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Justice in an Unjust World: How It Can Happen

April 12, 2019

“Only justice will bring you peace”, a band I like sings. Listening to this song, I wondered: How do you find justice in an unjust world? Consequently, then, how do you find peace in an unjust world? The quick and pessimistic answer is: you don’t. There is no justice in an unjust world, and there is no peace in an unjust world. And yet, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that first reaction might be wrong.

Finding Justice in an Unjust World: a Matter of Creating the Invincible

The number of blogs, opinion columns, and editorials I read online can be literally counted on the fingers of one hand. There is such an incredible amount of noise out there, that I have made a conscious decision to remove myself from the trash.

In one of those few places on the internet that I follow, I recently read a harrowing narrative. A man – over fifty as he explained – described how nothing had managed to break his will; neither financial problems, nor unemployment, nor hardships.

He was broken, as he explained, seeing people’s viciousness.

justice in an unjust world
Injustice is all-powerful in a material context…
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Why Democracy Failed: Plato’s Nightmare Coming True

February 2, 2019

Why democracy failed. It sounds awful, and perhaps a bit self-certain. I could’ve at least ameliorated it. Instead of stating Why Democracy Failed I could’ve asked, Has Democracy Failed?

But keep in mind, every time you see a news headline ending with a question mark, the answer is invariably “no”. It’s just that the so-called journalist who wrote the piece didn’t have the guts to put her/his name there without leaving this escape hatch open.

There won’t be any question marks in this case. I’m not asking whether democracy has failed. I feel convinced that it has.

why democracy failed
Even a perfect, direct democracy such as ancient Athens descended to tyranny. What do you think is happening now?
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Digital Dehumanization: the Dark Side of the Internet

January 15, 2019

The term digital dehumanization might sound obscure. It surely sounds bad, and referring to the dark side of the internet makes it worse. But what do we mean by digital dehumanization, and what does the internet have to do with it?

The term dehumanization refers to the process of depriving a person or a group of persons the qualities of being human. Take a look at my article on zombies and dehumanization. I wrote back then:

The thoroughly disturbing aspect in all this is the concept of Dehumanization. If you’re interested, read Jonathan Glover’s Humanity: A Moral History of the 20th Century to see how it works. Basically, you convince a group of people – normal, everyday people like you and me – that another group of people are not really humans. Then, it becomes far easier to convince the first group to turn on the second. This is how the Holocaust happened, this is how Hiroshima happened, this is how My Lai, Bosnia, and Rwanda happened.

Let’s begin to unpack the process of digital dehumanization – a dehumanization process occurring digitally, on the internet – with a little hypothetical scenario. It will perhaps set up the tone for today’s article.

digital dehumanization
Digital dehumanization is about not seeing the person behind the mask of the internet
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