Thank you for the replies.
After reading your responses it seem that there are three criteria that need to be met in order to make a choice that has a poor impact on others or oneself:
- We feel powerless.
- We are presented with choice.
- We feel competitive/threatened.
So even though we are aware that the environment is being polluted to death we feel that as individuals our choices don’t matter. After all we are just one of 300,000,000 people in this country.
Next we are told that SUV’s are the best cars to have. We are told that if you own an SUV your social rank will soar.
Next our own competitive instincts are activated. Men wont get laid and women will look like they are housewives with poor husbands if they don’t drive an SUV.
So the decision is made. We buy an SUV because the planet is going to hell anyways therefore we might as well get the best car advertised so we will be above all the other shmoes.
I think the key issue is the idea of feeling powerless. I mentioned that this same method of thought could also have an effect on suppressing the positive atributes of the world. For example accomplishments don’t hold any value if one feels insignificant. How does one become inspired if one doesn’t have any impact on this world? Most importantly if one’s actions are insignificant then the world might as well not exist. The only thing that feels important is the self because we know that we can impact ourselves. So one becomes withdrawn from the world.
Thoughts?
[edited to remove the triple use of the word "effect" in a sentence
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