I got pretty deep into this subject, and I am proud of that.
I think it’s an important one for those of us who are always struggling to figure out what is really going on, as Robert Anton Wilson put it.
And yes, I picked two left wing examples. That’s because the right wing examples are obvious and pervasive.
Anyhow, here it is :
But you can see how this sort of thing can happen to anyone. As far as I can tell, the zeitgeist is riddled with this kind of bullshit and I think we’re just going to have to live with that because of the imperfect nature of our minds and our consciousness.
Which is frustrating to a part time truth warrior like me, but I am above all else a pragmatist and there is little point in railing against something I can’t change.
And as a humanist, I love us naked beach apes for all our fragility and absurdity and imperfections and pretense, so there’s that too.
Plus I question the universal utility of the truth as well. In a lot of situations it really doesn’t matter whether what someone believes matches objective reality or not.
I mean, if someone genuinely believes the moon is made of green cheese, odds are that’s not going to hurt anybody, least of all them, even if they spend their free time trying to build an extremely large fondue pot.
The problem is that us human beings have a strong instinct to merge our views of reality as a way of creating a pool of shared knowledge greater than what any single one of us could know.
Like I have said before, if Conk the Caveman sees a bear in the valley with the red berries and then tells his tribe about it, now the whole tribe knows to avoid Red Berry Valley unless they plan to hunt the bear.
But this instinct was not evolved with the complexity of life in a much bigger tribe in mind. When two people’s worldviews conflict (Brank was just in Red Berry Valley and he didn’t see a bear there) this information sharing instinct experiences a conflict and that can only mean one thing : arguing.
Both Conk and Brank think they are right, and odds are, neither one is going to convince the other the truth of their opinions. So the argument is pointless, right?
Well no. Welcome to the world of discourse. Because the other members of the tribe might not have made up their minds about Red Berry Valley yet and they are waiting to see how the argument goes before they decide who is right.
See how it all works?
Fast forward to today and people arguing on the internet. Our world is incredibly complicated, far moreso than our monkey brains can handle, and so we have complex discourse and seemingly endless and pointless arguments and all of us contributing to the massive shared knowledge base of humanity in some way.
Anyhow, back to the knowledge sharing instinct. That instinct is why it bothers us so much when someone says something we disagree with. Our initial instinct is to merge realities with people and when a conflict makes that impossible, we argue.
And while it’s very rare for anyone to be convinced via argument to change their views, in the aggregate, all these little spats are how a society thinks something over, and eventually the side of right (hopefully) develops strong arguments that the side of the devils can’t counter, becomes dominant, and then that world view becomes the one we all accept and share in the future.
That’s why the arc of history bends towards justice. That’s how social progress happens. That’s how we evolve our consciousness as a species.
That’s how we make our world a better place for all.
Kind of inspiring, isn’t it?
More after the break.
After the talk
Had therapy today at noon.
Don’t worry, it will go back to the usual Thursdays starting next week. My therapist has just been recovering from his luxury vacation to my fucking home town.
Okay, so I am still a little angry and bitter about that. I mean, what are the fucking odds. The whole world for him and his wife to vacation in, and they ended up going to the one place on Earth that would piss me off the most.
Oh well. Some day I will go back and hug my Mom, probably for the last time.
I’ve pondered whether or not I’d move back. I mean, it’s not like it really matters where the bedroom with my computer in it resides.
I could have the exact same lifestyle in Timbuktu, language barrier aside.
Of course, this location has one unbeatable advantage : my friends. So moving back home would mean swapping my friends, who have looked after me for over a decade and who love me a lot, for the family I barely even know any more.
Put that way, no, I don’t think I would move back. I could see myself going home for a summer, maybe, but I have roots here in BC now.
Dunno what my brother Dave will do once my mother’s gone, though.
Damn I hate thinking about stuff like this.
But some day she won’t be there and my bro will be all alone in a house that is way too big for one person and everything there will remind him of her and he might just need to have his little brother around.
Lord knows it’s not like my two sisters will move back home.
We Gen X have reached prime “losing your parents” age and as a generation we’re going to have to deal with that. Despite all our bitching about Boomers, it’s going to be a much colder world when they are gone.
And then we’ll be the ones expected to be the wise and responsible ones.
And we’re not cut out for that, dammit!
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.