Here is a stream of consciousness of my own individual experience of these recent events. I am just wondering how this relates to other people's experiences and views of the events unfolding right now.

It seems that the disorderly state of divide in the thinking of the West can be accounted for by considering the historic, cultural, and the narrative. Historic in the sense of the ‘what’ has occurred, and determining what is to be done ethically to ensure just operation of law mechanisms. Cultural in the sense of what constitutes proper policing. For example, someone from China or Russia may have preference for strict force used in policing methods, while Latin Americans or Africans may have preference for an intuitive approach to law enforcement. I say this not in criticism, but rather that in these countries the use of force may be treated as more effective by being tied in with the judgement of the enforcer than relying on ‘faceless’ enforcement; this creates an instantaneous cultural conflict. The narrative category describes the merge of the structure of understanding with the media of view. This narrative being the means by which reality is tinged and distorted generally by rules imposed by ourselves collectively. Clearly violence plays an important role and types of acting out that seem to include self-contained means of expressing desires rather than just conveying ideas. Beginning with the anthropological, three primary viewpoints of the cultural will be explored.

The cultural itself can be divided in the usual fashion into the Anthropological, sociological and individualistic models of observation. None of these models of viewing shows the entire view, just as a physical equation does not usually model the whole of a real object. The anthropological focuses on the humanistic patterns of behaviour, those of sympathy from person to person as any being might act under a given set of circumstances. The sociological on the other hand, shows us how structures of thought and behaviour in the form of values and beliefs affect the motions of the group and their actualization in the individual. It is the individual that defines their moment in their own way, as it appears to them in a viewpoint that cannot be accessed as credible by appealing to the other methods.

The Anthropological view seems to contain mostly the regional, and secondly the aggressions that are imposed upon us by the technological domain. Social media imposes aggressive behaviour as a means of keeping its users addicted to content, and the science of human outrage has been an area of study and shown to be an instrument of pleasure to those who access it regularly. There are obvious divides between rural and urban reactions, with the latter being more pronounced and vociferous and tends to unify and reify in more densely populated areas.

Sociologically, the tensions have seemed to show that beyond who agrees with whom, there is a massive divide in thinking at present about what constitutes right and wrong. The ethical has taken a backseat to necessity. Necessity of power that is. The ability to effect a given situation with power and the claim to power has become more effectual than the nature of the ethical act itself. We see this in the need to express a certain voice rather than staying silent or neutral, which appears more and more as a necessity rather than a liberty. If one has less liberty or manifold of agency, how could there be more choice? I find myself asking.

This brings us to the individual, whom of all these is the most conflicted. Not because the choice of sides is difficult, but the choice of universal law. Referring to Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, where the concept was found that to act most ethically the best route is that act which one would will to become universal law. This takes us beyond sides, in which the vague notions of right and wrong are decorated carelessly, and into the dilemma of sacrificing personal and cultural agency to unseen forces and groups. This dilemma is exemplified in the events in which protesters shot and killed, looted and pillaged in the name of their cause, something that has divided thinking greatly between individuals and confused notions of belonging within these communities.

Which is the lesser evil, to adhere to a dialectical approach to ethics and create changes in a generally uncontrolled fashion, or to proceed circumspectly and possibly cover less ground? The dichotomy is presented to me as a mechanism for consolidating anthropological and social power. The question would be better posed by asking: “Do we proceed through the ethical or the practically right?” in which there is no easy answer. It is obvious to note that the ethical has as it’s main application the proliferation of justice, and this perceived separation seems to be a kind of way of disorienting the individual leaving them more easily accessed by forces of cultural power.

Thank you for reading, please share your thoughts if you have anything to add.