Fox 8... the final question

[P]

Do you have a good Answer for Fox 8's closing query? If you do, all of humanity needs to hear it. Please share! (And no, misanthrophy or hate is not the answer, but you knew that)

[Danielle]

Why is misanthropy not the answer?

[Clare]

I have some… long thoughts, maybe they will be helpful for some. I think i it’s a problem of lack of hubris, humility, or basic respect. Sure plenty of people are respectful but how many look at their iphones and really think “a slave made this”? How many people look at their cars and really think of the violence and death and explosions it took to make their cars, the toxicity their cars spew and choke the world with? Thing is, I think actually a lot of people do think about that, or some slight version of that—recognizing the absolutely horrific violence and atrocities that make our lifestyle possible. But to truly reckon with that would be so unfathomable, so beyond most of our emotional capabilities that many of us sort of cut it out from our minds, in a nearly psychotic or schizophrenic way. We over compensate as we compartmentalize, and the only way to do that is to believe we deserve what we have made, it is necessary, we could not live without it. And to think that makes us get a little cocky and prideful and spoiled, and we lack that sort of humility that a deep or complex or broad perspective would provide us. And so we might believe we need the violence to live. We might justify it this way. And so some of us enjoy the violence to balance this wild contradiction, some of us are depressed or suicidal, some try some solo trend to make things better and it fails and they think “I did all I could” while they drive to work instead of biking in an act of self-care, while still others infantilize and become amnesiac to reality. I think that’s maybe why humans are not nice. Other animals engage in violence, but in a hyper local way and there is a precarious balance there too—if the lion eats too many gazelle, the lion dies. Humans have globalized and then some, and the wealthy humans are simply feeding off the poor until there is nothing left, but most of us all know that it is through the most atrocious and absolute horrors that we are living the way we live and the only way to reckon with that is some level of sociopathy, some level of belief that this violence is okay. Is what I think. And so I would say, to not only answer Fox 8’s question but to try to change the reason for the question in the first place, is to (no matter how hard it is) never forget the ghosts that haunt this lifestyle, the perpetual violence that gives these modern comforts and societal requirements. To forgot that is to be complacent, to obey the rule of the violence. To remember is to respect. To truly grieve this is to truly respect those who must succumb to this violence. And maybe it’s the first step towards legitimate actually change, I dunno. But I am hopeful humans will someday reach their capacity of being saturated in violence, like how after a while, tea just can’t be steeped anymore, and we will collectively agree that enough is enough and has been enough for far too long. Or something. Ok sorry those were my thoughts thanks for reading. :)