BY ROMMEL YNION
MAN is just a living thing on a planet that is part of a solar system in a galaxy afloat in an ever-expanding universe. Up close, he is just a mere speck in the grand scheme of things and yet, deep inside him is a gnawing sense of importance that uncorks bizarre behavior in his world, stemming from his all-consuming belief that God created the world for him.
The world-view that man is the central theme in God’s mind when He created the universe has been at the core of issues bombarding the world, to say the least. For, essentially, it is a convoluted perception of the world that has basically defined each and every living thing in it as man’s hapless prey.
Like everything else, this world-view has gone haywire in a lot of ways through the ages, driving man to conquer first the world around him and then the planets within and beyond his solar system and the stars within and beyond his galaxy and then the galaxies within and beyond his universe.
Thinking of himself as the center of the fast-moving and ever-changing world, man nurtures a sense of self-importance that often resides at the root of all problems besetting the world, ranging from family feuds to cataclysmic wars. For it is just all about himself and his me-first thinking.
Deep within the heart of man is just the thought of himself which encapsulizes all that he lives for: his hierarchy of needs that, according Maslow, drives him to heights unimagined by other living creatures. Small wonder greed has ruled the world. Small wonder man’s inhumanity to man has become the world order. Small wonder man’s insensitivity to his environment has intensified global warming.
No doubt at the core of man’s world-view is just himself. The world that he created for himself then is just, well, a me-world. A world bereft of meaning that transcends man’s existence for everything that matters is just his greed and the bottomless pit of his insatiable desires that expands endlessly into God knows where.
The me-world is a world where everyone thinks “me-first”. It has become a dangerous world to live in not only for man himself but for all the other living things in it. For it is not only a world that snatched man away from a God-centered life but drove him to the edge of the abyss.
The world’s extinction is inexorable. It is not a scenario borne out of science fiction, but simply the future that awaits him, courtesy of man’s me-first approach to life itself. Wars and rumors of them have sprung from man’s greed that inured him to even the thought of death as he journeys on the unending path of self-aggrandizement.
The wars in the Middle East are just about man’s inhumanity to man in his search for “oil” domination. Whoever controls oil controls the world is an axiom that nations, big and small, hold dear in their hearts. At the forefront of these wars is America that thinks, well, America-first. With Afghanistan and Iraq now in the bag, America stands to control this planet for, at least, the next 100 years.
The geo-political landscape of the world has unraveled the dominion of America over all the earth, a subtle approach to world conquest unprecedented in the annals of warfare. Nation-states, now mere figments of the imagination, have actually crumbled, ushering in its place another brand of American colonialism.
The Americans, elevating the me-first ideology to an art form, have now deluded the world into thinking that America is the world’s only policeman who can put order where there is chaos, peace where there is war, justice where there is oppression.
No doubt America is the world’s pack leader who cracks the whip on other countries to tow the line at all times. As the rest of humanity also pre-occupied with their me-first lives travel the road that America dictates on them, they also impose on one another their me-first interests that cracks political fault lines among themselves.
The case of Chinese incursion into the Spratly Islands is a classic example of me-first approach to international power politics. With its population still growing by proverbial leaps and bounds, China still needs more sources of oil not only to, well, oil the cogs of its industry but also to feed its populace. Since China thinks me-first-before-anything-else, it doesn’t matter to them if they are sourcing oil from a source owned by another country as long as there is oil for them in that disputed area.
The Chinese bullying has also awakened the me-first politicians in this country who have seen in it not the deathblow to sovereignty inflicted by a foreign power but the launching pad of a political rocket destined to higher planes of influence and, well, invincibility.
The dynamics of me-first world view is endless, permeating every nook and cranny of human existence, poisoning not only the mind of man but also the world he lives in, driving him to the edge of the cliff from which the line between right and wrong had blurred, pushing him to the brink of extinction where history agonizes over his never-ending folly and insatiable greed./PN
