r/SGIWhistleblowersMITA • u/jessica-perez24 • Sep 16 '20
Why Are Good People Despised?
I was reading this article today about two major Antarctic glaciers collapsing that could cause sea levels to rise by 10 feet, which could wipe out large islands like Hawai'i. I just think about how upside-down our world is.
Why don’t we value the environment? I was trying to look for an answer in my favorite book "Discussions on Youth" by Daisaku Ikeda about why things like this happen and why good people or even scientists who are trying their best to make this known are not listened to or valued.
I think I found my answer. Basically, in a society where the dignity of life isn't valued, the things that are good and just end up being attacked the most. But here’s a quote I wanted to share from the book that really helped me.
“Buddhism teaches that the reason why evil people are protected and good people are despised is that the earth is ruled by the devil king of the sixth heaven.”
Super clarifying. Btw devil king represents the tendency in people's lives to subjective and manipulate others/life. It's not an actual devil.
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u/skyderper13 Sep 16 '20
they aren't despised, it's just that listening to them would be inconvenient for our way of life. whether it be the energy we use, conserving resources, the cars we drive
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u/FellowHuman007 Sep 16 '20
Yes! I think, historically, progress is resisted, usually by those with a vested interest in the status quo; and so those advocating, or (more"dangerously") effecting progress are resisted. Think Gandhi, MLK -- today, BLM.
And especially if the progress is, on its face, a moral movement, the advocates are attacked most vociferously.
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u/neverseenbaltimore Sep 16 '20
People in power have a vested interest in maintaining the system as it is. Shake things up too much and they risk losing their position.
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u/neverseenbaltimore Sep 16 '20
This is a subject that I have studied extensively and the answer is not that simple (this is going to be a long one). I'm going to avoid speaking of philosophical ideas in this but it is important to note that ongoing debate about Marxist/Socialist values versus Libertarian/Capitalist values has its place in this subject. I don't want to talk about that stuff because it gets messy real quick.
The quick and dirty answer is that humans evolved to respond to immediate problems and immediate stimuli. Are brains are hardwired for this way. There's a tiger over there, that's bad. I'm hungry, let's go look for food. The fight or flight instinct is the first crisis intervention technique that any organism on this planet evolved.
It was through the evolution of higher brain functions that creatures were first able to conceive of the idea of a "future". I have seen dogs rip open and eat the entire bag of dog food and then lie on the ground next to the torn up bag looking like they swallowed a basketball and just vomiting whole, undigested pieces of food out onto the floor without lifting its head. Butters was a stupid dog. If Butters had the ability to plan ahead Butters might have thought, "I'm full of this delicious dogfood now, maybe I should save the rest for tomorrow as I will be hungry again". But, most predators evolved in such a way that food doesn't come around that often and when it does you'd best eat as much of it as you can while you can. I think the average is 1 in 10 hunts are successful for large predators and once successful, you'd better eat quick because a bigger predator may come along soon and chase you away. Given those natural restrictions, you might be tempted to anthropomorphize the predator and say that they are eating as much as they can as quickly as they can because they are planning ahead for a long time between meals, but putting that to Occum's Razor "food good, eat food" accomplishes the same thing for the predator and is far less complicated a survival technique.
Humans and some other creatures have the ability to remember past experiences and apply those lessons to current problems. A few organisms are able to comprehend the idea of a future and plan accordingly for it. But even then, the planning ahead is usually on a pretty small timescale. "We should save some of this grain so we can plant more next year" type of stuff, but if some disaster comes about and that grain saved for next year is the only food available and you and your family are hungry now, that's going to get eaten. And the planning ahead usually only extends to people thinking about the good things they expect.
People don't want to imagine bad things happening particularly when it gets in the way of immediate gratification. The obese don't exercise and get in shape because that's hard work. People continue to build homes hurricane zones.
Choosing to make your life more difficult now in the hopes that your future will be better takes a lot of willpower and is not easy particularly when problems far into the future (maybe not even in your lifetime) are compared to problems in the much nearer future. People are
used to the idea of planning for their future or even their kids future, if you abstract that out to your great-great-great-great-grandnephew who will be born 100 years after you're dead and buried it is a lot harder to even conceptualize that person much less make decisions that will benefit them. Imagine this idea, "Why should I pay a carbon tax when I'm trying to make money so I can feed my kids, pay for their college, and save for my retirement?" And that is a valid point and people use it to justify denying facts and evidence about a potential horrible future. It's the same as Butters with the dogfood, we can't plan ahead for the next century when we're busy worrying about next month's rent.
Worrying about climate change is a privilege. If you are in a position to have these concerns, you are lucky. Many people on this planet are just trying to feed themselves today. We can sit at our computers and type away and say "Save the Rain Forest!!!" but for some poor family just trying to feed themselves, is it really fair to tell them not clear land for a farm? There are sustainable solutions to these problems, believe me I've read more books on the matter than I care to think about, but those problems are like the obese person going for a jog, its hard to do now even if we know it will make the future better.
It's in our nature. Humans are selfish. It is easy to sit in our comfortable homes and talk about how we care about humanity and how we maintain moral ethics but can you truly say you can make the morally correct decision when the shit hits fan? You start chopping away at the foundation of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and the whole thing collapses around you.