Dear Editor,

The world is on fire, literally and figuratively.

I, too, have been inexplicably angrier over the last couple of years and sometimes dread that I may someday leave this world that way.

Collectively, we humans are hopelessly prone to the politics of scale and differences, both real and perceived, especially those involving colour, nationality, race, and religion.

It’s quite plausible that if the world’s population was somehow reduced to just a few city blocks of seemingly similar residents, there’d sooner or later be some form of notable inter-neighbourhood hostilities.

Still, from within ourselves we, as individuals, can resist flawed yet normalised human/societal nature, thus behaviour.

Perhaps somewhat relevant to this are the words of the long-deceased (from 1984) American sociologist Stanley Milgram, of obedience experiments fame — some would say infamy: “It may be that we are puppets — puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception, with awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.”

Frank Sterle Jr

White Rock, BC

Canada

fgsjr2013@gmail.com