Why is the land of Africa red? Danny (Leonardo) said that it was the blood of war that was stained red. However, war is not for independence and freedom, but only for possession, possession of ivory, possession of oil, possession of gold, possession of diamonds.
In order to possess, the warlords fought for years. In order to possess, children are trained as killing machines and sent to the battlefield. Solomon, the father looking for his son, said: When they grow up, peace will come. However, when he sneaked into the base to find his son, his son had already become a regional angel that the six relatives did not recognize.
If you know all this, would you still buy diamonds?
The same bloodshed is not only happening in the diamond industry, nor is it happening only in Africa. The fur industry is a typical example. Think about "Kekexili"-to a certain extent, "Kekexili" is more real and more powerful than "Blood Diamond". We see the forest of Tibetan antelopes poached on the plateau. Bones, when our hatred was about to arise, we saw the other side. We saw the helpless eyes of the poachers, and saw that they could only spend five dollars to skin a Tibetan antelope because of the desertification of their homes. In an instant, hatred was empty, moral and value judgments fell apart, leaving us sitting in the city as spectators and judges with complacency and self-righteousness, naked and nowhere to hide.
This is not a certain person, a certain group or a certain group's problem, this is everyone's problem. Warlords and poachers are sinful, and business groups are sinful. However, the greater sin lies in the hearts of each of us. It originates from the greed that has survived for generations and is now becoming more and more intensified.
Cross-border agreements can slow down or even stop the illegal sale of diamonds, but there is no way to dispel people's greed. Persuading people to stop buying a certain type of "evil" goods cannot be eliminated, because the poisonous snake of greed is still entrenched in people's hearts and is happy. The satisfaction that cannot be obtained from diamonds must be vented through other channels, or other luxury goods, or all kinds of immorality.
Perhaps the fundamental solution is to make everyone aware of the true face of greed. This is the solution of the saints. But it is a pity that this prescription only brought a handful of people's spiritual relief. On the overall level, the changes that the saints have brought to society are really lackluster. It’s not that the saints are wrong-for individuals, awareness is indeed the truth of liberation, but-society is a collection of people, and it has its own characteristics that transcend individuals, just as we cannot turn coal into coal by changing carbon atoms. Like diamonds, it is impossible for us to change society just by changing individuals. To get diamonds, we don't even need to change the atoms themselves, what we need to change is only the connections between the atoms.
This brings us many enlightenments. For individuals, modern greed comes from our own insecurities. We are afraid that we or others think that we are not beautiful enough, not young enough, not strong enough, not loyal enough, rich enough, not tasteful enough, so we borrow foreign objects and use skin care products, Viagra, flowers, diamond rings, famous cars, real estate, education, etc. prove yourself. The greed of society also comes from insecurity, and the root of this insecurity is that society needs more and more resources in order to maintain its own operations (population scale, economic scale, etc.). When resources are limited and non-renewable , Anxiety arises.
This logic is similar to the logic shown in "Blood Diamond". The difference is that luxury goods such as diamonds will attract competition from commercial groups and local wars, while the desire for necessities (energy and land) will trigger large-scale war. Even in a slightly better situation, it will bring about economic downturn, inflation and high unemployment, which will eventually transfer insecurity to individuals. Moreover, this desire is often caused by the development pressure of a society, which is a bit similar to the choice of poachers in "Kekexili". It is difficult to judge right and wrong with morality.
Naturally, moral judgment has no meaning, because it can never solve practical problems. What we are more concerned about is whether there is a good solution to this situation? If not, then everything we are doing now, including education and public welfare, is just a short-term pain relief, and has no real meaning, and mankind can not escape the fate of extinction, it is only a matter of time. If so, all our work should be adjusted to accelerate or promote the occurrence of this change.
Resources may be the center of this problem. Is there an economy that can develop without consuming a lot of non-renewable resources? The knowledge economy seems to be an opportunity. It turns the driving force of economic development from competitive and non-renewable natural resources into non-competitive and non-scarce knowledge. Knowledge will bring new energy and new economy. It may be expected to solve the current situation. The dilemma of world development. The good news recently is that in the 30 years since the rise of the knowledge economy, we have finally reached a turning point: "According to the International Energy Organization (IEA), oil consumption in industrial countries in 2006 decreased by 0.6% compared to 2005. This is the past 20 years. The first turning point in the growing trend of oil consumption in OECD countries." (However, the total world oil consumption increased by 0.9% in 2006, mainly due to the increased demand in China and India.)
Perhaps more profound changes have occurred in people. Modern human beings are richer than ever before, and they also have more time and opportunities to contact and participate in social work. This increase in personal freedom may gradually eliminate the unconsciousness of the entire society. This trend has already emerged. From Bill Gates and Buffett to the most recent US Treasury Secretary Paulson, now the rich have begun to pay more attention to the world. For this, we should not laugh at the hypocrisy of the rich or think that this is just a special case. After all, the greatest religion in the world started from the monks of the best prince in the secular world at that time. We have reason to believe that more people will join this kind of thinking and action, and the key to its success lies in whether it can become a real social movement.
Even so, we still dare not have the slightest optimism about the future. A major concern is that the cost of human error is getting higher and higher, so that it can no longer be borne by mankind. Take war as an example. The war two thousand years ago was only the bloodshed on a small piece of land. A hundred years ago it became a global bloodshed. Sixty years ago, the emergence of nuclear weapons had completely increased the energy of war, and the consequences of war could affect Generations have permanently damaged our land, sea and sky. Nowadays, the nuclear weapons of any major military power are enough to destroy the earth dozens of times. This gives us endless imagination: no real war is needed, only a piece of wrong information or a arrogant leader is enough to bring the earth into a dead end.
I don't know whether the development of mankind will be like a parabola or a sine curve. Humans are not an unconscious group. This has brought us a lot of pain on this planet but it has given us a glimmer of hope. The future of human society is unpredictable, but it can be made a little brighter with the efforts of each of us.
For a movie, I don’t know if it’s too far.
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