Friday, January 9, 2015

Pathology of Betrayal


Why are we spinning on and on in a compulsive cycle of betrayal? One who betrayed once will betray twice, the one who will be betrayed will betray another, this is its genesis, but it wasn’t equipped with an ending, unfortunately.  And the question comes, why do we betray to begin with? From history to the present we have endless examples of betrayal, some that might relate to minor thing that relate to our  monotone suburban life, some that entered our history books.

And still, where does betrayal come from, is it a second product of envy, is it a product of our consumerist society or is it even something avoidable. Betrayal is learnt, it is not impregnated in our genes, is the result of a constant and restless power struggle for resources that are available which are limited, a basic concept from economy.  A struggle for survival combined with  and a communicational handicap, a fear of opposition or being put in front of opinions and acts that are outside of one’s comfort zone, the misinterpretations usually lead to aggressiveness and hostility.

Betrayal fall in to a natural antagonistic equation with no possible win-win situation, in order to advance this discussion even more, a question will find its way in – How do we even define betrayal?  It something that comes down to the personal perception of an action, the perception itself is the result of a multitude of past experiences that solidified in to interpretative functions. Betrayal, in the form of a experience, can be define as an social actor’s actions and activities which are in a both an ethical and deontological disconnect with the expectations that others have from him as the result of the social and professional position that he/she/it holds. To be complete, the disconnect should be done with intention, it has to be done with a destructive intention and the other actor from the scheme must have a certain degree of trust in he/she/it that derivers from certain affective aspects or from a social or professional status that the other social actor holds.

Putting it in a more simplistic form, betrayal is mocking of trust, love, ethicality and friendship.  It is a weapon of social destruction which leaves deep marks in both the personal and the collective consciousness. It is a disregard to the most sacred values that humans hold, a path of suffering and misery followed by those that take part in selfish actions that aim only at personal gain.

As I mentioned, it must be destructive, intentionally done and violating a connection that is based on trust in order to fulfill a selfish desire. A natural law is broken, the effects of experiencing betrayal are deep and hard to heal, making a full recovery almost impossible.

I would like to extend this concept even more, is betrayal something that can make its way only between humans, what about the man-nature relationship, is it immune from betrayal? If we look a little around us, betrayal can be the most representative key-word, being an animal itself, man abused and killed with no shame other members of the Animal Kingdom and distorted the natural growth and harmony of Nature.

In our age and even in the centuries that had past, people tried to motivate their hate and atrocities through the power of religious authority, disregarding many times the principles that they preached themselves, they ruined the very essence of humanity and went against the Natural Law.

Man betrayed Nature, the natural law, resulting in a limitation of the brother’s right to happiness.

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