Over the weekend I read about another airline flight attendant vs. passenger incident. Why would any sane person react that way. I mean, seems the flight attendant was right, but just like in the recent case of a man being violently pulled out of an over-booked United flight, how come flight attendants apply violence to enforce their case? I was thinking about this a bit this morning. What is obvious, when looking around, is that we have very obviously educated a whole generation with the believe that violence is a viable option, to enforce ones rights. In a kind of subtle way, this is happening all over the place. For example I was watching StarWars Rogue One over the weekend. Old story of good vs. bad. Like in the original StarWars movies. Right? Well, watch closely, and you’ll see that both apply violence whenever and however, and no matter how many casuals, if it seems an option to accomplish what they – in the name of a greater good – need to accomplish. Shooting a storm trooper, blowing up a ship… no big deal. This has become such a common trend, are we actually realizing what we are doing here. And let there be no mistake, this is not just about StarWars. I was just picking that movie because I very recently watched it. Pick any of the mainstream entertainment, movies, computer games. I am not saying that watching this makes one violent. But in a much more subtle way, it lead to the now common understanding that violence is ok, if you are right. Well, no. Applying violence, in any situation, no matter what way, how much, inherently makes you equally evil than the person you are dealing with. You lose the moral high ground, if there ever was any. And if you are perceived stronger, there’s an outcry, like in the airline incidents recently. And make no mistake, this isn’t about movies or computer games. This is deeply wired into our societies. Movies and alike are just a mirror of our thinking altogether. A playground, where we can freely live in the illusion of a simple world. A world where physical strength, a weapon, can actually solve any problem.
What is more worrying though, is that the same pattern of good vs. bad, of violence is ok if I need to enforce a greater good, also applies to how Nations handle their conflicts. Take the recent US attack on Syria. Same mechanism, works both ways actually. President Trump sees pictures of hurt or killed children, in turn orders an attack on Syria as a revenge. Someone less powerful, children in Syria, were hurt, big dada jumps in to end it. From another point of view, big evil US attacks Syria. Guess what, lays the foundation for subsequent revenge by IS or other group not big or powerful enough to openly attack the US, so they chose so called terrorist attacks. Well, things get really confusing when you read this article (in German) in the Rubikon „Giftgasmassaker war False-Flag Operation”. Whether it’s been Assad, or the IS, or anybody else, whether it really happened or not, not a topic right now. What is the question is, how come the US can bomb an air base in Syria, and nearly the whole world applauds? Are we fucking insane? Someone, allegedly, kills a few dozen people, and we react to it by killing more people, and the politicians and mainstream media in the world are telling me this is ok? Who is the crazy one. The guy who orders the mass murder of innocent soldiers in Syria over a chocolate cake, or me? Oh, make no mistake, I guess I am not saying Syrian soldiers are per se innocent. But I am saying that the soldiers killed during that attack are definitely not the ones who ordered the gas massacre a couple days prior. Yet they got murdered for it.
We are so fucked. When I was young I was so lucky to live in peaceful times. I thought we had taken the lesson learned in two painful world wars, and there could be peace. Now I am 52 years old, not even a Granddaddy yet, and with every day passing I am feeling less secure about this things that, in my view, is just the illusion of peace by now.