Well said. To be clear, I agree with your outlook on human nature, but I try to check myself on not being optimistic to the point of ignoring people’s history. People do change, but we can’t presume in which direction that will be. We must remember improvement is a hope and a genuine possibility, but not an expectation. On the other hand, Orwell is regarded as insightful for good reason but of course he is also very cynical about people and the future.
A catspaw is just a term for someone who is used as a tool of another to their detriment. It comes from a French fable where a monkey convinces a cat to grab some roasting chestnuts for them to eat, but the monkey eats them all while the cat ends up burning its paw.
I have been known to think and act with hope-clouded vision at times. It is known. I think you’re right, but will continue to choose to hope for the better of people, because I believe that hope, sometimes even the irrational varieties, is the fertile earth from which necessary changes most often grow. It is sometimes even the only ground that positive change can take to at all. If I keep at it on my end while enough others do the same on theirs, a better future will be made that much more accessible to everyone.
With that mindset, I don’t feel I have the time for cynicism past a certain threshold (on some days, at least), and I am pretty certain that can be an invaluable asset in the right hands. Hopefully myself and enough others have such hands rather than these allegorical paws. Thanks for filling me in on that btw. Your comparison with it was spot on.
Well said. To be clear, I agree with your outlook on human nature, but I try to check myself on not being optimistic to the point of ignoring people’s history. People do change, but we can’t presume in which direction that will be. We must remember improvement is a hope and a genuine possibility, but not an expectation. On the other hand, Orwell is regarded as insightful for good reason but of course he is also very cynical about people and the future.
A catspaw is just a term for someone who is used as a tool of another to their detriment. It comes from a French fable where a monkey convinces a cat to grab some roasting chestnuts for them to eat, but the monkey eats them all while the cat ends up burning its paw.
Edit: This is the fable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_and_the_Cat
I have been known to think and act with hope-clouded vision at times. It is known. I think you’re right, but will continue to choose to hope for the better of people, because I believe that hope, sometimes even the irrational varieties, is the fertile earth from which necessary changes most often grow. It is sometimes even the only ground that positive change can take to at all. If I keep at it on my end while enough others do the same on theirs, a better future will be made that much more accessible to everyone.
With that mindset, I don’t feel I have the time for cynicism past a certain threshold (on some days, at least), and I am pretty certain that can be an invaluable asset in the right hands. Hopefully myself and enough others have such hands rather than these allegorical paws. Thanks for filling me in on that btw. Your comparison with it was spot on.