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Post by Tamrin on Nov 15, 2010 18:13:40 GMT 10
Plastic People of the Universe
An exploration of causes of superficial differences in personality, toward an understanding of our essential, underlying Oneness
“The City of Greater Newcastle Lodge” of The Theosophical Society
Philip Carter, 12 November 2010 Preamble:[/b] Some of you may have heard of the persecuted Czech band, Plastic People of the Universe, championed by renowned playwright Václav Havel, whose actions on their behalf began a chain of events, culminating in his election as President. From the name of that band I derive the title of tonight’s talk. The term “plastic” in their name was not a reference to that family of ubiquitous petro-chemical substances collectively known as Plastic. Rather it refers to anything, including character, which has plasticity or, in other words, is easily shaped. It is also in that sense that I use the term tonight. My premise tonight is, as James Bowell proclaimed, saying: " I have discovered that we may be in some degree whatever character we choose." Introduction:I will be discussing the Human Mind and Human Nature, looking at the perennial Nature versus Nurture debate, from what is, in part, a theosophical perspective. The first Object of our Society is: To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or colour. And, even more appropriate to the subject at hand, according to the first tenet of what has been described as the Theosophical World View: The universe and all that exist within it are one interrelated and interdependent whole. In other words, we are all expressions of the One Life. If so, why then are each of us, as individual expressions of that One Life, expressed somewhat differently? Imagine a string of Christmas lights: They are differently colored and some may be bright and some dim; regardless, the light from each globe is an expression of the same electric power. A low-tech., similar analogy is that of a vine and its branches. As Jesus said (John 15:5): " I am the vine, ye are the branches..." Thus we each appear different from each other, although we are each expressions of that One Life. How did those differences arise? At this point, we need to admit that we do not have all the answers and, indeed, some aspects of our unique individuality within our common unity may be beyond our ken. What we do know, is that, “ We are all sprung from the same stock, partakers of the same nature, and sharers of the same hope” (2°). We reject the idea of a new soul created for every newly-born babe. We believe that every human being is the bearer, or Vehicle, of an Ego coeval with every other Ego; because all Egos are of the same essence and belong to the primeval emanation from one universal infinite EgoH.P. Blavatsky
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Post by Tamrin on Nov 15, 2010 18:37:20 GMT 10
Genes and Memes:Genetically, some individuals have advantages or disadvantages whereby the One Life is shaded differently or expressed more or less efficiently. These differences can linger within families over a few generations but ultimately they merge with the wider gene pool, so that our common human genotype remains remarkably consistent, defying bigoted attempts to glorify or stigmatize particular races or other contrived divisions. Here we may need to emphasise that “Human Nature” is necessarily something common to all humans. Despite this obvious distinction, one commonly hears talk of it being “Human Nature” for men to behave aggressively or for certain disadvantaged races or classes to be slothful. In such cases we are no longer talking about “Human Nature,” we are talking about other presumed and postulated natures, often more in the nature of stereotypes. I suggest it makes a huge difference in debates on the subject to put aside the term “Human Nature” when talking about differences BETWEEN groupings of humans and to make clear the opinions one is relying upon. For example, there is a distinction between stating that it is Human Nature for women to behave in a certain way, as compared to stating that it is women’s nature for them to do so. The latter makes plain any lie, as a woman might rightly declare that a certain trait does not apply in her particular case and, as former field slave Sojourner Truth famously asked when told of such things as daintiness, which certainly didn’t apply to her, being a feminine quality, “ Ain’t I a Woman?" Her grievance touches on something I said at a 2007 masonic history conference in Edinburgh: “ Working class women have always had to work. Indeed, as the presumption of female delicacy rarely extended beyond the gentry, they often laboured in the most arduous occupations, including Stonemasonry.” What distinctions there may be between groups are elusive. As UK novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett said of gender: “ There is more difference within the sexes than between them.” And, as US anthropologist Franz Boas said of race: “ If we were to select the most intelligent, imaginative, energetic, and emotionally stable third of mankind, all races would be present.” Looking at the same phenomenon the other way round, we might add that, if we were to look at each third of such a division of mankind, at each level we would find representatives of each of our own extended families. At this juncture, let it be clearly understood that genetically all human are very closely related. We come from common ancestors, Out of Africa, only about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago (displacing earlier humans). There simply has not been enough time for much genetic variation to arise between ostensible races and, biologically, such rapid genetic changes would have to invoke the fallacy of Lamarckian soft inheritance. There are, however, much more to our differences than genes. Indeed, how genes might affect individual personalities is problematic. Each gene is a unit of our DNA, composed of a particular sequence of four similar chemicals, which primarily influences the formation of protein structures. While protein structures mold our basic physical form and might indirectly influence gross, functional mental capacity, it’s difficult to demonstrate or even imagine how they might influence our subtle personality traits. Nobel Laureate, physiologist Sir Charles Sherrington observed that, " As followers of natural science we know nothing of any relation between thoughts and the brain, except as a gross correlation in time and space." On the one hand, as Alfred Russel Wallace similarly observed, “ To say that mind is a product or function of protoplasm, or of its molecular changes, is to use words to which we can attach no clear conception.” On the other hand, as Tom Paine declared of monarchs, in The Rights of Man: “ The idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent as that of hereditary judges, as hereditary juries; and as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man; as absurd as an hereditary Poet Laureate.” I suggest that even where personality traits are inherited, they are more likely to be products of familial nurture rather than of hard-wired nature. As Francis Xavier claimed, “ Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” Behavioural psychologist B.F. Skinner similarly boasted, “ Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything.” He also observed that, “ Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless” (this point is crucial — At first we are shaped by others, for good or ill: Hopefully, we become Adepts, able to understand that we can constructively shape ourselves). Traditionally, differentiation between the effects of nature and nurture have drawn on the studies of twins, with special regard given for those separated at birth and raised in different cultures. Even these studies cannot be definitive, since hormonal responses during pregnancy may account for some vague common traits, such as anxiety or resilience. Other studies have focused on isolated and so-called feral children. We also need to consider how even the attribution of some traits involves considerable subjectivity: For instance, what is seen as a negative, aggressive behavioral trait in a woman might be regarded as a positive, assertive trait in a man. Beyond genetics, Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, coined a term for units of cultural inheritance. He called these “memes,” as distinct from “genes.” Memes are social norms, shared assumptions and stereotypical expectations that shape our lives. Memes too evolve and have an advantage over genes in that they are much more adaptable and can change considerably even within a single life span. Memes appear to be especially applicable when seeking to understand the causes of human behavior. Compared to other animals, some of whom are up and running within moments of birth, we are born exceptionally helpless, unable to even support our own heads. We barely have instincts enough to breathe and suckle and few of our subsequent behaviors are hard-wired enough to be considered instinctual. While we cannot entirely dismiss the possibility of a few, common, genetic behavioral predispositions, a universal human characteristic is that we are exceptionally susceptible to cultural factors. Memes and genes evolve. Memes seem to take on a life of their own and their spread is no measure of their merit. As Churchill observed, “ A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” Albeit, a meme which is destructive of the culture of which it is a part, may die with it — However, as with Nazism, it may linger on as counter-cultural memes in subsequent cultures. The Roman statesman Cicero said: “ Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.” Indeed, our character may not be as consistent as we tend to imagine, with each of us presenting different personas under different circumstances, depending on our different relationships to those with whom we are interacting (often ingrained through habit). Thus, we may have one persona chiefly for our children; another for our spouse; another for our employer; etc., etc. This is so commonplace that we take it for granted and can find it a source of amusement when they clash (as with someone who is a hen-pecked husband at home and a petty tyrant at work, when his wife visits the office). Likewise, our persona and intelligence may differ under different circumstances. Are we tired or hungry, frightened or discouraged? Sometimes this is all the difference there is between an individual being a hero at one time or a coward at another. A cue to differentiating between genetic and memetic differences is finding differences between cultures (although very successful memes can spread and become universal). Importantly, we need to bear-in-mind that a culture typically requires the complicity of thousands of individuals and so differences between cultures cannot be simply dismissed as arising from the unrepresentative quirks of exceptional individuals. As Austrian animal behaviorist Konrad Lorenz wrote: “ Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.” That's been a question, one of the big questions in my life. ‘What is a human?’ What are the elements that make a human? It's a search for... how many elements do you get before you say, ‘Yes, it's human,’ where before you were saying it's not humanGene Roddenberry
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Post by Tamrin on Nov 15, 2010 19:03:16 GMT 10
An Analogy between Skin Types and Gender: An analogy with skin types among indigenous Australians may be useful at this juncture. Generally, one is born into a skin type determined by but different to those of one's parents and must marry outside one's own skin type (attraction to someone of the same of skin type is considered "deviant"). There may be a number of skin types but within these are usually primary divisions of either "sun side" or "shade side." Thus: A moiety system (i.e. division into two groups: 'sun side' and 'shade side') exists across the region. Most language groups also use a section or subsection system with either four to eight 'skin names'. An individual gains a 'skin name' upon birth based on the skin names of his or her parents, to indicate the section/subsection that he/she belongs to. Very broadly speaking, although there are no causal, genetic differences between those sides, the "sun side" (males and females) are subjectively considered to be more robust (analogous to "masculine" in Western cultures) and are treated accordingly. While those men and women on the "shade side" are literally sheltered where possible and assigned less strenuous work, giving rise at one level to objective differences in pigmentation and physique, and, at another level, to differing pursuits and avoidances: Their differences are manifest for all to see, giving rise to a conviction of there being an unarguable, inherent dichotomy. Could this similarly be the case when we apply labels of class, race and gender to each other? US suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton noted: The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the same way. The negro's skin and the woman's sex are both prima facie evidence that they were intended to be in subjection to the white Saxon man. She and Susan B. Anthony (writing together), also noted: It would be ridiculous to talk of male and female atmospheres, male and female springs or rains, male and female sunshine... how much more ridiculous is it in relation to mind, to soul, to thought, where there is as undeniably no such thing as sex, to talk of male and female education and of male and female schools. Charlotte Perkins Gilman corroborated this, saying: “ There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. As well speak of a female liver.” Despite these absurdities, distinctions of gender, class and race remain ingrained in our cultures, in our languages and in our perceptions of self. How then do we overcome these contrived divisions? I suggest the first step is recognition of the difference between these stereotypical labels and the realities they presume to represent, together with recognition of the process whereby we come to apply those labels to ourselves and others. I deny that anyone knows, or can know, the nature of the two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present relation to one another. If men had ever been found in society without women, or women without men, or if there had been a society of men and women in which the women were not under the control of the men, something might have been positively known about the mental and moral differences which may be inherent in the nature of each. What is now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing — the result of forced repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation in othersJohn Stuart Mill
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Post by Tamrin on Nov 15, 2010 19:18:23 GMT 10
The Pygmalion Effect:George Bernard Shaw remarked that, “ The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated.” Indeed, this was the theme of his play, “Pygmalion,” on which the movie “My Fair Lady” was based. Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson later named their psychological Pygmalion Effect Theory after Shaw’s play. The Pygmalion effect is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy, and, in this respect, people with poor expectations internalize their negative label, and those with positive labels succeed accordingly. Typically, the Pygmalion effect begins in the family unit. However it is doesn’t end there, as we find with Rosenthal’s famous Oak School experiment: Oak School experiment:Simply put, when teachers expect students to do well and show intellectual growth, they do; when teachers do not have such expectations, performance and growth are not so encouraged and may in fact be discouraged in a variety of ways. In the famous Oak School experiment, teachers were led to believe that certain students selected at random were likely to be showing signs of a spurt in intellectual growth and development. At the end of the year, the students of whom the teachers had these expectations showed significantly greater gains in intellectual growth than did those in the control group. Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes / Brown Eyes experiment:The immediate context of this next experiment was Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr.’s murder on April 4 1968.] Whether she [Jane Elliot] planned the exercise previous to April 5, 1968, or not, on that day she implemented the exercise (also called an “experiment”) for the first time. Steven Armstrong was the first child to arrive to Elliott’s classroom on that day, asking why "a King" (referring to Martin Luther King Jr.) was murdered the day before. After the rest of the class arrived, Elliott asked them what others said about Negros. The children responded with various racial stereotypes such as Negros were unintelligent or could not hold jobs. She then asked these children if they would like to find out what it was like to be a Negro child and they agreed.
On that day, a Tuesday, she decided to make the blue-eyed children the superior first, giving them extra privileges like second helpings at lunch, access to the new jungle gym and five minutes extra at recess. She would not allow blue-eyed and brown-eyed children to drink from the same water fountain. She would offer them praise for being hard-working and intelligent. The “brownies” on the other hand, would be disparaged. She even made the brown-eyed children wear collars around their necks in order to tell they were brown-eyed from a distance.
At first, there was resistance to the idea that brown-eyed children were not the equals of blue-eyed children. To counter this, she used a pseudo-scientific explanation for her actions by stating that the melanin responsible for making blue-eyed children… also was linked to intelligence and ability, therefore the “brownies” pigmentation would result in lack of these qualities. Shortly thereafter, this initial resistance fell away. Those who were deemed “superior” became arrogant, bossy and otherwise unpleasant to their “inferior” classmates. Their grades also improved, doing mathematical and reading tasks that seemed outside their ability before. The “inferior” classmates also transformed – into timid and subservient children, including those who had previously been dominant in the class. These children’s academic performance suffered, even with tasks that had been simple before.
The following day, Elliott reversed the exercise, making the brown-eyed children superior. While the brown-eyed children did taunt the blue-eyed in ways similar to what had occurred the previous day, Elliott reports it was much less intense. At 2:30 on that Wednesday, Elliott told the blue-eyed children to take off their collars and the children cried and hugged one another. To reflect on the experience, she had the children write letters to Coretta Scott King and write compositions about the experience.
This exercise changed her life, both as a teacher and personally. Her reflections on what she had witnessed would influence how she would approach race relations and teaching. “She had not told her pupils to treat each other differently, only that they were different; and yet they developed the characteristic responses of discrimination. Jane Elliott felt that they did this because they had already absorbed discriminatory behavior from their parents and other adults.” Their willingness to accept the "inferiority" of a group of people was in no small part due to the fact that children believe what adults, including teachers, tell them and follow their examples. However, the brown-eyed students who had experienced discrimination on Tuesday, seemed to modify their behavior when it was their turn to be “superior” on Wednesday. While they did exhibit some of the same discriminatory behaviors, they were much less intense supposedly because they already knew what it was like. The exercise seemed to suggest that black underachievement was a product of “white-dominated constructions of reality”. She believes that what has been taught in schools (1968 to the present) conditions students that whiteness is the objective. Schools teach virtually nothing of what people of color have contributed to humankind while most people would have little trouble naming 10 white males. “That’s called racism, people,” according to Elliott, as she believes it is racism to deny or ignore what other people contribute. Elliott believes that teachers perpetuate racism by how they interact with their students. Teachers will call on white boys first, then white girls. They also establish a hierarchy based on who they pay attention to, where students are seated and how groups are formed. Showing that psychological labelling and indoctrination is a life-long process, we have: The Stanford Prison Experiment:The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Psychology professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Twenty-four undergraduates were selected out of 75 to play the prisoners and live in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Roles were assigned randomly. The participants adapted to their roles well beyond what even Zimbardo himself expected, leading the guards to display authoritarian measures and ultimately to subject some of the prisoners to torture. In turn, many of the prisoners developed passive attitudes and accepted physical abuse, and, at the request of the guards, readily inflicted punishment on other prisoners who attempted to stop it. The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself, who, in his capacity as "Prison Superintendent," lost sight of his role as psychologist and permitted the abuse to continue as though it were a real prison. Five of the prisoners were upset enough by the process to quit the experiment early, and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days. The experimental process and the results remain controversial. The entire experiment was filmed, with excerpts soon made publicly available, leaving some disturbed by the resulting film Over 30 years later, Zimbardo found renewed interest in the experiment when the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal occurred. Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive and potentially orderly and constructiveMargaret Mead
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Post by Tamrin on Nov 15, 2010 19:25:08 GMT 10
Class, Race, Gender:There are significant policy implications to these findings. As Charles Darwin observed: “ If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” His contemporary author and fellow evolutionist Alfred Russel Wallace similarly stated: “ I hold… that at the back of every great social evil will be found a great political wrong.” For instance, the Stanford Prison experiment establishes that, rather than providing rehabilitation, imprisonment creates criminals. The Oak School Experiment and Jane Elliott’s Blue Eyes / Brown experiment shows the susceptibility of young minds, while others show how even adults can be manipulated with the misuse of authority and stereotypes. Where does it all begin? Essentially before we are born, the culture in which we are fated to live writhes and evolves as if in preparation for our arrival. Possibly we are influenced even in the months of gestation by hormonal accompaniments to strong emotion. At birth, from when a doctor (once typically male) announces the sex of the new-born baby, and a nurse (once typically female) wraps it in ether a pink or a blue blanket, the process of genderfication begins. Handed a baby in blue, both men and women typically try to stimulate it; handed the same baby in pink, they typically try to soothe it; and, handed the same baby in yellow, they are anxious to be told its sex. This is all happens to the child before it is even aware of boys and girls, let alone what they have been determined to be and what that entails. Later they will discover the presumptive race into which they have unwittingly been born (and, remember, there is no “pure” race) and whether their family is relatively rich or poor. For now they are innocents. However, all around them are people already more or less informed by these categories and their nuances and who, for good or ill, treat the infant accordingly, training them to conform to social norms. If these memes were fully understood, there would be no need for Sociologists: We learn to act accordingly do not grasp them in their entirety (I suggest they may even constitute the Collective Unconscious of which Jung wrote). Prince Charles, when asked when he first realized he was heir to the throne, said: I think it's something that dawns on you with the most ghastly, inexorable sense. I didn't suddenly wake up in my pram one day and say 'Yippee, I —', you know. But I think it just dawns on you, you know, slowly, that people are interested in one, and slowly you get the idea that you have a certain duty and responsibility. South African activist Olive Schreiner described how: We all enter the world little plastic beings, with so much natural force, perhaps, but for the rest — blank; and the world tells us what we are to be, and shapes us by the ends it sets before us. To you [men] it says — Work; and to us [women] it says — Seem! To you it says — As you approximate to man's highest ideal of God, as your arm is strong and your knowledge great, and the power to labor is with you, so you shall gain all that human heart desires. To us it says — Strength shall not help you, nor knowledge, nor labor. You shall gain what men gain, but by other means. And so the world makes men and women. Taking a slightly different tack, US journalist Gloria Steinem stated: The family is the basic cell of government: it is where we are trained to believe that we are human beings or that we are chattel, it is where we are trained to see the sex and race divisions and become callous to injustice even if it is done to ourselves, to accept as biological a full system of authoritarian government Challenging this indoctrination, US anthropologist Margaret Mead insisted that: Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful. Meanwhile, at the core of our being, underlying these superficial social norms, labels and expectations, is the universal nature of the One Life. I turn now to Fritjof Capra, who observed: The personality of each man and each woman is not a static entity but a dynamic phenomenon resulting from the interplay between feminine and masculine elements. This view of human nature is in sharp contrast to that of our patriarchal culture, which has established a rigid order in which all men are supposed to be masculine and all women feminine, and has distorted the meaning of those terms by giving men the leading roles and most of society's privileges. (The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture, 1983) The syntactical nature of reality, the real secret of magic, is that the world is made of words. And if you know the words that the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wishTerence McKenna
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Post by Tamrin on Nov 15, 2010 19:31:58 GMT 10
Conclusion:The social philosopher William Thompson, entitled his attack on the presumptions of biological determinism, “ The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light.” I considered his title would have been a good alternative title for tonight’s talk, as I feel it says much about our subject matter: At first we are, as it were, falling into the social milieu of our birth, learning, accepting and internalizing the categories and stereotypes of society, until we finally realize just how much in control we can be — We then take light. Much of this process involves us judging gross and subtle messages from others; thinking, “Yes, that how things are,” or worse, “Yes, that how I am” or “No, that not how things are” or “No, that’s not like me.” And, whatever our attitude is to our selves and to our circumstances, tends to be self-fulfilling. As Henry Ford said, “ Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're probably right.” We react to both compliments and criticisms. However, typically as Aussies, we don’t like to “big note” ourselves (itself a meme): We tend to dismiss compliments and take criticisms to heart. Indeed, we tend to dwell on critical remarks and mistakes, recalling them whenever we think we face similar situations. Every time we do this we reinforce our judgments, with the same effect as if the recalled criticism or mistake were happening again in reality. Importantly, now that we have seen that the first step to Adeptship is recognizing the process by which we are shaped, the next step is to consciously take part in that process by auditing our self-fulfilling thoughts. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “ No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” If someone compliments you, accept it graciously, saying to yourself “Yes, that’s like me.” If someone criticizes you, don’t take it personally. Instead look at your actions: If you were at fault and could have done better, acknowledge that fact, but don’t dwell on it. If you can do so sincerely, say to yourself, “No, that’s not like me,” then move on and imagine yourself doing better next time. Finally, religions are powerful means by which memes are transmitted and, within the Ancient Wisdom, are memes for consciously controlling which memes to accept or not. With a bit of practice we too might become one of our much loved, fellow eccentrics and ratbags, exploring the unfettered possibilities of life. Sometimes however we can get bogged down at this stage of Adeptship, being overly attached to novelty and with impressing or agitating others with our being “different.” Life is all about ME and the One Life is all about US — Hopefully, we become comfortable with ourselves and gentle with others, upsetting them no more than is needed for insight and a touch of humour. People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories
If you don't like someone's story, write your ownChinua Achebe
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Post by Tamrin on Nov 28, 2010 21:24:03 GMT 10
I was impressed by this UK documentary aired on SBS tonight:
Society knows perfectly well how to kill a man and has methods more subtle than death
Andre Gide
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Post by Tamrin on Oct 8, 2011 13:43:35 GMT 10
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. It enslaves him almost before he has tasted freedom... Considering how long society has been at it, you'd expect a better job. But the campaigns have been badly planned and the victory has never been secured
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Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong wayB.F. Skinner"Self-Made Man" by Bobbie Carlyle
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Post by Smithee on Jan 24, 2012 21:20:28 GMT 10
I viewed my fellow man not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape
There are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes. One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo sapiens. The zoologist now has to start making compar- isons. Where else is nudity at a premium? The other primates are no help, so it means looking further afield... At this point the zoologist is forced to the con- clusion that either he is dealing with a burrowing or an aquatic mammal, or there is something very odd, indeed unique, about the evolutionary history of the naked ape
This unusual and highly successful species spends a great deal of time examining his higher motives and an equal amount of time ignoring his fundamental ones
We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species
A belief in the validity of the acquisition of knowledge and a scientific under- standing of the world we live in, the creation and appreciation of aesthetic phe- nomena in all their many forms, and the broadening and deepening of our range of experiences in day-to-day living, is rapidly becoming the 'religion' of our time
We are, to put it mildly, in a mess, and there is a strong chance that we shall have exterminated ourselves by the end of the century. Our only consolation will have to be that, as a species, we have had an exciting term of office
Clearly, then, the city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zooDesmond MorrisEnglish anthropologist and author (The Naked Ape) (Born this day 1928) Much of what we do as adults is based on this imitative absorption during our childhood years. Frequently we imagine that we are behaving in a particular way because such behavior accords with some abstract lofty code of moral principles, when in reality all we are doing is obeying a deeply ingrained and long 'forgotten' set of purely imitative impressions. It is the unmodifiable obedience to these im- pressions (along with our carefully concealed instinctive urges) that makes it so hard for societies to change their customs and their 'beliefs'. Even when faced with exciting, brilliantly rational new ideas, based on application of pure, objective intell- igence, the community will still cling to its old home-based habits and prejudices. This is the cross we have to bear if we are going to sail through our vital juvenile blotting-paper' phase of rapidly mopping up the accumulated experiences of previous generations. We are forced to take the biased opinions along with the valuable facts.
Luckily we have evolved a powerful antidote to this weakness which is inherent in the imitative learning process. We have a sharpened curiosity, an intensified urge to explore, which work against the other tendency and produce a balance that has the potential of fantastic success. Only if a culture becomes too rigid as a result of its slavery to imitative repetition, or too daring and rashly explorat- ory, will it flounder. Those with a good balance between the two urges will thrive
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Post by Smithee on Jan 26, 2012 16:54:17 GMT 10
Life is the only art that we are required to practice without preparation, and without being allowed the preliminary trials, the failures and botches, that are essential for training Lewis Mumford(Died this day 1990)
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