As opposed to What or When or How or Who. We can ask these questions but the truly searching questions will start with ‘why’.
Why do we act the way we do?
Why does society function the way it does?
You may know how your Government runs but do you know why it runs that way?
You are most likely very aware of key issues that surround you – such as social bonds and contacts, local religious preferences, attitudes to race, gender and environmental awareness. You are able to read and operate a computer, and are reading detail on a site that is NOT focussed on the stream of mainstream comment, so chances are that you hold strong views on a great many topics.
But have you ever wondered WHY? Not just why those relationships, institutions, processes and attitudes exist but WHY you think about them the way that you do.
That is what this site is about.
Why religion?
Why do we follow a particular religion? Why are our minds set up to view one answer as being better than another? Is it family background, peer group or the broader community or something altogether different again? Is religion learned at all or is it an inherent characteristic of the human race? Why do we so often phrase any dialogue in terms that reference an “other”, and does religion necessitate incompatability?
Why politics?
Do you consider politics a fun diversion between watching reality shows on television or do you actively participate at some level, in the hope of seeing your views enforced on the broader masses? Are you coldly surveying politics as nothing more than one version of methodology for the allocation of scarce resources in a world of unlimited wants? Why has political thought followed the developments that it has? Why do we individually subscribe to one version of political thought over another, and how do we develop our approach to competing thought processes?
Why self-understanding?
Have you ever truly pondered which of your actions in the last week were a result of your conscious mind, and which were merely the result of inbuilt process, prejudice and reaction? Before you make a judgement on any issue, how much time have you devoted to understanding why you take the attitude that you do? If you blame another for an action, how much of your outlook is a result of attitudes and reactions formed in your developing years, and would your approach stand up to rigourous self-doubt?
Why do we have different values?
Why do we all have different understandings of what constitutes Justice, Balance and Happiness? And if happiness is readily achievable, why is it so rare? What does it mean to be Good, and how can different people possibly have different ideas of what it means to be Good?
Why is the world not “fair”?
Why is the world so full of uncertainty, despair, oppression, ignorance, brutality, envy and greed? Is it possible to achieve a society in which ALL individual hopes and aspirations are fulfilled? Is it essential to have hordes of worker ants slaving away for every individual that has achieved fulfillment? Does the great economic principle of unlimited wants in a world of limited resources necessitate friction and conflict, excess, paucity and deprivation?
Why humour?
Why does humour ‘break the ice’? Is there a role for humour in a fair and just society? What is humour, that it can transcend geopolitical boundaries and make people from diverse walks of life laugh at the same thing?
Why sex?
Why is sex so incredibly enmeshed in human society? Given that every person who lives through to middle age is likely to participate at some stage, why is sex such a taboo? And while it remains a taboo, why is it so obvious in everything from marketing to employment? Is sex a form of oppression or a tool for control?
Why me?
How do we form our sense of selves, and our expectations or understanding of our position and importance in the world? How much of the ‘anti’ in the world is an outward expression of an internal lack?
Why?
