Mumbai Terrorists May Teach Us Nothing, But Can a Wal-Mart Stampede?
While Mumbai suffers heavy losses from a terrorist attack, American shoppers are busy trampling Wal-Mart employees to save a few dollars on Black Friday. When will we get our priorities straight?
finally triggered me to set up a blog as an outlet for my (sometimes vague and frequently chaotic) thoughts on mankind and my perception of his (her) existence, progress, evolution and all related stuff. Here I hope to eventually organize these thoughts and share views with others.
The Wal-Mart stampede (nov 28, 2008) struck me hard as an unmistakable example of the dark side of man's attitude, although it doesn't diminish my faith in mankind as a whole in the long run. I believe in a technological, social and mental progress in the near future. And, somewhat further on, I believe in an evolution (maybe partially stimulated by human progress itself) into some "higher" being we all hope and aim for (well, most of us..). I understand this near future to be several to many generations ahead.
Those who (commercially) think of short, middle and long term as being two, five and ten years, respectively, will find this interpretation of 'near' surprising. However, it's not intended in the everyday way of seeing 'time', but in a cosmic sense, where even a thousand years still means nothing. I believe that very little people, entities and governments ever think on this scale, but if you want to consider human progress and evolution it is mandatory. If you just look behind you, you see how much time there was needed to get where we are now and we only have just started as species, roughly some 2 million years ago while some reptiles are believed to have been around for over 200 million years!
Anyway, my faith in mankind's future, does not neglect the many problems the human race has at present and will have to overcome in the centuries ahead, as the Wal-Mart stampede clearly shows. In fact, my main worry in this context is precisely: whether or not mankind will survive the coming decades and actually will be able to continue it's evolutionairy voyage. Problems like war and deterioration of man's natural environment (I don't believe in the human race living somewhere else than on earth, our home! Sorry Trekkies...) are serious threats, threats that in my opinion find their roots in the shortsightedness, greed and selfishness of each individual human being: my home, my car, my family, my money and my bargain at Walmart, which collectively are reflected on a greater scale: my company, my generation, my nation and my religion.
The threats would diminish considerably, if only people and entities could see themselves from a wider perspective; more as a supporting element within an evolutionairy process than as the protagonist of their own self-centered short term movie.
Would the bargain at Walmart then still be so important? Or would Walmart still create "an atmosphere of competition and anxiety" that leads to "crowd craze"?
Some references to the Walmart stampede:
- While Mumbai suffers heavy losses from a terrorist attack, American shoppers are busy trampling Wal-Mart employees to save a few dollars on Black Friday. When will we get our priorities straight?
- Family of man crushed at Wal-Mart stampede sue store
The family of a Wal-Mart shop worker trampled to death when bargain hunters surged into his store is suing the retail giant, claiming its sales advertising "created an atmosphere of competition and anxiety" that led to "crowd craze". - And last but not least the comment on Digg that triggered me to finally start a blog:
Mumbai Terrorists May Teach Us Nothing, But Can a Wal-Mart Stampede?
While Mumbai suffers heavy losses from a terrorist attack, American shoppers are busy trampling Wal-Mart employees to save a few dollars on Black Friday. When will we get our priorities straight?
Definitly a good question which I just could not leave unanswered....
This is exactly what I thought as well. (Talked about it with my girlfriend just before)
As wrong as they may seem, the Mumbai terrorists at least had their reasons and consciously did something they were convinced of. The wal-Mart stampede, however, shows the darkest side of unconscious collective human behavior, triggered by the worst of their weaknesses: greed (which then, to a certain extend, is a form of egoism) - just to save a few dollars as you correctly mention.
Interestingly so, it's this same weakness that, in fact, led to the big crash just some months ago (still going on); the greed of many individual people betting high stakes on supposed big future profits, triggered by the even bigger collective greed of companies, banks, institutions and governments, betting even higher stakes on some imaginary profits (commonly known as speculating - which actually is no more than an evolved form of betting...).
I am absolutely not against the free market mechanism, but I have finaly understood the real meaning of capitalism (which is only good for the happy few up there, that are addicted to speculating). Free market is ok, but speculating without limits leads to the malicious need to manipulate people to consume, buy and spend beyond their real needs and resources. This extremely intelligent, subliminal, malicious manipulation (also referred to as publicity and marketing) is what distorts our priorities and has us stampeding a man to death.
A lot people in the wealthy countries should think a step back and ask themselves if, having already covered the basic needs of shelter and food, they really need that big 4x4 car to do shopping or run so hard only to save some bucks....
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