the drugged sleep of your friends and family, everyone must raise the alarm together.
Find with in you the intuition, that your wakefulness is a reflection of the same wakefulness acting in others like you. Speak out together.
Think of that flock of birds all changing direction at once.
What if that cigarette represents our addiction to violent solutions and an inability to take responsibility for our actions? What if the sleeping tablets that everyone in the ward are taking symbolise our 9-5 jobs, soap operas, sporting and celebrity obsessions, and the knee-jerk reaction to our greatest fears? …And what if the burning beds represent our immediate environment?
…..What if we if we have found an understanding of our problem; are we still doomed (or “dumbed”) then?…..
If you are awake, be calm…..
…Climb out of the bed and when you are ready, don’t be afraid to march responsibly to the bed next to you to wake up your friends. Be kind.
Do your best: The best is all you can do.
The responsibility lies with us, the human race, and for those who care, not some faceless robot on TV who you voted for last year thinking they were going to make a difference. You make the difference.
It’s time to wise up, tune in, get educated, and take back the liberty to think for yourself and for others like you to think and act collectively. This is a journey for you and your species to discover and rediscover a special knowledge. Think about it: A “speci(e)-al” knowledge.
This is a test for us to pass or fail because this millennium its different. We are not fighting with sticks and stones anymore, and our because of our wide proliferation across the planet our destructive actions increasingly impact in greater and greater ways on both ourselves and the environment. What we call “intelligence” should diffuse conflict, not excuse it.
Because of the age of communication there has never been a greater opportunity to achieve global human harmony and yet never have the stakes been so high.
We’ve got a choice people – we live or we die like this, we change or we stay the same, we wake up or we sleep talk ourselves into believing that those pretty flames around us are all part of a nice little dream….
If Tony Blair can justify a fictitious war by saying history will forgive him, then without question history can forgive us for acting on the truth…this is not the time for saying “what difference can little me make?” or playing down how wonderful and powerful you and your potentiality really is - and 6 billion of you is one big flock of birds….
Be proud of your integrity, because integrity is something we all share, and as long as there is still integrity left in people, it’s worth expressing. We can change the world for the better, and we can do it together.
Never will so few owe so much, to so many.
We are eternal and we find ourselves encircled by the flames and the sleeping. Now wake up, wake up!, and speak up! , and may be we wont be quite so “dumbed” after all….
And they say that a hero can save us
I'm not gonna stand here and wait
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles
Watch as they all fly away
And they're watching us [watching us]
Watching us [watching us]
As they all fly away….
~Nickelback – “Hero”
Thank you for your time,
Thank you for your understanding
and Thank you for existing.
Hugh Mann.
imagine_everyone@hotmail.com - Feel free to reproduce this and send it where you will…
“Those who have eyes like the dawn:
Ride on,
and turn the people on”
~ Finlay Quaye – “Ride On”
Some people think the human race is inevitably doomed. Some people say there’s nothing you can do about it. Some people say we deserve to be. - I talk to people who show remarkable acceptance and faith in our politicians’ decisions, and yet when I ask too many questions they cant answer, I’ve noticed a worrying number feed me lines like:
"There’s nothing you can do about it” and” well we are all doomed anyway......."
But if we deserve to be doomed, doesn’t that imply we would have had some control or responsibility prior to our “inevitable” demise?
Further more, if we are blessed with any control, wouldn’t it suggest that our collective and individual sense of responsibility would ultimately be our true saviour, in the face of self destruction?.
Does the idea that one person can’t save the world mean that nobody can save the world? - What about working together? - .How is it that a flock of birds can change direction simultaneously– and we can’t?
Why exactly is there “nothing” that can be done and what precisely is it that makes us so irreversibly “doomed”?
- These kinds of responses tell us a great deal about the age we live in. They smack of an apathetic world where disempowered individuals are manufactured through social isolation, where individuals lack inner confidence and education, and are subsequently robbed of the imagination to see solutions for themselves.
Who can blame these “dumbed” individuals when their leaders actually thieve the opportunity to understand the destructive nature that dwells within all of us; a tendency that leads to war and environmental catastrophe? This shadowy theft leaves a reasonless vacuum filled by an apathetic population powerless to think for themselves, people who become unpredictable, who have nothing to live for, and people who are prepared to defend at any cost their identity because their trust and sense of self has run so painfully dry. It is this modern culture driven hysterical by the fear of everything from pedophilia to terrorism, that ultimately manufactures an impotent flock of “sheeple” who are unsurprisingly prepared to accept that “they are all doomed anyway”. How inconvenient for the many, and how very convenient for the few.
Does anyone remember how Heathrow airport was dramatically besieged with tanks two days before the anti-war protests on 15 February 2003? Never happened like that again has it? How very convenient for the few… - and what’s a bunch of tanks going to do anyway?!
These are issues we must address on both an individual and collective level if we want to overcome them.
I don’t hear Bush talking about how the destructive effect of ignorance and apathy threatens the well-being of life on this planet, or how power and greed plays its hand in leading thousands to their deaths.
Nor do I hear Blair acknowledging that the causes of terrorism are inherently connected with a grotesque corporate machine that, through willful ignorance, greed and insensitivity, divides people and leads poor, starving, and under developed countries to desperate measures.
Instead I hear our “leaders” claiming higher moral ground to justify their immoral actions!
I see democracy “liberating” people under the barrel of a gun!
I feel purse strings tightened by taxes on one set of innocent people to pay for weapons to kill another set of innocent people!
I see billions spent on wars waged while people are starving to death!.
And the list goes on, and on, and on….
- “Oh well we’re all doomed anyway?”….”Oh there’s nothing we can do about it?”
Brothers and sisters wake up please and divorce yourself from the lies. I think the human race has a few ‘responsibility issues’ here we need to address, and none to soon. Do you feel like you are going crazy in this “Village of the Dumbed”? – then read on, you are not alone!.
Asylum Earth Analogy:
- Picture if you will that you live, with the rest of the human race in a psychiatric ward where almost everyone is taking sleeping tablets every night to rest. One fateful night, a cigarette hits the mattress and the flames spread effortlessly around the fast asleep...
Now imagine you have just woken up in a ward stuffed with beds, and the fire is leaping about the room, licking up the curtains choking the air. Even though the smoke and shadows obscure your visibility, you don’t need to see awakened ones like you to know that they must be there. Listen for their call....
-You can hear them, and they can hear you.
But to get the message out over the noise of this roaring inferno and in order to penetrate the drugged sleep of your friends and family, everyone must raise the alarm together.
Find with in you the intuition, that your wakefulness is a reflection of the same wakefulness acting in others like you. Speak out together.
Think of that flock of birds all changing direction at once.
What if that cigarette represents our addiction to violent solutions and an inability to take responsibility for our actions? What if the sleeping tablets that everyone in the ward are taking symbolise our 9-5 jobs, soap operas, sporting and celebrity obsessions, and the knee-jerk reaction to our greatest fears? …And what if the burning beds represent our immediate environment?
…..What if we if we have found an understanding of our problem; are we still doomed (or “dumbed”) then?…..
If you are awake, be calm…..
…Climb out of the bed and when you are ready, don’t be afraid to march responsibly to the bed next to you to wake up your friends. Be kind.
Do your best: The best is all you can do.
The responsibility lies with us, the human race, and for those who care, not some faceless robot on TV who you voted for last year thinking they were going to make a difference. You make the difference.
It’s time to wise up, tune in, get educated, and take back the liberty to think for yourself and for others like you to think and act collectively. This is a journey for you and your species to discover and rediscover a special knowledge. Think about it: A “speci(e)-al” knowledge.
This is a test for us to pass or fail because this millennium its different. We are not fighting with sticks and stones anymore, and our because of our wide proliferation across the planet our destructive actions increasingly impact in greater and greater ways on both ourselves and the environment. What we call “intelligence” should diffuse conflict, not excuse it.
Because of the age of communication there has never been a greater opportunity to achieve global human harmony and yet never have the stakes been so high.
We’ve got a choice people – we live or we die like this, we change or we stay the same, we wake up or we sleep talk ourselves into believing that those pretty flames around us are all part of a nice little dream….
If Tony Blair can justify a fictitious war by saying history will forgive him, then without question history can forgive us for acting on the truth…this is not the time for saying “what difference can little me make?” or playing down how wonderful and powerful you and your potentiality really is - and 6 billion of you is one big flock of birds….
Be proud of your integrity, because integrity is something we all share, and as long as there is still integrity left in people, it’s worth expressing. We can change the world for the better, and we can do it together.
Never will so few owe so much, to so many.
We are eternal and we find ourselves encircled by the flames and the sleeping. Now wake up, wake up!, and speak up! , and may be we wont be quite so “dumbed” after all….
And they say that a hero can save us
I'm not gonna stand here and wait
I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles
Watch as they all fly away
And they're watching us [watching us]
Watching us [watching us]
As they all fly away….
~Nickelback – “Hero”
Thank you for your time,
Thank you for your understanding
and Thank you for existing.
Hugh Mann.
imagine_everyone@hotmail.com - Feel free to reproduce this and send it where you will… 
e-mail:
