Normality
It is a hard task questioning the normality of ourselves and the world we live in. We face this difficulty coming both from matters we consider as personal, along with matters we consider as social. Everything though composing our supposedly normality of ourselves and our world, is a product of processes in which, in the limits of our mental abilities, is defined by conscious or unconscious choices, made by us, other persons and groups, along with any kind of coincidences and randomnesses since the "beginning of time". Normality thus, potentially, includes innumerate versions of which some survive in time while new appear constantly.
Diversity
Modern world tends to drastically limit the diversity of the "normalities" since, on one hand, it forms conditions that allow the reticulation of humanity, while, on the other, it is able of defining the pursuits of persons and groups through teachings coming from an amazingly small number of cultural and trading centers.
As we know that developing diversities constitute the natural rule of establishing survival and evolution, we can suspect that by limiting it, we might possibly put ourselves in a serious danger.
Time
We are being taught, ever since the Iliad era, that our world is a world of relentless violence, dedicated to simultaneously create magnificent glory and total destruction This supposedly self proven normality of our world, is established and driven by people who stand above all of us and carry special gifts, even to communicate with supernatural entities, whom their lives are dedicated to command and overrule.
We avoid however to acknowledge that this particular normality, as it has been taught since the Iliad era until now, has only lasted a glimpse of an eye. In all of the rest of the human time, humanity has been evolving seeking the development of reason, empathy, and cooperation, in a constant struggle aiming to reduce antagonism and the destruction it produces.
Knowledge
This minimum glimpse of the eye has been enough for us to,
acknowledge normality in the ridicule of Thersites by Odysseus when he urges his co-warriors to disobedience and peaceful life,
acknowledge normality in the inversion of the totemic tradition in Odyssey where the equals are murdered by the king [άνακτας-recapture],
justify the submission of women to men as reasoned by the invalidation of the Erinnyes in Oresteia, and to,
tolerate the control of knowledge and social innovation by the respective authority as predisposed by the myth of Prometheus.
Fate
We choose to acknowledge as normal the complex system of antagonism separating people to the, more or less, successful ones and to the failed ones. This way, every one sharing a few crumbs of the "success" pie, sees normality in poverty, misery, wars turning cities to ground and people to refugees, as long as this poverty, misery and displacement regards other persons. Most remarkable is the fact that the poor, the miserable and the misplaced seem to conceive their state as a game of fortune instead of the result of a sequence of decisions made by them and other people.
Nature
It is pointless expending ourselves arguing about the potentials of human mentality or the limits of "human nature". It's certain however that, propensity to violence or imperiousness is part of this nature, just like many more often totally contradicting tendencies. The content of human behavior though, is defined by the intelligent choice, evaluating and rejecting the harmful tendencies in behalf of the useful ones, both in the personal and the social frame, while at the same time giving to the personal and the social a convergent path.
War
In the following texts appears an attempt to represent the human world beyond its most common conceptions, along with an attempt to find facts that have formed and are forming it.
In these texts the moment that the weapons are turned to means of production, is presented as the milestone in human History after which humanity is being organized in relations of coercion and submission, which in a more or less obvious manner contain war.
It is a hard task questioning the normality of ourselves and the world we live in. We face this difficulty coming both from matters we consider as personal, along with matters we consider as social. Everything though composing our supposedly normality of ourselves and our world, is a product of processes in which, in the limits of our mental abilities, is defined by conscious or unconscious choices, made by us, other persons and groups, along with any kind of coincidences and randomnesses since the "beginning of time". Normality thus, potentially, includes innumerate versions of which some survive in time while new appear constantly.
Diversity
Modern world tends to drastically limit the diversity of the "normalities" since, on one hand, it forms conditions that allow the reticulation of humanity, while, on the other, it is able of defining the pursuits of persons and groups through teachings coming from an amazingly small number of cultural and trading centers.
As we know that developing diversities constitute the natural rule of establishing survival and evolution, we can suspect that by limiting it, we might possibly put ourselves in a serious danger.
Time
We are being taught, ever since the Iliad era, that our world is a world of relentless violence, dedicated to simultaneously create magnificent glory and total destruction This supposedly self proven normality of our world, is established and driven by people who stand above all of us and carry special gifts, even to communicate with supernatural entities, whom their lives are dedicated to command and overrule.
We avoid however to acknowledge that this particular normality, as it has been taught since the Iliad era until now, has only lasted a glimpse of an eye. In all of the rest of the human time, humanity has been evolving seeking the development of reason, empathy, and cooperation, in a constant struggle aiming to reduce antagonism and the destruction it produces.
Knowledge
This minimum glimpse of the eye has been enough for us to,
acknowledge normality in the ridicule of Thersites by Odysseus when he urges his co-warriors to disobedience and peaceful life,
acknowledge normality in the inversion of the totemic tradition in Odyssey where the equals are murdered by the king [άνακτας-recapture],
justify the submission of women to men as reasoned by the invalidation of the Erinnyes in Oresteia, and to,
tolerate the control of knowledge and social innovation by the respective authority as predisposed by the myth of Prometheus.
Fate
We choose to acknowledge as normal the complex system of antagonism separating people to the, more or less, successful ones and to the failed ones. This way, every one sharing a few crumbs of the "success" pie, sees normality in poverty, misery, wars turning cities to ground and people to refugees, as long as this poverty, misery and displacement regards other persons. Most remarkable is the fact that the poor, the miserable and the misplaced seem to conceive their state as a game of fortune instead of the result of a sequence of decisions made by them and other people.
Nature
It is pointless expending ourselves arguing about the potentials of human mentality or the limits of "human nature". It's certain however that, propensity to violence or imperiousness is part of this nature, just like many more often totally contradicting tendencies. The content of human behavior though, is defined by the intelligent choice, evaluating and rejecting the harmful tendencies in behalf of the useful ones, both in the personal and the social frame, while at the same time giving to the personal and the social a convergent path.
War
In the following texts appears an attempt to represent the human world beyond its most common conceptions, along with an attempt to find facts that have formed and are forming it.
In these texts the moment that the weapons are turned to means of production, is presented as the milestone in human History after which humanity is being organized in relations of coercion and submission, which in a more or less obvious manner contain war.
