i was talking with a good friend and came upon the idea of why its easier to unite people against an enemy than it is to unite people for a common good.
1) its easy to demonize someone.
we all learn this in the first grade. we make fun of others to hide our own weaknesses.
it also makes us feel better about ourselves, because it makes us feel other people are beneath us.
it makes us feel that we are not the ones lacking in whatever.
2) its easy for people to agree that someone is an enemy.
its much easier to focus on the differences between 2 people than it is to focus on the things in common.
usually because its those differences that we all find key to our personality. its those differences that make us unique and so we value those traits very highly.
the traits we all have in common are valued less because everyone has them. true, it is essential to daily life that 99.9% of us have working eyes -but that quickly becomes taken for granted and we focus on the traits that make us different from other people. its those differences that we use to identify ourselves as individuals.
3) its easy to use fear as a motivational tool.
i believe there are social psychology studies demonstrating that fear, when paired with a path to avoid that which is feared, is the most effective means in motivating people to quit smoking (for example).
if you present something that makes people anxious and fearful, you stimulate a fight or flight response, which is genetically inherent motivation -motivation to escape or defend from danger.
you then harness that motivation by showing a direct path to escape the danger. make it an easy decision for the person experiencing fear to make, because their decision making ability is impaired by the emotional response.
it is easy to manipulate people using fear.
4) its easy to earn someone's trust by commiserating a common enemy.
first, because of reason 1. it makes people feel better to look down on other people.
second, because of reason 2. it gives 2 people something in common. they both hate X.
third, because of reason 3. the manipulator has saved the person from danger.
forth, because of reason 4. if the manipulator can pretend to be affected by the fear, the pair can then commiserate their feelings of fear and
fifth, bond over working together to escape/defeat an enemy.
5) its difficult to unite on what we have in common.
maybe because we are all inherently "enemies" in some sense, with our differing points of view.
we can all agree that murder is wrong, and can thus unite in demonizing murderers. but that leads to more challenging questions:
what do we do with murderers? kill them? imprison them? reform them? hospitalize them?
what defines murderers? 1st degree? manslaughter? self defense? war? testers on animals?
so once the issue we fear has been conquered, we then have to decide how to proceed -and that can be very divisive, considering how many opinions there can be on the subject.
some of my favorite tunes from 2009 in this post dancehall sound.
the hardest part was choosing a #1. :)
you'll definitely hear me drop a few of these at the upcoming King Cannibal show at Bassic in Boston.
so many great producers and MC's here. looking forward to 2010!!!
#10 Bongo Chilli - Everyday (Vinyl Blight Remix) (from release: vermin street digital dancehall series: issue 1)
not technically 2009, but this is the new sound i'm pushing. new ragga jungle with new styles, new sounds. more dancehall, more bass, more distorted crunk. and Bongo Chilli, such a mainstay of this electronic dancehall sound. i definitely like working with his vocals.
#9 Jah Mason - Vegetable Time (from album: unlimited)
if you know me, you know there's no way i could not include a reggae tune about "no meat, it nah on me plate." and i love the rough vs smooth dynamic he's got going on in this tune. reminds me a little bit of my days in a hardcore band. :)
#8 Blasta ft. Solo Banton - Burn Babylon Coke (from release: burn babylon coke)
show me a person who's head doesn't nod irresistably when the hook drops and i'll show you a lifeless corpse. period.
#7 Sarrantis ft. Honey Brown - Fall In Love (from release: vocals and versions: vol. 1)
another irresistable track. lots of pop sensibilities here, but Sarantis has a solid resume and i look forward to hearing more.
#6 King Cannibal ft. Jahcoozi - Murder Us (from album: let the night roar)
what a sexy tune! dark and techno. dirty shit.
and this from a great album with amazing engineering and some new styles i've never heard anything like before.
#5 Jahdan Blakkamoore - Earthshaking (from album: buzzrock warrior)
totally love his vocal stylings here. gets all raw and nasty, blues, whiskey and tom waits on your ass. awesome.
and this tune on a decent full length from a very diverse MC.
#4 Kush Arora ft. MC Zulu - 11th Hour Escape
and
#3 Kush Arora ft. Juakali - Come From Yard (from album: dread bass chronicles)
I first heard this Dread Bass Chronicles album after meeting Kush at the WMC last year. i was totally floored. such great sound design. such great manipulation of vocals. these 2 tunes are 2 of my favorites, but there are many more great ones. and such great new styles. dubstep but not dubstep. dancehall, but with deep sound design. i can't say enough good things.
#2 Disrupt - Berzerk Dub (from album: the bass has left the building)
fucking Disrupt does amazing stuff. i love 90% of it and that is saying A LOT from a very picky dj here. and Jahtari is such a unique little label, with their 8-bit digital dub reggae. hot shit.
#1 Liquid Stranger ft Warrior Queen (from album: the intergalactic slapstick)
Liquid Stranger's a new one to me, but he comes with recommendations from my old friend Professor Pious, who shares much of my awesome taste in music. :) and this whole album from the man Liquid Stranger has some great and diverse sounds. from this total dancefloor annihilator to some very ambient dubs. and his bass just can not be contested!
some good conversations with friends lately.
thanks to chris and mike.
there's few people i know that i feel can relate to my current state of mind and truely challenge me to think about things in ways i hadn't before.
thinking more about what to do with life.
common themes in this blog, restated:
1) there is no purpose to live for.
so life should be for maximum enjoyment.
2) is living life for enjoyment a waste?
is there work to be done? helping others live better?
3) will the fact that i'm vegan and environmental matter in 1,000,000 years when earth doesn't exist anymore?
why try and save anything?
4) so i give in to my love of music.
is that selfish?
5) i justify my pursuit of music and record label as a way to create community, and to foster the exchange of ideas and and i suppose curse people with this meaningless, godless, reproductionless state that i'm so afflicted with, so that we may, together, find a reason for being.
talking to chris brought up some excellent points about how even more immediately my concern for the environment would be made insignificant. where i'm all "stars and planets and eventual collision," he's all "over population and unsustainability."
and its true. even if we create a totally environmentally friendly way of creating energy and traveling, there will still be nearly 7 billion people on this planet.
how is it possible to make the existence of 1 race, which is ubiquitous on this planet, sustainable for the rest of living things?
balloons popped. parade rained out.
i miss my friend rachel.
maybe she'll have some good insights for me. though i think she may want kids, which gives her life purpose and she may not have anything for me.
this blog is becoming a journal of my quest to find something valid to expend my life on.
but lately, intellectualism is the reason.
i see no magic left in this world.
no sparkle.
everything has an answer. there's no unsolvable equations and no impossible pursuits.
there's only rocks and body fluids and hard work -mostly hard work.
at first glance, some things seem magical.
for example: birth; god; the internet.
but those things are offset by the weight of their presence.
birth and babies give way to mappable growth and predictability. even in the womb.
god just exists to make you feel better about things you can't explain or control.
the internet is the might of computers, flexing in full force and revolutionizing life. but they still have an off switch.
even human behaviour is fairly cut and dry.
most of this sounds vain and conceited, but there's not much i can't wrap my head around.
granted there are many things i've never seen and many more i will never fully understand the details of. though travel and research is well within my reach.
i frequently wonder what i'm supposed to do with this state... this lack of mystery. was it b.b. king who sang 'the thrill is gone'?
all questions i ask myself point back to the notion that life is to be enjoyed, that the purpose of life is to be happy.
but even hedonism gets boring.
this is me wondering what to do with my life.
i am gainfully employed with a challenging job, have a pretty much perfect girlfriend, have hobbies i'm passionate about and an awesome community to share those hobbies with.
mainstream means of entertainment are useless to me. popular radio, tv and movies, shopping, sports, having kids, week-long resort vacations, christmas and any other holiday for that matter...
i can't relate to 99% of people and dont want to hear stories about their coworkers.
learning is fun, but is life to be an endless cycle of learning more and more until death?
learning and figuring out how to run a record label is interesting and passionate work, but even that will go on auto-pilot eventually.
i can travel for so long and see so many lifestyles. but then what?
this is a beast becoming self-aware. this is me trying to steer my life in the direction i want it, but not really seeing any specific direction that i'll be able to travel in forever.
i think this is a state of mind which is going to grow and plague more and more people as technology progresses and standards of living increase to a point where everyone can actually have what they want.
when people no longer need to spend resources on fighting wars, no longer feel so threatened that they need god, and no longer have to struggle to meet basic needs... they will still find purpose in having kids and i still wont be able to relate. :)
there are times when living my life to produce and distribute music seems like such a waste of time and energy.
there are so many more important things to do.
music isn't going to fix the environment. its not going to stop fear and ignorance. its not going to stop wars, feed the hungry or restore water and trees to barren land.
there are times when i look at how blood sucking humans are. what vile vermin, living off and depleting the resources we require to exist.
and how weak and useless we are to do anything about it.
there have also been times when i'm amazed at what we can accomplish. it can be impressive, what we're able to do while sucking off the rapidly disappearing fat of the land. cities we're able to build, heavy hunks of metal we're able to fly...
things that are only possible when we work together.
no one person could mine a metric ton of metal, melt it into flight worthy material and mold it into a plane.
today, as i think about how the only way to bring change is for people to work together, i justify my obsession with superficial art and music entertainment as a way to foster community.
music is a way to mix more and more people, more minds, more ideas.
its a way to be heard and for others to hear your plan and elaborate on it.
its a way to make boston more hospitable to future thinking artists and scientists.
its the only way forward that i can see.
this commonwealth of well educated, socially liberal and capable people, this is a great place for gathering brilliant minds and making them want to stay.
this is what the together festival is about.
an excuse it may be, its how i justify pursuing what may seem so vapid and shallow at times: this music which often conveys no literal meaning; these booze fueled events; these resources for such little purpose.
the purpose is to bring people together. life is short and you should enjoy it. the more enjoyable life is in a place, the more people will want to live there and the more ideas can be exchanged.
it might be the most convenient justification i can come up with.
i find people who feel threatened act in ways which manifest their perceived threat into a real one.
if we perceive that everyone is hostile to us, we grow thicker skin and try to be perceived as "hard" to fend off potential threats.
and as we act tougher, other people perceive us as a threat and they, in turn, put up their armor, also trying to be perceived as tough.
so as we continue to act like a hard ass, we invite people to treat us as a threat.
people with their guard up, treating us as a threat will make us feel like everyone is hostile to us and make us want to act even more tough.
eventually the act becomes a reality.
if everyone is always guarded around us, guarded personalities become the norm.
everyone is pushing us away. they are not friendly.
we learn to treat everyone as a threat.
we learn to express our emotions in hostile ways to scare off potential threats. the act becomes reality.
you are what you pretend to be.
and so it goes that we pave our own future.
once we accept full responsibility for our actions, we will realize that we have total control over them and complete ability to change our behaviour in a way that can have a positive effect on our lives.
we have the ability to make people treat us with respect -not because they fear us, but because they like us.
and having allies is much more beneficial than having enemies.
anyone who fears you is always a potential enemy, because they view you as such.
the way to eliminate your enemies is to not be their enemy.
you can't fight a pillow. a pillow is always soft and friendly.
once you understand your own thoughts, feelings and behaviours, you will understand those of others.
you will begin to see that people who act threatening towards you are just afraid and anxious.
you can then try to dissolve their fear and hostility by being friendly and non-threatening.
.jpg)
