there are certain phrases that i hear repeated somewhat often that are pretty nebulous in how they are used but really aggravate me when i think about them and what it implies about the worldview of someone that would say them flippantly, and i've got two on my mind right now that i often hear from certain kinds of people and typically when i hear them said i immediately think less of the person speaking
"contributing to society" and "faith in humanity"
primarily i think these phrases bug the shit out of me because i know for a fact the people who say them don't actually think about what they mean. contributing to what society? how? often when used in the form of "not a contributing member of society", it's usually talking about people who don't work a job or work some menial role. does working a job inherently make you a better person? does paying taxes and making money to buy useless shit and pay debts make you an inherently better person? why does working a job "contribute" to a "society"? what if someone serves a role in a more local society or family (the term more properly applied than to some vague amorphous Society) that doesn't involve working for a wage or running a business for profit? what if the "Society" you are contributing is evil, which i would argue is the case in the united states? wouldn't it be better to do everything possible to not contribute to it then? absolutely fucking stupid phrase, also often used by people that the phrase as probably intended should apply to tbh. i'm not a lame ass benthamite buglord that would use this kind of language, but if i was, this phrase would be an automatic filter into the killing fields
the second one is just idiotic on its face. faith is the evidence of things not seen, and you can see humans. you don't need to have a faith in them, YOU CAN SEE THEM. you can see them doing evil. you can look at yourself, and realize how flawed and miserable you are as a person (not that these kinds of people would, often being narcissists.) obviously the term implies a trust in the actions of humanity as a whole, but if you even just kind of think about the history of man for a fraction of a second there is absolutely no reason why you should do this, or why you should have ever done this. man has always been base and evil, and the societies (to tie it back into the first one!) we create are just as wicked. further, there is no reason to think this wouldn't get worse with the advent of new technologies that amplify and abet his wicked nature. the twentieth century was the bloodiest in the entire history of mankind, and the twenty-first isn't looking much better. You Fucking Idiot.
