Learning

I’m a bare-bones and big-picture thinker. Although, I understand the general purpose of this question, I can’t help but hear it in its most simplistic form.

How has learning affected my thoughts or ideas?

Well, I’d be a real idiot. If I hadn’t learned to crawl or walk, I might have grown with the impression that the world was there to serve me just as my parents would have had to do. If I hadn’t learned to speak, I would have developed an emotional complex feeling I was never fully understood. If I was not able to learn, I would live my entire life in some special care facility for the dumb.

Learning obviously broadens the mind, exposing it to perspectives our imaginations are often too self-centered to create. It gives us the tools with which to mold our environments more to our liking, and it allows us to adapt in a world that will change endlessly. Learning moves us forward and sometimes backward.

Learning taught me that I’m better than other people, then it taught me that I was mistaken about that. Learning taught some people the world is flat; it taught me that it’s round; who knows what it will teach the future generations…multi-dimensionality is a very solid concept in physics and religion both.

The one thing I know is that learning makes me feel alive…and I like living.

Nationalism – The Setting Stage of Ethnic Abuses

It is difficult to say that nationalism, a shared pride in a national unit, is bad. It isn’t. It is the glue that makes us all feel we are part of something important, that we have something in common, and when it coincides with respect for your fellow citizen, it leads to a unified commerce.

Nationalism is an ego. Ego is what makes a man move on in dire situations; it even makes a man strive to overcome natures laws themselves (see the worlds of science & invention). Ego is a necessity to human survival; nationalism is a necessity to national development and unity.

Ego can also destroy a man, however, because, as is our human nature, we get addicted to feel-good emotions, especial the ones that foster delusions that relieve the stresses of reality.

Nationalism, when left unchecked, has been the sprouting seed of a number of global problems (Nazi nationalism {Book – Inside Nazi Germany}, Japanese nationalism, British nationalism; just to mention a small time period in world history). Basic fertilizers have been economic decline (basic human struggle to survive), national shame/embarrassment (slashed ego), and sudden influx of out-side cultures (dilution of communal spirit).

Russia, suffering many social/economic issues, is a prime candidate for nationalism. And with the three social fertilizers mentioned above, their current instance of nationalism is likely to be a great thorn in their future.

Putin’s efforts to cover up the errors of Russia’s past foster this national pride. It isn’t even that I blame the Russians for adding to the great collection of human faux pas to which every nation in al of history has contributed. However, by allowing these delusions, although it relieves the ego of an entire nation, will eventually fertilize a world view which simply repeats the past instead of learning from it. Russia may very well regain super-power status. However, they must keep in mind that although nationalism can motivate the arm, man still must swing the hammer and labor toward stability. Pulling triggers will do nothing to make their great nation respectable, financially sound, let alone trusted.

An Abused Africa

From an ethical standpoint, the world’s most powerful countries have a responsibility to Africa to assist in the many issues going on there. The direct and indirect evidence of the destabilization of African governments by outside governments, in a variety of ways, in order to plunder the natual resources and place their businesses is widespread. Recently, Africa’s situation has gone from bad to worse as the leaders that once promised to make things different are now the problem themselves. As the leaders settle in to power and realize how ingrained the world’s grip is on the leash around Africa’a throat, they loose their idealism, they become the thing they once hated.
Unfortunately, few outsiders care, and why would they as their lifestyles, in many cases, are carried by the resources and labors of Africa. Africans are going to have to band together and take responsibility for themselves. Once upon a time, Africa was a symbol of strength and freedom that inspired America’s black population to know that they were more than they believed they could be. Now, it is time for the little brother to lead – now it is time for Africa to look at what’s happenning in African-American communities where the people are learning that they themselves have become their own worst enemy. They are learning to stop the in-fighting, to band together, and to take back their communities. Africa can get out from under the weight of the world, but it must do it as a whole – and right or wrong, it will likely have to do it by itself.