I think its worth baring in mind that the parameters of thought are set by the educational establishment; they control the locus of the discussion...but that shouldn't mean they control the parameters of peoples thought
So by saying to you ''you must choose ONE social issue and discuss possible solutions to that'' they are keeping the focus in a narrow band
I know you have to do it for an assignment but i think it still helps to keep what i'm saying in mind.
The TRUTH is that all the usual social issues that crop up in the mainstream media: obesity, illiteracy, crime, underage pregnancy, immigration, mental health, drug abuse etc are all bound up in the same thing: the system
I used to work in a psychiatric hospital and an experienced psychiatric nurse once explained it to me this way...and this was someone who had seen literally thousands of people come through the system over a couple of decades....he said that there was a gap between the perception of reality that was given to people by popular culture, the mainstream media and our political leaders and what they actually felt inside and this gap caused a tension...which took the form of anxiety and that too much anxiety leads to mania
He described it by using the following metaphor: he said the computer called 'HAL' in the film space odessy 2001 is programmed to help its human crew members. Thats its default setting if you like....so for us as humans as social animals our default setting would be to be generally decent to those around us
But on the space mission HAL is sent new instructions from the base. These new instructions tell HAL to change the direction of the mission. HAL knows this will harm his crew members and this goes against his basic programming. This causes cognitive dissonance in HAL as there is now a tension between how HAL feels and what he is being asked to do. This tension then manifests negatively in HAL. He becomes withdrawn, paranoid and violent.
This is the same with people. They are by default social animals but they are told bythe system that they must compete and project themselves above others and that humans are basically evil and that it is a dog eat dog world and so on
This then makes people anxious and depressed.
Also as humans they have evolved over many thousands of years to go out hunting and gathering...which is to say to have meaning and purpose in their lives. They are supposed to have many skills and different knowledge sets and to apply them in a multitude of different problem solving scenarios each day that offers them endless challenge and interest.
The modern system however sepcialises people to become cogs in a larger machine where they must carry out the same narrow tasks all the time; they also often question whether the tasks are even that important or meaningful.
So once again this opens up more cognitive dissonance as a tension arises between how people have evolved to be and how they are being asked to behave
Then there are all the negative political news stories that don't ever explain why things are happening. Most people just want to live in peace, but the people who control the system profit form war in a number of ways so they are always starting wars and asking for the support of the public in these violent endeavours which of course opens up more cognitive dissonance and anxiety in the public
There are many ways in which the system does this. Its only by becoming consciously aware of this dynamic that a person can them become aware of how they are being manipulated and can then take their life and their affairs into their own hands. they can for example shake off all the flag waving war mongering and say to themselves ''you know what actually i don't feel violent and i don't want to see violence done to others'' and by doing so they then ease that tension...they begin to live more in alignment with their inner voice
Their unconscious mind stops giving them such a hard time (sending anxiety) because it can see that they are living more naturally and more freely and more in accordance with their own feelings
As a result they begin to get out and exercise more, they quit the junk food, they ditch the cigarettes, they cut down their drinking, they say no when someone offers them a harmful drug, they don't get angry at those around them, they don't lose their job (because they change job to something that aligns with them) and so on so that none of the social problems then arise from that person....they're in balance
Social problems come from unhappy people who are not resolving their problems
This is the interesting thing about humans...we can fool ourselves on a conscious level but not on an unconscious level! We can also be fooled by others on a conscious level. On the unconscious level we know when we are lying to ourselves. The uncosncious however cannot speak to us in english or any other verbal language as it can only speak through emotions, feelings and symbolically through dreams.
When the unconscious knows that something isn't right, we get a feeling of being anxious
many people when they feel anxious they wonder ''why am i feeling anxious? I have done everything i'm supposed to do! I ticked all the boxes! I got a job or a degree, or a mortgage, or a family or whatever but i still feel anxious. Something must be wrong with me...after all...look at all these other people in the street...they all look fine....it must be something wrong with me....i know i'll go and see a doctor''
So they go to a doctor. This doctor picks up his/her pen that was given to them by the drug rep who comes from the big pharmaceutical companies and gives the doctors lots of nice freebies and is always very smiley and friendly and gives them a good handshake and makes them feel very important and sometimes even pays them money in a brown envelope (
http://www.theguardian.com/business...thkline-fined-bribing-doctors-pharmaceuticals) or takes them out for a meal and then they write some notes on a notepad which the nice smiley drug rep gave them with the logo of the drug company on it and the doctor tells them that yes they do in fact have something wrong with them.....in fact they even have a very technical sounding name for it which makes the doctor feel smart as he/she says it and it makes the patient think that ''yes this doctor must know what they are talking about if they can use such technical sounding words'' and the doctor then prescribes them some mood stabilising pills that were sold to them by the drug comapny rep
Those same drugs will later be deemed ineffective and the drug company will have to pay a small fine which is a small percentage of the profits that company made from pushing their ineffectual drug on the unsuspecting public via the razzle dazzled or corrupted doctor (eg
http://www.alternet.org/personal-he...-emerged-only-after-big-pharma-made-its-money)
The doctor is essentially trying to treat the symptom of the problem (the anxiety), but is not finding out what the cause of the anxiety is (the problem)
The patient then goes away and takes their serotonin uptake inhibitors which basically prevent the flow of energy from the unconscious mind to the conscious mind. The energies build up in the unconscious mind like water behind a dam until one day the patient has a break down of some sort
The reason this charade continues is because to chemically cosh the public is better for the people who rule over us because it is their way of shifting the blame onto us. Its not their system you see that is the problem....its not their system that is making people anxious (they want us to believe), no its us that have the problem!
Thats what they are saying and as long as people buy into that the problems will continue and the system won't change
So why is all this relevant to the thread?
As Doctor Timothy leary said: ''people have to feel good to do good''
If people don't feel good because of the system they are more likely to do things that will then be identified as social problems: rob, over eat, over drink, use harmful drugs, get in fights, lose their job, lose their home and so on
The people who have created the system DO NOT WANT TO SEE THE SYSTEM CHANGE (except the changes they want to see of course) so they encourage 'initiatives', 'schemes', 'programmes' and many other things that are set up to look narrowly at a problem and to try to treat the symptoms and which will ultimately not make a dent in the problem
This is why VAST SUMS OF MONEY are spent on areas like education and health yet we see no improvements...its because we are treating symptoms and not the cause
This would be akin to someone trying to sponge up a growing puddle of water coming from a tap that has been left on, instead of just going and turning off the tap!
Anyone who has worked in certain areas to do with dealing with these social problems knows what it is like to feel dejected, burned out or disheartened because they see a constant stream of troubled people coming through the system (products of the system)
The system is the open tap which polutes the people and the people are the water that keeps streaming out
We need systemic change.
We also need to look at people wholeistically and realise that anxiety is just a symptom...it is the unconscious mind telling us that somehting is wrong. We shouldn't silence that inner voice, we should listen to it, understand it and act accordingly...bringing a persons feelings into alignment with their outer world is the key to solving social problems
