Originally Posted by anticipation

In my experience with "society" and it's influences on the human condition, I'm extremely skeptical that any sort of conscious organized effort to educate or actually increase awareness of the way the world actually is has ever occurred. Society is more about appearances, about the dichotomy between symbolic and non-verbal pressures that most people aren't aware dictate everything they do, with the denial that we are a self-destructive species. Mankind has never contributed a single beneficial thing to the planet. Our very nature is to consume, destroy, and to indulge in vacuous and vapid self-aggrandizing in an attempt to mask the existential crisis that is our place in the universe. Our species is constantly fighting a battle with ourselves to validate our existence. We exhibit almost no symbiotic tendencies aside from superfluous interactions with each other that more often than not lack any sort of acknowledgement of our actions or their repercussions. So the prevalence of self-destructive and harmful activities that we fill our days with is a logical extension of this situation, with society only perpetuating the motivations to throw your life away, e.g. the pursuit of material items as an ultimate goal, the importance of dominating your fellow man, the lack of concern for the environment, other people or their wellbeing. If your life is constant negative reinforcement and the promulgation of such ideals as the glorification of idiots, the endorsement of the horribly detrimental actions of our species, and the justifications of essentially everything we do, how can you rise up if you do not shred the bonds of society? Unfortunately the idea that civilization can be a support system is illusory, unless you're living in some far-flung tribe devoid of any sort of widespread media and have maintained the hunter-gatherer mentality of antiquity.

In short, society is a web and we're the flies trapped in it. The more we struggle to make it work and to break free, the more we become entrenched in its paralyzing effects. Just my opinion.