Tyranny: 1. Cruel and oppressive rule.
2. Cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control.
Comfort: 1. A state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint.
2. The easing or alleviation of a person's feelings of grief or distress.
Question: When could a perceived good become dangerous? Maybe when the you have reached the point when pursuit of the “good” destroys the things that made it possible.
Assertion: The obsessive pursuit of human comfort has become a tyranny for the earth and its inhabitants.
We know this is happening:
When sustaining the comfort of one portion of the community oppresses another
When corporations supplant people and communities as the determiner of quality of life.
When one generation that benefits from the commonweal deny’s the same opportunities to another.
When ignorance becomes an accepted refuge from the discomfort or pain of knowing the truth.
When those who are comfortable wield more power than those who are not, and that power is used to protect their comfort or deny opportunities to others.
When giving people what they want becomes a value system and accepted as a rationale for “virtuous” decision making.
When the protection of comfort (or from discomfort) becomes the principal social and political motivator for individuals and communities.
When creative – imaginative muscles atrophy from disuse.
When community stamina, resilience, flexibility, adaptability atrophy from lack of collective effort for common purposes.
When problem solving becomes a recreation or an exercise.
When homogeneity becomes a virtue.
When pleasure is proscribed as a palliative for pain.
When leaders advance by promising alone
When accountability becomes a buzz word for pretending to care
When comfort itself becomes a definition of success--- a value unto itself.
When virtues, values, beliefs and comforts become indistinguishable in social and political discourse.
When one group finds comfort in another’s anguish and pain
When the rat pleasures itself to death.