THEQuagraine

After visiting 34 different countries, and many of them repeatedly, and some of them for long stays at a time, I have discovered something interesting. I think it is a sign of something, but I can’t exactly put my finger on what or why.

One thing about people, is that the more intelligent they are, the less small things will bother them, and the less controversial certain topics will become. For example, in the past when there was thunder and lightning, some people would be worried, they would pray, they would maybe wonder if they didn’t offer the right things or enough to the gods, and that the gods were angry now. Well today most of us don’t give thunder and lightning a second thought, we know this is just part of nature, it happens. The same kind of thinking can be applied to many topics that are big issues in some countries. In others they aren’t even up for debate, people and society have moved on.

Different countries have very different cultures and the societies have developed to much different degrees due to the history of the region. If for the most part an individual person’s lack of intelligence is mostly harmless, when it comes to society it seems to be much different. Among friends the lack of education becomes apparent as arguments or stress over absolutely trivial and simple things. Things that are so simple and straight forward one has to wonder what sort of thought process the people are applying to the problem. But when you look at the bigger picture, you can see that in less developed and thus less intelligent countries, the controversial subjects are both more numerous, and more dangerous than in the developed, wealthy and more educated countries.

For example, there are countries where a controversial subject could be whether or not a woman should be stoned to death for adultery, including if she is raped by someone other than her husband. Or it could be the question of if homosexuality is legal or not, or if homosexuals should be sentenced to death or just life in prison. I feel like if it wasn’t for society, no single human being would just come up with something like that on their own. It has to be ignorant people in a group, building off each other’s ignorance, greed and lust.

So to get to my point, I decided to list the topics that are clearly controversial in a country. Topics that would immediately create a heated debate, with people divided on either side, or maybe mainly joining forces on one side. Topics that get people all bent out of shape, topics that if you mention them after a few beers, shit will get real serious, or if you post them on FB, you are sure to get a ton of comments. For Finland the list would look like this:

1. Immigration
2. Welfare bums
3. Racism and race related stuff
4. Taxes
5. Government corruption and politicians salaries.

Those are the topics that would get people hot under the collar. And having traveled all through Western Europe, the list for those countries is quite similar. Those are the sort of things you can see in the media, those are the kind of things you hear people discussing passionately.

So now finally we get to my point, the one that I don’t exactly have an answer to. Why is it, that there are wealthy, democratic, free and developed countries, with the highest technological and human understanding, where the list of controversial topics is long, and growing increasingly dangerous. Almost like society is moving backwards instead of forwards? And is this a reality, or just an impression?

This is a list for one such country in the world:

1. Immigration
2. Welfare bums
3. Racism and race related stuff
4. Taxes
5. Government corruption and politicians salaries.
6. Abortion
7. Gun control and related topics
8. Prisons for profit
9. Political party affiliation
10. Sex education
11. Evolution
12. Police brutality
13. Terrorism
14. Presidents heritage
15. Minimum wage
16. Universal healthcare
17. Climate change
18. Gay marriage
19. Death penalty
20. Historical facts, slavery, war etc.
21. Flags and historical symbols
22. Israel
23. Free education
24. Mass shootings
25. News channels
26. You get the point…