Mental Pollution
A great deal of public attention in advanced countries goes to considering how to cope with elimination of wastes from our wasteful way of life. It is toxic waste material that causes most concern in the environment and is now considered unacceptable to the community worldwide.
However, we have yet to admit the dangers and destructive effects of mental pollutants that continue to degrade the quality of our mental fitness and undermine the progress of our modern culture towards the ideal of human health and well being.
We are willing to raise our voices individually and as a group to make complaint about physical environmental issues and do so very vocally. But we are either unaware, or not interested in applying the same criteria to mental health and mental pollution. It is time to recognize the damage caused by the toxic mental material found in both group venues and in private mental space. Once toxic material is identified, it is logical that it will be restricted or prohibited from use. But this is not the case. The trend is to frown upon censorship in any guise and so there is little public protection.
Regarding individual choice and respect for this freedom right each one of us enjoys and wishes to retain, it is up to us what we choose to read or listen to, to absorb, to transmit, and to eliminate. This corresponds with our right to put into our bodies our chosen food.
But our mental environment, the world in which we live with our minds, just as surely as our physical environment is universally shared. It is a complex mix of influences that have a positive or negative general mental influence upon humanity as a whole and to which we react as individuals.
Unwanted material, sights, sounds, ideas and behaviour enters our minds uncensored by our use of conscious choice as a by- product of what we watch in public entertainment, public press items, and as a result of sharing the mental environment in group situations.
But the public remains ‘tolerant’ and even encourages continuance of the degenerate mental influences and pollutants in our society. Offensive thought, violent emotions and crude behaviour is accepted. Freedom is a value not earned but considered a right.
We are not consistent in our judgments. Those who are guilty of poisoning the physical environment are punished yet those responsible for creating noise are held up as heroes and ‘rock stars’ and left free to bombard the environment with excessive and intrusive amplification. This causes a great deal of degrees of deafness. Although the damage to the brain and the senses through the negative effect of disco drums and electronic lights and sounds from rock groups is well documented, it is not generally recognized by the public.
It should be remembered that the license given to some to produce what has the effect of intrusive to others allows the first to assert their freedom but it is always at the expense of denying others theirs.
We solved an example of this in regard to smoking. We should find a way to ensure we deal with other pollutants in a similar way.
The psychological chaos, mental breakdowns and drug overdosing that are now considered to be consequences of deteriorating values and lack of discipline in culture that pollute our lives continue to be ignored, making it difficult for any of us to arrive at mental fitness in this current social environment.
We should demand higher standards in all things if we are to advance.
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