Showing posts with label Social Issues. Show all posts

The Greater Fool

By Hawk | Published Sunday, June 9, 2013

A poem written by me. Enjoy.

The Greater Fool

A voice unheard,

For the mouth was kept shut

In a silent place able of great echo

A stand not taken,

Where everyone is sitting or lying down

A change not seen,

For the comfort zone is oh so sweet

A survival, not a life

A sense of insignificance

Strengthened by us

A flawed logic,

In an irrational world,

A sense of belonging,

That seems to one that he must enforce

But it’s all an illusion

Keeping your words in chains

Your actions inactive

For the agenda does not include you

One can, and one must

Dare to be

What the world should,

And has to be

Why me?

Why fight a war I can’t win?

What is the purpose?

Who will see?

One has to look

And see

That the world has not seen progress

Without the ones

Who ignored those questions

Without the Greater Fools

Who didn’t lack fear,

But their courage overwhelmed it

Who felt alone,

But knew they can, and did take it

Delusional, many often said

But when has success

Been reached

Without wicked thought

Over confident,

An ego too great

Just dysphemisms,

For the brave one

Who dared a step to take

To give it a try,

History to make

Posted in Social Issues | Leave a comment

In remembrance of George Orwell

By Hawk | Published Monday, January 21, 2013

George Orwell's works have tremendously influenced me. He has been a very important figure in my life since an early age.
He died on January 21, 1950, but he will never perish from the minds of the people he taught how to think in a more critical, rational way. From the minds of people like me.

As a sign of remembrance, I would like to share here, on my blog, some of my most favorite quotes from him. I don't have a favorite quote, though. I could never pick one as my favorite as they are all unique and so full of enlightening meaning.

Here they are:

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
― George Orwell

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
― George Orwell

“We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
― George Orwell

“Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
― George Orwell

“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“Sanity is not statistical.”
― George Orwell

“The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.”
― George Orwell

“I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.”

― George Orwell, 1984

“Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence.”

― George Orwell

“He felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable”

― George Orwell, 1984

Rest in peace, Eric. You are greatly missed, and tremendously appreciated.

Posted in communication, Social Issues | Leave a comment

Mass Media Manipulation

By Hawk | Published Sunday, April 1, 2012

The mass media, even though they are supposed to inform the general public in a just and truthful way, are being used as tools for concealing the truth and manipulating the masses. This has been going on since their emergence.

One of the main reasons the mass media are used in a manipulative way is to prepare the public for things that ultimately go against their interest such as wars for example. The public is actually convinced that this is for its own good and that they should completely support the government in this. The mass media fuel nationalism and hate so much that the general public does indeed fully support the starting of the war for example. Sometime in the past yes, some wars were actually for the interest of the people, but nowadays, pretty much all wars are for the good of the big corporations. Taking the example of the new "democracies' that are arising from the “Arabic spring” we can see that only the big oil corporations (that also control the mass media through their lobby groups) are the only ones that are profiting from the wars for regime change. The only thing the people are going to get is a fake sense of freedom and democracy, and I’m saying “are going to get” because for now they are in complete chaos (not Anarchy since the word has a different meaning even though the mass media have twisted its meaning) and will continue to be so until the corporations take complete control of all their oil reservoirs.

The mass media are also used (or to be more precise, abused) by the government to hide their mistakes and their corruption. The mass media, in a way, are censured by the government. They are not allowed to convey the truth to the audience, the public, the people. In this case, the bad guys are the guys from the government, but this is not always the case when it comes to the hiding of the government corruption and incapability to deal with the problems of the people. There are cases where the owners of television networks are members of parties including the ruling one. They will of course not let their television to air information that would considerably hurt the ratings of the ruling party even though that party is corrupt and full of incapable officials. This is compensated in a way with the television networks that are against the ruling party (pro-opposition), but even they lie and manipulate the public in favor of the opposition parties. The pro-government and pro-opposition media, both inform the public in such a way as to manipulate them for the benefit of their “side”, and in this way they do not present the truth to the public but just information that are often twisted and sometimes they don’t even inform the public at all on certain things. Just to make things clear, the media do not “favor” the government just in the cases when the owner is politically active in the ruling party, but also when the owner is not working according to the law and therefore falls to the trap of the corrupt government officials who threatening him or her with legal repercussion force him to use his media for their benefit. Also, sometimes there is no politics or illegal activities involved. Sometimes it’s just that the media financially benefits a lot from the government campaigns so they in return support the ruling party so their revenue would continue to be as high or even rise.

It is sad how the public is lied to, manipulated and treated like sheep, but on the other hand, I find it funny how the public actually let all this happen to them and don't try to do something about it. Something really needs to be done. Things need to change.

Posted in Mass media, Social Issues | Leave a comment

The lack of proper communication

By Hawk | Published Saturday, March 17, 2012

The lack of communication is by far one of the very worst things in the world. It has always been a problem. Even though through all this time we gave names and signs to pretty much everything, to those things that we can see and touch and to those that we can’t, we still have problems exchanging information and understanding each other.

One of the biggest problems is the language barrier, and by that I don’t mean just the barrier of two people that speak different languages to understand each other, but also of people with different levels of education and familiarity with the subject they are discussing about. People who are more educated and informed on a subject often tend to use abbreviations and scientific terms that most people aren’t familiar with and that makes it impossible for the others to understand the message that is being conveyed to them. Body language, facial expressions and all other things in non verbal communication are a problem too. Not because of their existence, but because of their complexity and relative meaning. Most of them differ from place to place, so when people communicate, they often have problems understanding those mixed signs, especially when the one speaking is totally contradicting himself with his non verbal communication. Sometimes people perceive that as lying, or at least are suspicious about the truthfulness of that that they are being told. This is one of the reasons people lose trust really, and I believe we all know how hard it is to start trusting people that have already lost our trust of, even though in this case it would be rather easy if we were aware of the non verbal communication differences and would explain them. This brings me to another point. When people lose trust they often also get mad and stop talking to the person that they believe lied to them. This is a problem because in these situations people close themselves and refuse to listen to the explanations and therefore cannot be conveyed the truth but also keeping in mind that, as George Carlin said “language is a tool for concealing the truth”. A simple misunderstanding. This is how relationships are ruined (just to be clear, I mean all kinds of relationships, not just the one you thought of when reading the word). The lack of explanations is a very serious problem actually, and not just when people refuse to get them. In most cases, people just don’t give them assuming the person they are talking to is familiar enough with the subject at hand so they don’t see a reason to do so, and this is not where this problem ends. People instead of asking for an explanation they just stand there without understanding what they are hearing and like people often do when they don’t hear something, they just nod and smile. I often see people around me struggling to complete something, or wonder about the meaning of a certain thing that they heard from someone just because they didn’t ask for an explanation. Some people just don’t bother, and others are just afraid that they might look stupid if they do so.

Overthinking is also a very big problem for many people. These people may be conveyed a very simple and concise message but they end up analyzing it so much that they get completely confused and then just jump to a certain conclusion. This gets us to Interpretation, which in my opinion is one of the biggest, if not the biggest communication problem that people face. People tend to listen to what they like, to interpret things the way they like, or the way it suits them. This pretty much always results with people having misunderstandings, arguments and even fights.

It’s a pity how the lack of proper communication causes so many problems in the world really, and not just simple things that I mentioned earlier but even real hatred between whole nations and even war. We should really stop talking about each other, and start talking to each other in a proper way, and seek to truly understand each other, and give and ask explanations for everything that might be misinterpreted. The world would be a much better place if everyone did this.