# Cruelty and Callousness - Synthesis A By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2025-12-09 Life, often messy and ugly, offers itself for joyful consumption. Any intelligible sense life offers us is likely to be found only momentarily and retrospectively. And yet, there is a persistent human desire for meaning and understanding that transcends the individual and one’s time. There is a degree of angst associated with acknowledging that a future of “pure potential” has unmistakably become one of “actualized disappointment.” Part of maturity is reconciling the gap between the two. Another part of maturity is to understand that such eventualities are not necessarily irreversible. Where there is life, there is potential for improvement. History plays a role in the process, and can either constrain or inspire. It is easy to fall into the trap of either worshiping or disowning the narrative fiction of the dominant history provided by a society. In some regard, history is the mythology of a society’s ideology that one must either accept it or reject it. But if this is all, one becomes trapped by it and must do battle to protect and defend one’s position. It is possible to move beyond this binary and understand that history’s value is not to be found in its constellation of facts, but in the implications of those facts for understanding and action. Greatness and villainy have, do, and will continue to exist. Things are always better and worse than at any other time in history. The point of comparison can always be selected to prove one’s desired point. Such games are common, and they are useful as a tool of manipulation. These games fail to deliver the core insight of history. People muddle through. Always. So, what does this mean for us now as we muddle through this particular point in time? Everything and nothing. The specifics of this time are unique. The tensions are not. It is easier to be generous and optimistic when times are peaceful and prosperous. It is understandable that cruelty and callousness would dominate when times are not. If human history can teach us anything, it is that the times are not given but made. John Lennon and Yoko Ono sang, “War is over (if you want it).” Never has so much essential work been placed within parentheses. Our society will muddle through; it will make things better if it wants it. Our history shows that this is possible, but only sometimes pursued.       #### Related Items [[Life]] [[History]] [[Future]] [[Past]] [[Maturity]] [[Ideology]]