Virtue in The Moden World

Okay, there are a couple of things I’d like to address regarding the position the majority of folks out there take on what it is to be human today. It’s been at the focus of my attention for some time now that people are selfish. Yes, we’ve known that to be the case for a long time yet, but a guy can dream right? What I mean is there is another way; a way less traveled, a road not taken too often, a position the minority has always maintained. It’s been called so many things in so many places that it must hold a least a little bit of sway in the general undertaking of human activity, or the understanding of what it is to be human. I know I may lose most of you right about here, so to those who desire to continue reading, thanks. This road less traveled has been called “the path of righteousness” in Christianity, “the middle way” in Buddhism, put simply “the way” in Taoism, the prospect of “kharma” in the Hindu world. The list continues but I believe you understand the point. There are these ways of life available to us, and have been preached about for millennia and millennia. We’ve been reminded of virtue since the beginning of human society. We each understand what it is to be virtuous, but it seems what people find most difficult about it is applying it to everyday life. Random acts of kindness and simple virtue don’t necessarily fit into people’s schedules, as it were. The real bitch of it is the people claiming to be walking this “path of righteousness” when in fact their main concern is measuring themselves against the person next to them, doing all sorts of things counter to the very belief system in which they base their “faith”. The big one that comes to mind is Christianity today. It’s interesting that the best examples of Christians you can find today, i.e. those who truly follow their doctrine and strive to be genuinely good people, are those in the extremely poor countries where Christian missionaries have chosen to help “save”.
Now, these missionaries are sort of looked at in poor light. It’s true that in their beginning, in the late 14th century, and even into more modern times like the 19th century, the goal wasn’t necessarily very clear. There were a lot of misconceptions about divinity throughout Europe in these times; the concepts of Hell and Purgatory being comprised to scare individuals into giving money to the church so that their souls could be saved. This stuff really happened. It was the dark ages, but nonetheless, those concepts have carried over even into today, which help contribute to the misunderstanding of people’s very religion.
But today missionaries, at the very least some of them, have managed to touch these people in great ways. They did offer belief systems different to their traditional systems of belief, but the true message of Christianity outside of all the frilly stories and dogmatic ways of thought have reached these people. They understand the concepts of helping those who can’t help themselves, giving alms to the poor, practices like “the golden rule”, and all the things that make a good Christian a “good Christian”. I’ve experienced this first hand in the Philippines. I have met literally the nicest people I have ever met in the poorest village I have ever seen: People who are willing to give the last of their food to a stranger just to be nice. It made me kind of sick to see practices that are so meticulously practiced in the Philippines are so vehemently mal-practiced in the states and throughout the world.
I’ve come to the conclusion that certain ways of daily life tend to get in the way of true practice. Specifically, the way we Americans go about day to day trying to one-up everybody next to us. We get so caught up in this activity that we totally ignore the facets of a virtuous life proposed in our churches and synagogues and the like. Now, there are plenty of non-practitioners that this argument doesn’t seem to apply to, but there's a very important point worth mentioning; that the concept of virtue has been in direct contact with religion for thousands of years now. It's been the basic precept for all of the religions of the world that involve nurturing the "soul" so to impart connection to divine forces.
Now, in the modern world, where capitalism is proof of a successful society, these basic precepts do not prove to be the most important points of religious movement. People seem to be more at odds with their particular religions. Christians for a large majority seem to have forgotten the words of their "savior". Yes, they go to church, and while they are there they recognize all the faults with themselves and make that vow to be a good person, but as soon as they leave they get so caught up in greed that they are willing to sacrifice their very foundation of a selfless individual for a mere few dollars to buy a new high definition flat-screen television. While they are all too aware of starving individuals across the world, they manage to close themselves off to the world around them just so they can enjoy sitting down in front of that t.v. I don't mean to single out Christianity here, nor do I intend to say everyone is like this. It's the same across the board of the many religions, and too there are many, many genuinely good people out there who spend more time helping others then monopolizing their time with greedy undertakings.
I know it's a near impossible thing to ask that people stop being selfish. It's sort of foolish, I know. But, if things were different, if our ancestors taught their children that stopping to help someone up who's fallen down, or spent some money so that a family didn't have to go without dinner for an evening, were all good things that were indeed rewarding to the self just for having made a difference, we'd all be in a much simpler, and favorable place right now. America wouldn't be looked upon as a nation of devils run by even worse devils. There wouldn't be those unnecessary stresses of adolescence, wondering if one is going to be able to go to school without fear of bullies or simple hierarchies of "cool" kids and "uncool" kids. Very simply there wouldn't be nearly as much BULLSHIT as there is. It's the way we're brought up, in the country we are in. We are conditioned from very early on by media and politics to like and dislike certain things. It's gone on for so long that we have a hard time imagining anything different. When you do go against the grain and speak out like this blog, people think you're being ridiculous and "idealistic". La la la idealism...this "lofty" unreal concept that couldn't possibly count for anything... This is what our society teaches us: that to dream of better conditions is to dream of the unattainable. Well, society is wrong, and if history teaches us anything is that the seemingly unreal typically becomes the norm in time. Look at Galileo, Einstein, Quantum Physics, Newton, Freud, and alot of these examples are still being reworked and refined! Things that blew our minds 500 years ago are to this day being expanded upon. Things change. They change for the better, and that is exactly what is happening now.
(unfinished)