Saturday, December 29, 2012

Revenge . . The Dish Best Not Served


Television Show
I think as a culture we have a fascination with revenge.  We like the idea of the bad guy getting their just desserts. It’s a common theme in film, television, literature, and all forms of media.  Our stories are built on determining who is the good guy and who is the bad guy.  We like being able to assign blame and fault.  We like being right. And oh we love to see the outcome of such acts.  It's this subconscious verification that the universe does doll out the appropriate payment for certain actions.  Even though we know life isn't fair we are constantly seeking proof to the contrary.  So much so that we ourselves are willing to do the dirty work if the Universe seems stalled.

The only issue with this is that too often in our daily lives we can manufacture villains when there are not any.  We can seek someone who we feel deserves revenge when the only faults they truly have are being human. 

Being human is a tricky thing and what I feel provides most of the trouble.  We are in truth simple dumb beasts in a lot of ways.  We just so happen to also be very clever ones. We have encased ourselves into our environment in a way that makes it easy to forget that. Our ideas are shaped by our environment and culture.  We are easy to program through media and being constantly plugged in.

Brain Processing
Many studies have proven that being constantly inundated with specific patterns of thought and ideas has a lasting effect on how we view and deal with the world. Only with a lot of work can this be altered or even deterred.  Even so, exposure to any form of media for a long period of time has a lasting effect.

I think of how stories from the Bible have influenced the creation of our society and developed laws. From the creation of fairytales and how they have shaped thoughts and ideas about male and female relationships to how the voyeuristic nature of reality TV has created this subsection with this social media explosion we are currently in the middle of. We are constantly being influenced on how to think, what to think, and what to believe.

What terrifies me is how few people understand that in reality there is a very specific core group of individuals that get to decide what type of influences we get. Thus they are shaping the world in their image.  Slowly filling all of our minds with what they want humanity to be. What you see is what they want you to see, and how they want you to see it. In many ways the explosion of social media is the only thing that is breaking through the illusion cast by forms of organized media. However it is through this lens we can sometimes clearly see the effect of other forms of media on our thinking.

Social Media and the Brain
There are fascinating bodies of work being built based on social media sites and the things people feel comfortable expressing on them.  Clearly we see our culture and its concerns with discrimination, equality, and finance.   We live in a world where by a chance of bonding in a statement that is only 144 characters long a nobody can speak to a media icon. A world where 1000s of miles can vanish and you can have a face-to-face conversation through a machine. With our innovations however our basic make-up and what we need in a story or a plotline has not changed, just the way we deploy it.

But isn't this really the problem.  A lot of who we are as humans has not changed.  And now we can see ourselves clearly.  And even more impressive future generations will be able to catalogue some of our lives in intimate detail because we have become intimate with our communication methods and devices. We have not actually grown into our technology, it has grown despite us. And I believe it will inevitable force us to grow as we are creating a symbiotic union with technology.

Previous versions of humanity never had what we now have, a true reflection of the soul.  It began millennia ago with art, the need to create. It wobbled its first steps with the development of religion, absolute truths that we made ourselves believe so that we could learn to think. It matured in government, policy, and the creation of a ruling class. It manifest in social groupings, nationalities, our ability to separate used to extreme discretion. Its focus narrows in communities, chosen professions, supply and demand systems to fulfill our own wants and needs. And it completes the circle coming back to one and the reflection is finally clear, each moment documented and preserved by a system that unlike us will not forget our history.  Finally forcing us to not do the same.

I know what you're thinking, revenge is the topic. True but we can't delve into revenge until we understand perspective.  This plays a crucial role in determining what actions deserve to be avenged. Everyone has a point of no return action that takes mild mannered you and replaces it with bug ass nuts Batman. For most people it involves any hurt coming to loved ones whether on purpose or not.

The Question
The issue is that almost everything negates the thought that accidents are blame free. It negates that sometimes $#!& happens. While there are cases of obvious negligence, sometimes accidents just happen and yet we need to find fault. If not there wouldn't need to be so many lawyers on TV advertising their services for accidents. Clearly they can afford advertising it's a profitable business.  But why?  The need to assign blame, fault, and ultimately gain revenge.  The just desserts of the bad guy.  Because for humans bad things can't just happen. Someone has to make them happen.  And in a decent amount of cases this is true.  But not all of the time. Sometimes things are inexplicable and we should be damned glad that they are.

What is really gained?  A sense of satisfaction for setting right a wrong? What validation is the revenge seeker getting?  Well clearly how our society views this is at work.  We are social creatures, and the smug sense of knowing that you did 'the right thing' by the standards of others is sometimes too hard to resist, and is usually a good thing. 


The Crow
But the concept of revenge has usually been the deed of a villain not a hero. However our society has developed the anti-hero.  The concept that the bad guy can now be the good guy.  I believe this is a reflection of humanity coming to terms with itself. Now that our mirrors are so clear we can't be coerced to forget, and the little slips in history can't be covered like it was hundreds of years ago.  We have only been told noble stories of noble past deeds.  The truth is most likely closer to what we can now see.

The truth is, no one can be all good all of the time.  We all fall, we all are capable and sometimes unknowingly wrong someone.  But in a world where even accidents can be blamed on someone, you no longer have good guys.  You just have people making mistakes so tales of atonement become pressingly more popular. We can't be perfect, but the world still has to be fair.  You must pay your dues and gain atonement. Black and white is torn asunder and you are left with multi-tonal gray. 

Gray feels messy, unbalanced.  Shocking when the world used to be so stark.  It confuses you, it makes you uncomfortable.  The lines before were so very clear and now not at all. Eventually you realize black and white was too binding, gray is an excellent color. 

And Always
Gray accounts for mistakes, accidents, and well-intentioned mishaps.  It opens the door to no one being denied forgiveness or salvation. In gray is all of our hopes and dreams, true acceptance among each other. 

Gray doesn't really need revenge. Revenge is a residual response from those black and white days. Gray just needs solutions to existing problems.  You aren't being held accountable for anything but your own actions. And even those can be managed.  Give time a shot at it, amazing things happen in time. Because somewhere along the way of our journey to what we are now, time somehow managed to show us that.
Glorious Shades of Gray


And Always courtesy of http://www.leadliaison.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/use-marketing-automation-to-avoid-human-error.jpg

Brain Processing courtesy of http://www.disruptionmanifesto.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Slide7.jpg

Social Media and the Brain courtesy of http://johnbell.typepad.com/weblog/images/2008/09/04/pr_brain2.jpg

The Crow courtesy of http://www.dumage.com/img/fun/righteous-anti-heroes-in-movies/righteous-anti-heroes-in-movies01.jpg

Glorious Shades of Gray courtesy of http://www.seducingwithstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/shades-of-black-and-grey-1024x789.jpg

The Question courtesy of http://freetheanimal.com/images/2012/10/Screen-Shot-2012-10-28-at-1.02.14-PM.png

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