Human relations and the contest for power

Every where there is a gathering of human beings, the people there tend to
try and exercise power and influence on each other for one reason or the other.
Each individual seeks to exert some influence in the social stratosphere in which he
is living. Man being a social being always seeks for some level of acceptance with
the people he is living with. Unfortunately, not everybody is good at behaving in a
way that is commendable to human society or socializing very well. This is
dangerous as it leads to a situation where people avoid mixing with such a person
and the individual is isolated from his immediate community. As a result, the
individual finds it difficult to exercise power and influence and gain great wealth. No
matter how many brilliant ideas such a person has, he will not be listened to
because in the first place, people stay away from such an individual and ignore him
or her. As life or society is a game of power, the person becomes crushed by the
powerful forces in human society and the individual will tend to feel that life is
unfair. To avoid being discriminated against, an individual must learn to behave in a
courteous and socially acceptable way in public as his very life and survival may
depend on it. One thing I have observed is that people judge other people on first
impression. That is they form opinion of people based on how such a person
presents his or herself to them. When in a gathering of people, an individual must
exude confidence and boldness and must sound as assertive as possible. This gives
his fellow human beings the feeling that he has a lot of power and that he is very
intelligent and powerful. Life itself is an art. What I mean by this is that we have to
project a make-believe impression of ourselves when in front of people so as to gain
recognition and power. If we act too naturally and showcase the bad side of us, we
will be underrated and cheated by people around us. Like an actor in a movie screen
we have to take up different characters in front of people. The worst mistake
anybody can make is to behave strangely as that will result in isolation and
persecution. People easily notice a person that is strange and they tend to believe
that something is wrong with such a person. In an attempt to understand a strange
person, people will come up with all sorts of bizarre ideas and myths about such an
individual and the person will be stereotyped.

Human relations and the quest for money and power

The quest for money and power is very important in a gathering of human
beings. In most major cities of the world people run around from morning to evening
looking for money to make themselves comfortable. In fact, I have come to the
contribution that the average human being is greedy and covetous and if not for the
existence of law and police in a society, nobody will be safe. The quest for money
always results in bloodshed, hate, animosity and sheer violence. If you put between
10 to 20 people in a place for some time, there is going to be crime in such a place.
Somebody is bound to steal something. The quest for money leads to prostitution as
spreading your legs for some one seems to be the easiest way to get money.
Fortunately or unfortunately, money and sex are two powerful forces in human
society. You can basically define society with these two concepts. One major
problem I believe women have is that they are usually in a position where they are
defined by their sexuality. To women this may seem modern or fashionable but it
often leads to disaster. When women are defined by their sexuality, they are often
used for sex, treated like prostitutes and they do not make any meaningful
contribution to human society.

On the other hand, I have observed that women use sex as a weapon to get
money and power from men and men try to use sex to dominate and humiliate
women. This relationship is complex and I think both sexes should realize that they
both have different qualities and try to understand each other better. One thing I
have noticed is that politics is not only apparent in a formal system of Government,
it is also present anywhere there is a gathering of human beings. The most effective
way to emerge a leader is to give people the impression you have ideas of your own
and that you can help them to solve their problems.

How differences (real or perceived) result in

discrimination
One thing I have come to realize is the fact that we live in a Universe where
there are differences in variety. For example, God created different types of animals
(lion, tortoise, goat etc) and different types of plants. Even among human beings,
he created male and female with our various differences. This variety that is
inherent in nature is not supposed to result in conflict but unity. Unfortunately this
often results in conflict and sometimes sheer violence amongst us human beings.
People tend to separate themselves into different groups or societies based on their
occupation, gender, race, tribe, nationality etc. This is good in itself but the danger
is that it prevents us from seeing and understanding the common humanity
between us. This often happens in politics where people with different ideologies
often antagonize themselves and it usually results in violence. The violent politics
that dominated parts of Europe in the early part of the 20th century was as a result
of the fact that each party had its own ideology and viewed themselves as the
ultimate solution to human and social problems. This attitude lead people in one
political party to see the other political party as inferior, destructive, backward and
different. Each party attacked the other party and accused it of all types of crimes
and there were accusations and counter-accusations on both sides. The communists
hated the capitalists; the Nazis hated the communists and so on. This is why there
were so many wars, conflicts and revolutions in Europe in the first 5o years of the
last century. I don’t believe that people with different ideologies and religions
should fight or despise each other. This is because I believe that every ideology ever
evolved by man is based on the fact that we are trying to understand our social and
physical world or environment better. Invariably, each political and religious
ideology claims it is trying to make the world a better place to live in but they each
take a different route towards this common goal.

In a certain group of people or any social gathering where people stay for
some period of time, one thing you will notice is that people tend to divide
themselves into different groups. Some people will make only 3 or 4 friends in the
midst of 20 to 30 people and then not talk to anybody else. Anybody seen as weird
will have no friends and then be discriminated against. This will sooner or later
result in conflict and social disorder. This is because when the isolated person takes
note of this, he will start fighting back and will try and do anything possible so as
not to be ignored. This could result in acts of extreme violence by the individual
which could be seen as crazy but is just an attempt by the individual to make
everybody understand him or herself better. There is no worse crime you can do to
a human being than to isolate him. Such a person starts feeling frustrated and
angry with the world around him and in some extreme cases it could lead to
insanity.

Why Individualism should be celebrated and not

persecuted
As individuals we all have our differences which should not be seen as a
reason for conflict. Individual differences are seen as a way of expressing our ideas
and if it is encouraged, it can lead to progress. Progress is often made in any
society when people are able to express themselves more often than before. Such a
society will allow people do things and say things that everybody thinks is different
or that many people are not doing. This will bring about progress as people have to
see things in a new way in order to come up with new strategies and ideas. A
society that surpreses individualism will not progress and will continue to wallow in
traditionalism and retrogression.

One reason we are not making progress in Africa is that we are too traditional
and we think in a group. Most Africans are so close to their families that they do not
travel and are too afraid to be different. In Africa, if your father is something, then
you must be that particular thing. You cannot initiate a new idea or chart the court
for a new way to do things. The average African leaves in his father’s shadow.

The Unfortunate thing about individualism is that individuals that exhibit an

individualistic trait are often persecuted and hated for no just cause. The irony is
that everybody knows that the individual is right with his views but they are too
afraid to speak against it yet they persecute the only individual who is bold enough
to tell the truth. Human beings are basically social beings and will do anything to be
part of society and avoid social persecution. This makes us not to be creative
because to be creative is to be different. I believe our need to socialize tragically
destroys our innate creative genius which lies in every human being. We go through
life trying to be like somebody else instead of ourselves. At the end we end up being
mediocre and the society pays for it because our creativity and differences was
designed to make the world a beautiful place to live in and add to human progress
and happiness. When the average individual is growing up, society forces us to
accept ideas which are wrong and we are told something must be wrong with us if
we believe otherwise. What the individual doesn’t realize is that society itself is a
failure. Our ideas about government, socializing, sex, money are often flawed and
full of contradictions. The problem is that most people are not bold enough to
question it. The few that do are called philosophers if they succeed or mad men if
they don’t. I believe that when an individual starts something and he is persecuted,
then the people persecuting such a person are people who are surpressing the truth
and they are afraid of the consequences of what will happen if their lies are exposed
at last.

Culture, counterculture and its effect on

discrimination in the society
As I said before, culture is the way of life of a people. It is the reflection of a
people’s philosophical outlook on life and it shows itself in the religion, art, music
and fashion of the people. Now it is not everything about a people’s culture that is
good. Most cultures of the world usually discriminate against one minority or the
other. The problem is that culture is a powerful force in human society and a group
or individual being discriminated against will find it hard to fight back because
everybody will feel that the philosophy this culture propagates is the best way to
reason and see things. Such a person or group of persons will be in a cultural and
societal prison form which only the Almighty God can save them. When people feel
threatened in this way, they will begin to fight back in any way they can. This
usually results in violence and bloodshed and the minority fighting back are usually
seen as rebels or people who are trying to disrupt society.

In the sub-topic above I mentioned the word or definition “counterculture”. A

counter-culture is a culture or opinion that does not agree with the main culture. It
has ideas that can be described as rebellious and the people who form part of a
counter-culture are either ignored or when attention is paid to them, they are
persecuted one way or the other. The persecution can either be mild or in a few
cases extreme. Yet a counter culture is needed to stem the tide of discrimination
going on in the society. This is because if the counter-culture manages to stem the
tide of time, the next generation will see it as acceptable and gradually, it will slip
into main stream culture. This is how the culture of science and rationalism
emerged in a traditional and religious society. This counter-culture was first
persecuted but after a few generations it was accepted as main stream and this
produced the scientifically and technologically advanced society we have today. I
believe in every society there is a struggle between a culture and counter-culture
and only time will tell if the counter-culturalists will ever be understood and
accepted or extinguished and crushed.

Primitiveness, Discrimination and the rise of human culture

Most societies in the world (no matter how civilized) sprang from a primitive
past. The tragedy is that this primitives inherent in our past still hunts us up till
now.We still have a fantasy for primitive things like cannibalism, violence, belief in
spirits and worship of idols, rites, rituals, wild sexual orgies and ultimately the
enslavement and subjugation of women as mere sexual objects. I will take Nigeria
as a case study. In Nigeria of today, women are being exploited at a very high level.
A lot of sexual harassment is taking place in schools and at various industries and
places of work. The average lady who is looking for a job finds out that she has to
succumb to sex in order to keep her job and even continue having sex with her male
employees. I believe part of the reasons why this is happening is that in the
primitive past of most cultures (including the local Nigerian cultures here), women
were treated like objects to be acquired after winning a power game. (this may be
after wining a war). For example due to the primitive nature of ancient societies,
soldiers that conquered a country simply took the women of that village or country
as their wives without any delay. Women were seen as reward for winning a war.
The present modern civilization we have is very young (less than 500 years old) and
the primitive ideas of the past have not left the mind of many young man. As a
result, most men still see women as mere objects or reward for conquest. The
primitive desire to dominate women is still there and so it manifests and showcases
itself as sexual harassment or exploitation. After all the man is head of a company
and is now rich and needs to have 1000 wives like king Solomon of old.

Besides, nature created the male sex drive to be wild and without restrains or
boundary. Culture may try to tame this but it does not always work. The average
male is sexually attracted to at least 4 women in a day. Nature did not create men
with the ability to resist sex. This creates a problem because no matter how civilized
a society is, the men will hunger for sex and try and exploit women for it.

Apart from this, nature designed the average male to be extremely aggreisive
and with a large tendency towards violence. Biological research has shown that the
brain of the male is conditioned to aggressiveness. Now culture may try to stem this
violent tendency but it does not succeed. In fact in my former University (Babcock
University) there was a lot of fighting in the male hostels no matter the rules and
regulations the authorities imposed on the students. The basic male instinct
towards violence and sex is glaring when you get into slums and ghettos where poor
people live. There you see a lot of street fights between different gangs and
sometimes even rape. In fact, it is due to the primitive and violent tendencies in
human beings that the police and other law enforcement agents exist in every
society in the world. A society without any law enforcement agents will send human
beings down to a primitive and unjust society.

This attitude and trend is also very noticeable in a country like South-Africa
where there is a lot of crime, violence, rape and xenophobia (i.e.dislike and open
violence against foreigners). The men there fight and get violent at the slightest
provocation and the women are raped anyhow. I believe the men there are merely
expressing their violent, primitive instincts. We human beings have a history of
hating and persecuting anybody that is different from us and this primitive attitude
is embedded in most cultures of the world. It stems from a primitive past in which a
warrior that wanted his people to be great, he invaded the next village and killed
the entire population of the people he invaded to ensure total conquest and glory to
his mother land. In time, the people that were conquered grow to hate their
oppressors and then the conquerors also despise the people they have ravaged.
This results in hatred and cultural discrimination that goes on for centuries. In fact
history is just the record of one war after the other and many races of the world
have been wiped off the face of the earth because of these wars.