Who Are We?

As someone who has read a ton of post-apocalyptic novels, I often find myself evaluating the people I meet based on how I think they would behave if this whole civilization thing went into the crapper.

It's a depressing practice. The more I see of people, the less faith I have in them.

People are selfish, and that's understandable. All of us care about our self interest most of the time. It's the very rare human that is truly concerned with the well being of others on a consistent basis. But, what's truly disturbing is how few people temper their natural self interest with a set of serious morals or values. All of us may have impure inclinations, but we should also have a certain honor about how we live life.

But, the gap between what 'should be" and what "is" cannot be overstated. All the high minded ideals people claim to value are easily cast aside when those ideals affect their self interest. People only believe what they believe when it remains in to their benefit to believe it.

It's sad.

In fact, the only reason we're not a huge mass of raping, murdering, thieving bastards is because as society has grown we've established complicated controls to restrict our worst impulses. When those controls are weakened or destroyed, chaos reigns. In times of great stress, morals are abandoned and unhealthy compromises made. And what does that say about human beings?


I honestly don't know.


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