This one gave me a really hard time of thinking during the recent days... Something in Your perception appears strange to me, but it also appears extremly difficult to pinpoint it.
Because you understand this, I think you know what I mean when I talk about suffering.
So, what You meain is not a physical injury (that could be treated appropriately). And neither is it a mental disorder (that could probably also be improved by the proper means). It rather seems to be something similar to the notion in the buddhist philosophy, that "we all experience suffering". I never understood that one, either.
I think the buddhist philosophy is a very important and necessary approach to try and understand the phenomenon of the mind, and of existence, NOT based on the telltale of some divine being, but on something near to clear reasoning. But then, it positions suffering at the entry-point to the whole philosophy, and it does not even bother to explain how to achieve suffering, but simply declares it as conditio-sine-qua-non.
At that point I did almost despair - not because I would have been in the mood to despair, but because there was a philosophy that hat an methodology I could well agree with, and that tried to understand the very things I did also try to understand, but that did exclude me from their wisdom, because I could not achieve the prerequisite, i.e. suffering.
We are the only species whose arrogance goes well beyond insanity, up to the point we're destroying the ecosystem that allows us to live at an incredible speed and with an unwavering determination.
Slowly... we are the only species that tends to reflect on matters. This is an advantage, but it comes at a price.
Our ability to survive, our "evolutionary niche", is based on this: we are not stronger/faster/... than another animal, but we can reflect on experiences and change our methodology.
But it is the very same thing that separates us from nature - because you cannot reflect without distance.
Then, about arrogance - when do we behave arrogant? Often that is an act of defiance. We are, as you said, social animals. So we have a natural instinct to join and integrate. If that, for some reason, is not possible, the reaction may well be arrogance.
An animal is never asked: they behave according to their instincts because they have no other option.
Finally, the "ecosystem" cannot be destroyed, first of all, because it is just a mental concept. It's a product of human thinking. Just like the GDP is also a concept, a creation of thinking. You can use these as arguments, you can say, this or that behaviour is important for the whatever-concept - but then you make that concept a fetish, a semi-god. We have seen this; practically all demagogues work with such fetishes to stir public emotions. Currently the eco-system is made such a fetish, and it works, in favour of lots of things of which most are not really thought thru, and do not really make much sense.
The major bug here, as I see it, is the concept of guilt. The current telltale is based on
guilt: you should feel guilt, because things you do may be harmful to that eco-system, or because we have so much a bigger "ecological footprint" than e.g. the people in indonesia. But at the same time you cannot change that, because you are supposed to consume, and the economy (again: a concept) depends on that. So you are stuck in what in psychology is called a double-bind.
This whole scheme cannot work in any satisfactory way. Instead of giving people guilt, one should take care that people feel good, that they love themselves, that they love their life - and then they would automatically take care for that life.
So, suffering is pointless and counter-effective.
However, we ARE part of nature, how could we not suffer while helplessly witnessing our self-destruction?
We ARE nature. For some reason nature has decided to create a reflective animal, with all the consequences.
Why should we suffer from that?
Then, there is an old hindu teaching of the
Yugas, and it describes precisely what is happening. Civilisations are not meant to exist forever, they do rise and fall. Everything in nature happens in cycles; this is no different for civilisations. We ARE nature.
All this is known already for thousands of years. It has happened before and it will happen again in the future.
It might seem, it is our own free decision, if we prefer to suffer, or to just watch nature.
And those who understand what's happening suffer twice: once like all others, and once more because they feel so lonely, lost in an ocean of self-blinding peers.
I might understand that the unconscious people are suffering - in an unconscious way. Because, they do not really know why they are here, or what actually they belong to. Then they fill this with supplement ideas of where they would belong to, like, the family, the sports club, the job, whatever. Then, when that thing suddenly breaks away, a divorce happens or the job is cancelled, then the suffering becomes very imminent.
But if you know that, then you're not subdued, and you're actually free to do what you want. But yes, as a knowledgeable one you are lonely, and the search for peers is difficult.
) of the metaphysical knowledge(see Immanuel Kant) we're pretty much lost.