Fristelsen ble for står: Jeg MÅTTE ta med disse klippene fra noen nettsteder:
10.03.09: Saudi Arabia sentences widow, 75, to 40 lashes after she allows two men into her home to bring her bread
Dato publisert: 10.03.2009 Siste gang redigert: 10.03.2009
Saudi Arabia has sentenced a widow to 40 lashes and four months in prison after two men who were not her blood relatives were caught in her home.
Khamisa Sawadi, who is Syrian but was married to a Saudi, was convicted and sentenced last week after the men were caught bringing her five loaves of bread. She is to be deported after serving the sentence.
The two men - one of whom is her late husband's nephew - were also found guilty and sentenced to prison terms and lashes.
The case has sparked new criticism of Saudi Arabia's ultra-conservative religious police and judiciary.
'How can a verdict be issued based on suspicion?' Saudi doctor and columnist Laila Ahmed al-Ahdab wrote in newspaper Al-Watan yesterday. 'A group of people are misusing religion to serve their own interests.'
The elderly woman met the two 24-year-old men last April after she asked them to bring her five loaves of bread, Al-Watan reported.
The men - identified by Al-Watan as Sawadi's husband's nephew, Fahd al-Anzi, and his friend and business partner Hadiyan bin Zein - went to Sawadi's home in the city of al-Chamil, located north of the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
After delivering the bread, the two men were arrested by one of the religious police, Al-Watan reported.
The court said it based its March 3 ruling on 'citizen information' and testimony from al-Anzi's father, who accused Sawadi of corruption.
'Because she said she doesn't have a husband and because she is not a Saudi, conviction of the defendants of illegal mingling has been confirmed,' the court verdict read.
Sawadi had told the court that she considered al-Anzi is her son, because she breast-fed him when he was a baby. (http://www.rights.no/publisher/publisher.asp?id=52&tekstid=2390)
En lærer i 30-årene ved en skole i Horten ble i ettermiddag varetektsfengslet i én uke for seksuell handling mot tre barn.
- Vi er på et tidlig tidspunkt av etterforskningen, men slik saken nå står er det snakk om en seksuelt handling som beføling i klassesituasjonen, og ikke seksuelt misbruk, sier politiadvokat Lise Dalhaug Øhrling ved Vestfold politidistrikt til Aftenposten.no.
- Retten i tvil
Politiadvokaten ba om to ukers varetektsfengsling, men Tønsberg tingrett gikk under tvil med på én uke.
Kjennelsen er anket til Agder lagmannsrett.
En av guttene var igår i dommeravhør, men dette må trolig gjennomføres på nytt da lærerens forsvarer ikke var til stede. De to andre guttene, som alle[? – mitt spørsmålstegn ] er i ti-tolv-årsalderen, skal i dommeravhør senere.
Klassen har hatt læreren i flere år.
- Det er for tidlig å si om det har skjedd noe straffbart, understreker barnas bistandsadvokat Kristin Hovden overfor Aftenposten.no.
- Vanlig kontakt
- Læreren har forklart at han har tatt på, klødd og kilt guttene på rygg, bryst og mave i klasserommet med hele klassen til stede. Han er en type som kanskje går mer opp i elevene enn andre lærere, og benekter at dette var vært seksuelt motiverte handlinger, sier lærerens forsvarer, Hans Petter Pederesen, til Aftenposten.no.
Begge advokater advarer mot å hause opp saken. Foreldrene ved den berørte barneskolen skal i kveld møte politiet og skolens ledelse.
Tønsberg tingrett begrunner fengslingen med fare for bevisforspillelse.
- Tatt i går
Mannen ble pågrepet onsdag etter en bekymringsmelding. Ingen har anmeldt læreren for å ha forgrepet seg.
Rådmann Ragnar Sundklakk i Horten kommune suspenderte læreren fra hans stilling onsdag.
(http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/article3042701.ece)
torsdag 28. mai 2009
lørdag 23. mai 2009
”Sakset fra menighetsbladet i ….”
Det er i høst soknepresten som leser med konfirmantene. La oss huske på konfirmantene i våre bønner…
torsdag 21. mai 2009
”SOL-flyinstrumentet mitt fra Renschler”
har jeg vært umåtelig fornøyd med. Et lite solcellepanel har gjort at jeg aldri har gått tom for strøm, aldri har måttet tenke på å lade batterier. Denne følelsen av eufori har nå vart nesten 15!!! år. Hvor mange ganger GPS-en min plutselig har slått seg av pga mangel på strøm, vet jeg ikke. Flyinstrumentet fra Renschler har aldri sviktet.
Men så kuttet displayet plutselig ut da jeg fløy på Hat Yao ved Sattahip. Skulle jeg bli nødt til å skilles fra min gamle flyvenn gjennom mange år? Jeg fryktet at jeg måtte bite i gresset og anskaffe meg en variant med batteri. GPS-en min begynner også å trekke på årene, men også den fungerer greit til mine behov.
Lenge har jeg sett at andre piloter har stått og trykket på knappene på sine Bräuniger Competinoer eller Compeoer. Skal jeg være helt ærlig, har jeg nok kjent et lite stikk av misunnelse. Men vennskap er vennskap, og jeg har ikke villet svikte min venn fra Renschler gjennom mange år. Standhaftig har jeg stått i mot gruppepresset.
Så skjedde altså det beklagelige (og sørgerlige) at skjermen ble svart. Jeg kontaktet en forhandler med tanke på en Competino. Så slo det meg at jeg burde ta en titt på manualen på Internett. På http://www.renschler.de/eng/pages/service_e/handb_sol_e.html fant jeg ut at varioen nok hadde holdt til i ”skyggenes dal” alt for lenge. SOL-varioen liker best å bli lagret i et solrikt vindu, stod det i manualen.
Nå forsøker jeg det og håper at jeg kan vekke varioen opp fra ”de døde”. Akkurat nå ligger den og trekker kraft fra en het tropesol.
Free Counters
tirsdag 19. mai 2009
”Amazing Thailand”
det skal være både sikkert og visst. Nabokonflikter har vi i Norge og i alle land, men her i det såkalte ”Smilets land” kan de fort få en alvorligere karakter enn uskyldig nabokrangel.
Vi som har bodd her en stund, vet at bak smilet som det reklameres slik med, skjuler det seg et sterkt ønske om å unngå å ”miste ansikt”.
Her hvor jeg bor nå, har vi to naboer. Den ene er politimann (som innbiller seg at uniformen gir ham særrettigheter), den andre er en halvgammel dame (som må ha diverse løse skruer der du vet…).
Politimannen fant ut at ”my land is not full”, dvs at tomten han eide var mindre enn de 1.600 kvadratmetrene (1 rai) den skulle være på. Så begynte han å beskylde oss for å ha flyttet grensemerker. Hvilket vi ikke hadde gjort. Plutselig en dag troppet han opp med diverse hjelpere og to bevæpnede politikolleger for å flytte grensen slik at eiendommen kunne bli så stor som den skulle være. Vi var samarbeidsvillige (nordmenn kan være grei når de vil). Vi hjalp til med å måle opp tomtene. Det overraskende resultatet var at politimannen hadde 200 kvadratmeter FOR MYE. – Flaut, pinlig og STORT TAP AV ANSIKT! (At regneferdigheten i Thailand er så som så, er en annen sak – etter sigende bruker ”Amazing Thailand” langt mer på religiøse formål enn på skoleformål).
Så var det den halvgamle dama som må ha et ukjent antall skramlende skruer i ”bollen”. Plutselig en dag fant hun ut at noen kokospalmer som stod inne på vår eiendom, tilhørte henne. Hun ville derfor flytte grensepålene et par meter inn på vår eiendom. Diverse øvrighetspersoner ble tilkalt, og resultatet ble selvsagt at hun tok feil. STORT TAP AV ANSIKT. En tydelig beruset sønn måtte holdes tilbake av to menn for at han ikke skulle gå løs på meg. Siden kjørte han bort i bil...
I de månedene som har gått siden dama var ”klin kokos”, må enda flere skruer ha løsnet. Da vi hugget noen trær godt inne på vår eiendom, fant hun ut at disse trærne var hennes fordi hun hadde plantet dem. Hvilket hun ikke hadde gjort; det var vi som hadde plantet disse trærne. Hun tilkalte politi som bare kunne fastslå at trestubbene var inne på vår eiendom. STORT TAP AV ANSIKT.
Mens vi var bortreist for noen dager siden, hadde hun plutselig plantet en rekke med eukalyptustrær inne på vår eiendom i grenselinjen.
DET VAR DA JEG SLUTTET Å VÆRE SAMARBEIDSVILLIG. Jeg ble sint. Faktisk veldig sint. Jeg forlangte at hun skulle fjerne nyplantingene. Hun ble også sint, så sint at hun to ganger truet meg med stor kniv med knivblad på 40 cm.
Etterpå gikk hun bort til politimannen (de er vel venner fordi de har funnet en felles uvenn…) og beklaget seg. Det var da politimannen (han er faktisk politisjef i denne lille landsbyen i ”Amazing Thailand” utbrøt i sinne med høy stemme slik at vi kunne høre det. ”Bedre å hugge og drepe. Hugg og drep! Det ville jeg gjort!”
DET VAR DA TROEN PÅ SMILETS LAND AVGIKK VED DØDEN. Jeg dro til politistasjonen i Soengsang og ville anmelde saken. Det skulle vise seg å være lettere sagt enn gjort. I skranken møtte jeg en god venn av politisjefen. Jeg leverte en skriftlig anmeldelse, men skjønte etter hvert hvor landet lå. Neste dag stakk jeg innom og snakket med en annen politimann i skranken. Saken ble journalført, jeg sa at jeg hadde levert en skriftlig anmeldelse dagen før. Denne var ikke å finne før vi fikk tak i politikameraten; det viste seg at anmeldelsen lå i bilen hans. Trolig fordi han ville vise den til politisjefen for at han skulle være informert…
Jeg valgte å kontakte den norske ambassaden i Thailand i tilfelle de hadde noen gode råd i saker som dette. Ambassaden skal ha stor ros for raskt svar! Dette var svaret jeg fikk:
”Ambassaden har mottatt din bekymringsmelding og beklager den vanskelige situasjonen du har kommet opp i. Vårt råd er at du må opptre forsiktig i det videre forløp i denne saken og unngå provokasjoner. Skal du få det levelig i nærmiljøet ditt bør du prøve å slutte fred med de som oppfordrer til den volden du beskriver. Lykkes du ikke med dette, bør du kanskje vurdere å flytte til et annet bosted.
Ambassaden kan dessverre ikke rydde opp i sivilrettslige saker i Thailand. Vi ber deg derfor om å være ytterst varsom.”
Klarere kan det vel ikke sies at Smilets land er et reklamejippo. ”Amazing Thailand” lever sannelig opp til sitt rykte!
Vi som har bodd her en stund, vet at bak smilet som det reklameres slik med, skjuler det seg et sterkt ønske om å unngå å ”miste ansikt”.
Her hvor jeg bor nå, har vi to naboer. Den ene er politimann (som innbiller seg at uniformen gir ham særrettigheter), den andre er en halvgammel dame (som må ha diverse løse skruer der du vet…).
Politimannen fant ut at ”my land is not full”, dvs at tomten han eide var mindre enn de 1.600 kvadratmetrene (1 rai) den skulle være på. Så begynte han å beskylde oss for å ha flyttet grensemerker. Hvilket vi ikke hadde gjort. Plutselig en dag troppet han opp med diverse hjelpere og to bevæpnede politikolleger for å flytte grensen slik at eiendommen kunne bli så stor som den skulle være. Vi var samarbeidsvillige (nordmenn kan være grei når de vil). Vi hjalp til med å måle opp tomtene. Det overraskende resultatet var at politimannen hadde 200 kvadratmeter FOR MYE. – Flaut, pinlig og STORT TAP AV ANSIKT! (At regneferdigheten i Thailand er så som så, er en annen sak – etter sigende bruker ”Amazing Thailand” langt mer på religiøse formål enn på skoleformål).
Så var det den halvgamle dama som må ha et ukjent antall skramlende skruer i ”bollen”. Plutselig en dag fant hun ut at noen kokospalmer som stod inne på vår eiendom, tilhørte henne. Hun ville derfor flytte grensepålene et par meter inn på vår eiendom. Diverse øvrighetspersoner ble tilkalt, og resultatet ble selvsagt at hun tok feil. STORT TAP AV ANSIKT. En tydelig beruset sønn måtte holdes tilbake av to menn for at han ikke skulle gå løs på meg. Siden kjørte han bort i bil...
I de månedene som har gått siden dama var ”klin kokos”, må enda flere skruer ha løsnet. Da vi hugget noen trær godt inne på vår eiendom, fant hun ut at disse trærne var hennes fordi hun hadde plantet dem. Hvilket hun ikke hadde gjort; det var vi som hadde plantet disse trærne. Hun tilkalte politi som bare kunne fastslå at trestubbene var inne på vår eiendom. STORT TAP AV ANSIKT.
Mens vi var bortreist for noen dager siden, hadde hun plutselig plantet en rekke med eukalyptustrær inne på vår eiendom i grenselinjen.
DET VAR DA JEG SLUTTET Å VÆRE SAMARBEIDSVILLIG. Jeg ble sint. Faktisk veldig sint. Jeg forlangte at hun skulle fjerne nyplantingene. Hun ble også sint, så sint at hun to ganger truet meg med stor kniv med knivblad på 40 cm.
Etterpå gikk hun bort til politimannen (de er vel venner fordi de har funnet en felles uvenn…) og beklaget seg. Det var da politimannen (han er faktisk politisjef i denne lille landsbyen i ”Amazing Thailand” utbrøt i sinne med høy stemme slik at vi kunne høre det. ”Bedre å hugge og drepe. Hugg og drep! Det ville jeg gjort!”
DET VAR DA TROEN PÅ SMILETS LAND AVGIKK VED DØDEN. Jeg dro til politistasjonen i Soengsang og ville anmelde saken. Det skulle vise seg å være lettere sagt enn gjort. I skranken møtte jeg en god venn av politisjefen. Jeg leverte en skriftlig anmeldelse, men skjønte etter hvert hvor landet lå. Neste dag stakk jeg innom og snakket med en annen politimann i skranken. Saken ble journalført, jeg sa at jeg hadde levert en skriftlig anmeldelse dagen før. Denne var ikke å finne før vi fikk tak i politikameraten; det viste seg at anmeldelsen lå i bilen hans. Trolig fordi han ville vise den til politisjefen for at han skulle være informert…
Jeg valgte å kontakte den norske ambassaden i Thailand i tilfelle de hadde noen gode råd i saker som dette. Ambassaden skal ha stor ros for raskt svar! Dette var svaret jeg fikk:
”Ambassaden har mottatt din bekymringsmelding og beklager den vanskelige situasjonen du har kommet opp i. Vårt råd er at du må opptre forsiktig i det videre forløp i denne saken og unngå provokasjoner. Skal du få det levelig i nærmiljøet ditt bør du prøve å slutte fred med de som oppfordrer til den volden du beskriver. Lykkes du ikke med dette, bør du kanskje vurdere å flytte til et annet bosted.
Ambassaden kan dessverre ikke rydde opp i sivilrettslige saker i Thailand. Vi ber deg derfor om å være ytterst varsom.”
Klarere kan det vel ikke sies at Smilets land er et reklamejippo. ”Amazing Thailand” lever sannelig opp til sitt rykte!
mandag 18. mai 2009
”Til Khorat for å fly”
søndag ettermiddag. Siden vi skulle ha service på bilen og ordne med returvisum i Khorat, måtte vi ta en tur innom starten på ettermiddag. Da vi kom dit hadde en tropisk regnbyge nettopp forlatt starten som var gjennomvåt og sleip. Ellers var det ingen andre der. Vinden var noe skiftende, spesielt på retning, så jeg lot motoren forbli på bilen. Noen andre kom innom etter hvert, men også de valgte å la være å fly. I stedet ble det en del prating. Ikke så ulikt hvordan det er på start i Norge…
søndag 17. mai 2009
”Turbulent på start på Hat Yao”
Først dro vi til et startsted inne i landet ved Sattahip. Det var noen åser motvinds, og siden det var en del vind, var vi redd for at det ville være kraftig turbulens. Vi valgte derfor å kjøre til Hat Yao.
Der blåste det en god del. Omtrent 6 sekundmeter vil jeg tro nede ved stranda. Det var trolig derfor de andre stoppet et stykke innenfor stranda. Det var bare det at det var noen tregrupper omtrent 50 fremme på hver side av starten. Jeg forstod ikke hvorfor de ikke ville starte på et sted uten hindringer i fartsretningen.
Jeg gikk og sjekket om det var noen merkbar skifting av vindstyrke og retning i ulik avstand fra trærne. Det var det så det holdt, og jeg valgte å la paramotoren stå på bilen. Det var nok et fornuftig valg.
Da de andre startet, var det tydelig at det var en del turbulens kombinert med skiftende vindstyrke. Det var ikke helt lett å få opp vingene og få dem til å stå i vinden. En av pilotene måtte avbryte en forlengsstart, han snudde seg rundt og dermed fikk et vindkast tak i skjermen og ble revet fremover. Han ramlet forlengs og den svarte propellen gikk i fillebiter. En annen pilot startet ikke langt fra trærne og fikk problemer da han kom inn i rotoren. Det gikk veldig tregt å komme opp, trærne kom nærmere og nærmere og han pendlet kraftig sideveis. Han hadde nesten ikke kontroll, men det gikk heldigvis bra.
Det var tydelig at de thailandske pilotene ikke hadde noe særlig greie på at hindringer motvinds, som for eksempel trær, kan skape ubehagelig og kanskje farlig turbulens. Ingen av dem hadde fløyet mer enn to år.
Bildene viser startstedet med trær på hver side, klargjøring før start, en grei start, piloten er for nær trærne om må avbryte starten pga turbulensen og slik kan det gå når vinden røsker til…
lørdag 16. mai 2009
Flytur på Hat Yao, Sattahip
Jeg var så heldig å bli kjent med noen thailandske PPG-piloter for en måneds tid siden. De inviterte oss på besøk og sist helg dro vi sydover. Vi fikk låne et stort nytt hus. På ettermiddagene dro vi til Hat Yao (Long Beach) som lå inne på det militære området til marinebasen i Sattahip. Solgangsbrisen stod fint inn, og det var lett å starte baklengs på stranda. Høydebegrensningen var på 300 meter på grunn av den militære flyplassen Utapao like ved. (Det var den flyplassen som ble brukt litt da flyplassen i Bangkok var stengt ved nyttårstider.)
Vi kunne bare fly frem og tilbake på stranda, ikke over det militære området rett innenfor. Jeg klatret opp til 300 meter (liker meg best der eller høyere) og nøt utsikten over stranda, øyene utenfor. Inne på det militære området var restene av en flystripe som amerikanerne brukte under Vietnam-krigen. Sikten var god, og jeg kunne se Rayong og Ko Samet noen mil unna.
Bildene viser meg selv like før og etter take off og noen lokale piloter som varmkjører motorene.
tirsdag 5. mai 2009
“Enda mer å tenke på”
Autistic Certainty
© 1993 Donald E. Watson
(Reprinted from Telicom XI, 7: 43, Apr, 1993.)
It inspires conviction, faithfulness, right-thinking, and devotion to duty--as well as bigotry, self-righteousness, fanaticism, and mulishness. It nourished the atrocities of the Inquisition, and directed the persecution of Galileo. It propels persons to hoard religious hatred toward others who are mutually hateful. It seduces heroes and martyrs onto shadowy alters of glory, serving eternal principles that are quickly forgotten. It motivated the execution of innocent persons as witches, and it continues to condemn innocent defendants, and to liberate guilty miscreants. It incites nations to squander their resources, dissipating their prospects on crusades, blood feuds, and holy wars. And it sustains revered institutions that degrade and threaten humanity, even to foreshadowing the extinction of the species.
Its pervasive influence in the affairs of humankind notwithstanding, it has not been named. I term it autistic certainty. In this terminology, autistic means "self-generated without reference to external reality," and certainty means "the unequivocal conviction that a particular belief constitutes true knowledge."
Though knowledge of reality cannot be certain, persons influenced by autistic certainty are certain that they are privy to the unknowns of the universe. Their certainty is supported solely by the primal premise of self-reference:
o I would not believe something that is not true.
o I believe [this].
o Therefore, [this] must be true
The conclusion of this syllogism is logically true, of course, but the self-reference of the major proposition makes it false with respect to reality.
Autistic certainty supports psychotic thought processes such as paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations. Hallucinating persons are convinced that they hear voices of real persons, even though they cannot perceive the sources with any of their other senses. Moreover, because autism is invulnerable to sensory experience and its implications, it is blind to self-contradiction. Thus, the schizophrenic trait of ambivalence allows holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously. For example, "This statement is false," is a proper sentence that is obviously self-contradictory: If it is true, then it is false; if it is false, then it is true. However, a person with schizophrenic ambivalence would not appreciate this paradox.
Various forms of illogic, or dereistic thinking, occur with many instances of psychosis, yet psychotic thinking is not always accompanied by irrationality. For example, paranoid delusions are typically sustained by impeccable logic: From the premise, "I am Jesus," deluded persons can faithfully deduce their divinity, universal knowledge, divine inspiration, and expected martyrdom.
Though it occurs in psychotic states, autistic thinking is not confined to these conditions. Indeed, it is a normal product of consciousness and abstract thought in persons during their first six years of life. Unlike the autism of psychotic states, however, the autistic thinking of childhood is normally superseded through experience, education, and disciplined skepticism. Unless, that is, they are taught otherwise.
To control the minds and to exploit the behavior of their followers, leaders of most governing institutions, religious and secular, encourage unquestioning faith and childlike obedience. In other words, they actively discourage their followers from mastering the skills of abstract thought. Thus, the ubiquitous abuse of abstract thought among non-psychotic adults reflects deliberately arrested development of a uniquely human gift.
One of the most familiar forms of abusing abstract thought results from animistic thinking. As children, persons normally attribute self-modeled qualities--e.g., self-awareness, free will, the spirits of good and evil--to other persons and objects.
Animistic thinking is prominently displayed in the widespread abuse of labels to characterize persons, as illustrated by the so-called "liar paradox" of Epimenides: "All Cretans are liars. I am a Cretan." Though this pair of statements is conventionally considered self-contradictory, it is paradoxical only if the word liar denotes a person who cannot speak the truth. In fact, a liar is a fictitious creature of language. Rudimentary reality testing reveals that real persons who are accomplished at lying usually speak the truth. Otherwise, they could not lie effectively.
Animistic labeling motivates tagging persons with a wide range of symbols--e.g., saint, witch, murderer, good Samaritan, evil incarnate. When such symbols are not distinguished from the fictitious things they represent, the words themselves become the perceived reality. Thus, witches are hanged, but witches don't die; real persons do.
Animistic labeling is familiar as the ad hominem argument, a fallacy that is accepted routinely in our most venerated social institutions. Courts of law, for example, use ad hominem labeling as the foundation of "witness credibility." Thus, expert witnesses are judged believable, not by the validity of their testimony, but by their credentials, experience, or reputations. On the other hand, percipient witnesses are credited or discredited according to even shakier standards. Typically, witnesses who are shown to have lied once are impeached thereafter as liars. Like the Cretan, they are considered inhabited with the spirit of falsity, which categorically prevents their speaking the truth. Such primitive thinking was exposed in the notorious case of Gary Dotson.
Dotson had been convicted of rape based on the testimony of a young woman. After he had served several years in prison, the woman recanted her original testimony, and Dotson requested a new trial. However, though the woman testified under oath that Dotson had not raped her, the judge did not grant Dotson a new trial. Instead, he labeled the woman a liar, using the reasoning that, if she spoke the truth in recanting, she had lied originally; otherwise, she lied in recanting. Either way, she was categorically unbelievable.
In discrediting the woman as a liar, the judge accepted the chimerical animistic concept of a liar. That is, in the mind of the judge, she was a liar, and therefore incapable of ever speaking the truth. So Dotson remained officially guilty.
Criminal convictions are generally supposed to hinge on the issue of reasonable doubt. The woman's recanting raised significant doubts, of course, but they did not operate in favor of Dotson. Instead, the Dotson case turned on the egregious legal doctrine that courts are infallible in finding facts.
Given this grandiose, self-referenced axiom, a person found guilty is certainly guilty (albeit with autistic certainty). In other words, Dotson's conviction in the first trial made him presumably guilty thereafter, a burden that cannot be overcome with mere doubt, no matter how reasonable.
If the courts were forums for determining the truth concerning reality, the judge in the Dotson case could have humbly stated the obvious: "We don't know what really happened in this case, and we can't know it. Therefore, the certain outcome of this proceeding results from primitive thinking that creates blind faith in the system of justice." He did not make such a statement, however, for courts are not noted for their humility concerning reality.
Technically, courts are charged only with finding "facts," not truths concerning reality. This notion begs the question, "What is a fact?" The legal answer to this query is straightforward, though tautological: "Courts find facts. Therefore, a fact is whatever a court finds." In other words, like psychotic persons, courts generate their own peculiar renditions of reality.
To support the ideal of "truth and justice," courts must execute their fact-finding duties without exposing their fictions, arbitrary assumptions, and autistic caprice. They achieve this by using the misdirection inherent in certain rituals of the game of law. Thus, many court procedures resemble "bringing in the chain" in football, a ludicrous ceremony designed to create the illusion of accuracy and objectivity.
To avoid appearing to measure distance from the sideline by eye, officials carry a ten-yard chain from the sidelines to the location of the ball. Then, with conspicuous ceremony, they meticulously determine whether any portion of the ball extends ten yards or more from the other end of the chain. The joke is, the other end of the chain, the reference point for this exacting measurement, was itself set from the sideline by eye. Yet, the interests of coaches, players, and spectators alike, inattentive to the misdirection, are satisfied. Similarly, the rituals of the game of law hide the actual reference point of legal fact-finding: the autistic certainty of the law, as executed by equally certain judges and jurors.
The persistent abuse of abstract thought in human institutions suggests that most persons prefer the certainty of fiction to the uncertainty of reality. Perhaps humans abuse their abstract thought and self-awareness to allay their fear of uncertainty, which, if equated to chaos, implies imminent death. If this hypothesis is true, it defines a fatal flaw in humanity--the first, and probably last, species on this planet to be endowed with the gift of abstract thought.
Abstract thought is a potential resource that allows humans to govern themselves, to invent and use tools, to create works of art, to learn from persons dead many years, and to induce powerful scientific theories that realistically predict future events. Unfortunately, however, such constructive use of abstract thought is far outweighed by its destructive abuse.
Today's religious and political institutions preoccupy themselves with exorcising demons and other haunting harvests of childish imaginings. Ignorant of technology, and oblivious to their own mental processes, leaders of these institutions can destroy the species through accidental pollution, calculated nuclear warfare, or indifferent nonchalance to the mutative potential of HIV. In other words, by abusing the intellectual products of the few, the primitive thinking of the many threatens to extinguish the species.
Humans can increase the probability of their survival only if individuals, leaders and followers alike, accept the responsibility for mastering their abstract thinking. Einstein's experience can show how to realize this. Initially, he recoiled at the implications of quantum mechanics, bothered by the idea that God might throw dice. Yet, subsequently, he subordinated this autistic world-view to objective evidence of uncertainty in the observable world.
Though few humans possess the mental capacities of Einstein, each person can begin by assuming that autistic certainty sustains their beliefs. This simple precaution is the first step toward mastering the gift of abstract thought.
© 1993 Donald E. Watson
(Reprinted from Telicom XI, 7: 43, Apr, 1993.)
It inspires conviction, faithfulness, right-thinking, and devotion to duty--as well as bigotry, self-righteousness, fanaticism, and mulishness. It nourished the atrocities of the Inquisition, and directed the persecution of Galileo. It propels persons to hoard religious hatred toward others who are mutually hateful. It seduces heroes and martyrs onto shadowy alters of glory, serving eternal principles that are quickly forgotten. It motivated the execution of innocent persons as witches, and it continues to condemn innocent defendants, and to liberate guilty miscreants. It incites nations to squander their resources, dissipating their prospects on crusades, blood feuds, and holy wars. And it sustains revered institutions that degrade and threaten humanity, even to foreshadowing the extinction of the species.
Its pervasive influence in the affairs of humankind notwithstanding, it has not been named. I term it autistic certainty. In this terminology, autistic means "self-generated without reference to external reality," and certainty means "the unequivocal conviction that a particular belief constitutes true knowledge."
Though knowledge of reality cannot be certain, persons influenced by autistic certainty are certain that they are privy to the unknowns of the universe. Their certainty is supported solely by the primal premise of self-reference:
o I would not believe something that is not true.
o I believe [this].
o Therefore, [this] must be true
The conclusion of this syllogism is logically true, of course, but the self-reference of the major proposition makes it false with respect to reality.
Autistic certainty supports psychotic thought processes such as paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations. Hallucinating persons are convinced that they hear voices of real persons, even though they cannot perceive the sources with any of their other senses. Moreover, because autism is invulnerable to sensory experience and its implications, it is blind to self-contradiction. Thus, the schizophrenic trait of ambivalence allows holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously. For example, "This statement is false," is a proper sentence that is obviously self-contradictory: If it is true, then it is false; if it is false, then it is true. However, a person with schizophrenic ambivalence would not appreciate this paradox.
Various forms of illogic, or dereistic thinking, occur with many instances of psychosis, yet psychotic thinking is not always accompanied by irrationality. For example, paranoid delusions are typically sustained by impeccable logic: From the premise, "I am Jesus," deluded persons can faithfully deduce their divinity, universal knowledge, divine inspiration, and expected martyrdom.
Though it occurs in psychotic states, autistic thinking is not confined to these conditions. Indeed, it is a normal product of consciousness and abstract thought in persons during their first six years of life. Unlike the autism of psychotic states, however, the autistic thinking of childhood is normally superseded through experience, education, and disciplined skepticism. Unless, that is, they are taught otherwise.
To control the minds and to exploit the behavior of their followers, leaders of most governing institutions, religious and secular, encourage unquestioning faith and childlike obedience. In other words, they actively discourage their followers from mastering the skills of abstract thought. Thus, the ubiquitous abuse of abstract thought among non-psychotic adults reflects deliberately arrested development of a uniquely human gift.
One of the most familiar forms of abusing abstract thought results from animistic thinking. As children, persons normally attribute self-modeled qualities--e.g., self-awareness, free will, the spirits of good and evil--to other persons and objects.
Animistic thinking is prominently displayed in the widespread abuse of labels to characterize persons, as illustrated by the so-called "liar paradox" of Epimenides: "All Cretans are liars. I am a Cretan." Though this pair of statements is conventionally considered self-contradictory, it is paradoxical only if the word liar denotes a person who cannot speak the truth. In fact, a liar is a fictitious creature of language. Rudimentary reality testing reveals that real persons who are accomplished at lying usually speak the truth. Otherwise, they could not lie effectively.
Animistic labeling motivates tagging persons with a wide range of symbols--e.g., saint, witch, murderer, good Samaritan, evil incarnate. When such symbols are not distinguished from the fictitious things they represent, the words themselves become the perceived reality. Thus, witches are hanged, but witches don't die; real persons do.
Animistic labeling is familiar as the ad hominem argument, a fallacy that is accepted routinely in our most venerated social institutions. Courts of law, for example, use ad hominem labeling as the foundation of "witness credibility." Thus, expert witnesses are judged believable, not by the validity of their testimony, but by their credentials, experience, or reputations. On the other hand, percipient witnesses are credited or discredited according to even shakier standards. Typically, witnesses who are shown to have lied once are impeached thereafter as liars. Like the Cretan, they are considered inhabited with the spirit of falsity, which categorically prevents their speaking the truth. Such primitive thinking was exposed in the notorious case of Gary Dotson.
Dotson had been convicted of rape based on the testimony of a young woman. After he had served several years in prison, the woman recanted her original testimony, and Dotson requested a new trial. However, though the woman testified under oath that Dotson had not raped her, the judge did not grant Dotson a new trial. Instead, he labeled the woman a liar, using the reasoning that, if she spoke the truth in recanting, she had lied originally; otherwise, she lied in recanting. Either way, she was categorically unbelievable.
In discrediting the woman as a liar, the judge accepted the chimerical animistic concept of a liar. That is, in the mind of the judge, she was a liar, and therefore incapable of ever speaking the truth. So Dotson remained officially guilty.
Criminal convictions are generally supposed to hinge on the issue of reasonable doubt. The woman's recanting raised significant doubts, of course, but they did not operate in favor of Dotson. Instead, the Dotson case turned on the egregious legal doctrine that courts are infallible in finding facts.
Given this grandiose, self-referenced axiom, a person found guilty is certainly guilty (albeit with autistic certainty). In other words, Dotson's conviction in the first trial made him presumably guilty thereafter, a burden that cannot be overcome with mere doubt, no matter how reasonable.
If the courts were forums for determining the truth concerning reality, the judge in the Dotson case could have humbly stated the obvious: "We don't know what really happened in this case, and we can't know it. Therefore, the certain outcome of this proceeding results from primitive thinking that creates blind faith in the system of justice." He did not make such a statement, however, for courts are not noted for their humility concerning reality.
Technically, courts are charged only with finding "facts," not truths concerning reality. This notion begs the question, "What is a fact?" The legal answer to this query is straightforward, though tautological: "Courts find facts. Therefore, a fact is whatever a court finds." In other words, like psychotic persons, courts generate their own peculiar renditions of reality.
To support the ideal of "truth and justice," courts must execute their fact-finding duties without exposing their fictions, arbitrary assumptions, and autistic caprice. They achieve this by using the misdirection inherent in certain rituals of the game of law. Thus, many court procedures resemble "bringing in the chain" in football, a ludicrous ceremony designed to create the illusion of accuracy and objectivity.
To avoid appearing to measure distance from the sideline by eye, officials carry a ten-yard chain from the sidelines to the location of the ball. Then, with conspicuous ceremony, they meticulously determine whether any portion of the ball extends ten yards or more from the other end of the chain. The joke is, the other end of the chain, the reference point for this exacting measurement, was itself set from the sideline by eye. Yet, the interests of coaches, players, and spectators alike, inattentive to the misdirection, are satisfied. Similarly, the rituals of the game of law hide the actual reference point of legal fact-finding: the autistic certainty of the law, as executed by equally certain judges and jurors.
The persistent abuse of abstract thought in human institutions suggests that most persons prefer the certainty of fiction to the uncertainty of reality. Perhaps humans abuse their abstract thought and self-awareness to allay their fear of uncertainty, which, if equated to chaos, implies imminent death. If this hypothesis is true, it defines a fatal flaw in humanity--the first, and probably last, species on this planet to be endowed with the gift of abstract thought.
Abstract thought is a potential resource that allows humans to govern themselves, to invent and use tools, to create works of art, to learn from persons dead many years, and to induce powerful scientific theories that realistically predict future events. Unfortunately, however, such constructive use of abstract thought is far outweighed by its destructive abuse.
Today's religious and political institutions preoccupy themselves with exorcising demons and other haunting harvests of childish imaginings. Ignorant of technology, and oblivious to their own mental processes, leaders of these institutions can destroy the species through accidental pollution, calculated nuclear warfare, or indifferent nonchalance to the mutative potential of HIV. In other words, by abusing the intellectual products of the few, the primitive thinking of the many threatens to extinguish the species.
Humans can increase the probability of their survival only if individuals, leaders and followers alike, accept the responsibility for mastering their abstract thinking. Einstein's experience can show how to realize this. Initially, he recoiled at the implications of quantum mechanics, bothered by the idea that God might throw dice. Yet, subsequently, he subordinated this autistic world-view to objective evidence of uncertainty in the observable world.
Though few humans possess the mental capacities of Einstein, each person can begin by assuming that autistic certainty sustains their beliefs. This simple precaution is the first step toward mastering the gift of abstract thought.
mandag 4. mai 2009
“Noe mer å tenke på”
Natural Human Political Behavior
© 1993 Donald E. Watson
"Man is a reasoning animal," declared Seneca. But he was describing a theoretical ideal. Real humans reason as cats swim: They can do it, but they avoid it whenever possible.
Reasoning requires effort and discipline; it certainly isn't automatic. Therefore, instead of using their advanced brain to cultivate their gift of abstract thought, typical humans use their primitive brain to think, believe, behave, and vocalize. Because this makes them slaves to their primal drives, humans prefer shouting to debating, fisticuffs to philosophy, and physical fitness to mental fitness.
As a species, humanity expresses its undeveloped mentality through its political behavior, which does not differ significantly from the social behavior of other animals. That is, human political behavior is driven by the same instincts that guide the behavior of sheep, wildebeests, and other herding animals. For example, the majority of humans stampede to join the herds, or "bandwagons," of charismatic leaders. There, they delight in winning decisive victories, though it isn't always clear exactly what they win. Nevertheless, having won, the majority regards minorities as losers, unfit to participate in the activities of the herd. That's democracy as we know it.
Included with the instincts to follow leaders is the warning that straggling invites predators. Yet, a minority of humans do straggle, preferring to override their instincts with their own thinking. In the history of humankind, a few such non-herd individuals have produced the ideas and inventions that account for what is romantically, but unrealistically, termed the "ascent of man." Naturally, members of the herd shun these stragglers as pariahs.
Still, the herd adopts a select few of their technological products, particularly those that entertain them, or support their destructive urges. Of course, giving potentially destructive tools to instinct-ridden political leaders is like giving loaded guns to a party of six-year-olds: Sooner or later, a catastrophe will occur.
After the atomic bombs were detonated in Japan, Albert Einstein observed, "Everything has changed, except human nature." He was noting that humans destroy each other with any available tools. In this way, leaders invite mass extinction by turning the products of abstract thought against their own species. In other words, in their advanced brains, most humans carry a powerful potential resource for adaptation and survival, but since they don't know how to use it, they abuse it. Moreover, they do this to popular acclaim.
Popular Opinion
Contrary to popular opinion, popular opinion does not constitute truth. Nevertheless, when humans gather in large herds, they think with one mind, and this mind assures them that their numbers secure them from predators. The irony is, many leaders are themselves predators, leisurely feasting on the minds, bodies, and property of their followers. Many other leaders are simply compelled to lead, regardless of their mental fitness to do so. Thus, as pods of whales beach themselves by following their surrogate thinkers, humans obliviously, but fashionably, flock to their deaths.
One herding trait obvious in political behavior is caucusing in exclusive cliques. Cliques organize human behavior by relieving their members of reasoning for themselves: The group's dominant members determine the beliefs, values, and behaviors of all the members. This is agreeably efficient, for each clique requires only one mind. Indeed, typical humans carry this characteristic over to larger groups: mobs and political parties. Clique mentality probably indicates a natural limit on the size of human flocks. That is, typical humans can't comprehend huge herds as collections of individuals. To distinguish friends from foes, they must rely on uniforms, if not literal, then figurative--e.g., religion, ethnicity, or skin color.
Humans are herded by strong personalities because instinct merely requires following leaders; it does not compel evaluating their abilities and motives. This would require reasoning, and instinct doesn't reason. Yet, though their political behavior is not rational, humans do rationalize: They contrive specious reasons for their behaviors after they act, not before. Then, to save themselves further mental work, they crystallize these rationalizations in the language and other symbols of their political mythologies.
These icons develop lives of their own, for they disguise primal instincts, and distort potentially accurate perceptions of reality. In these ways, the brutish nature of humanity masquerades as political idealism, and distorted reality-testing postures as self-evident truths. Hiding their subhuman behavior behind such curtains of meaningless words, political leaders secure immunity from critical scrutiny by their followers. This masquerade points to the major flaw in the evolution of humanity: its capacity for speech.
Speaking vs Reasoning
Herds require effective communication to maintain their coherence, and because speech is available to humans, it is the principle organizer of human politics. Of course, to be effective, the ideas expressed in political speech must be comprehensible to the majority. Most members of the majority avoid serious intellectual tasks, so human politics must be conducted at the lowest common denominator of thought. And this level of thought is decidedly low.
The use of language is one of the highest achievements of abstract thought. However, speech itself is quite primitive. Children learn to speak several years before they can learn to think--even before they can control their bowels and bladders. Indeed, for the rest of their lives, most humans speak before they think.
Speech appears early in life because the human brain possesses specific regions dedicated to the mechanics of vocalizing and perceiving complex patterns of sounds. However, the brain does not include regions dedicated to logic, judgment, or reality-testing. That's why we humans are not inherently wise, discerning, or sagacious. Hence, our species designation, Homo sapiens sapiens (tool-making bipedal primate, wise, wise), is gratuitous: We are not born sapient; to acquire wisdom, we must learn it.
As with any other acquired skill, learning wisdom requires mastering an innate talent; in the case of language, this talent is our capacity for abstract thought. Yet, our ability to master it develops slowly, in four periods, as categorized by the Swiss scientist, Jean Piaget.
Sensori-motor mentality
In our first two years of life (Piaget's sensori-motor period), our mental capacity is limited to motor activity and sensory learning. By the age of two, we can recognize and vocalize words, but our brain does not support interpreting these sounds as abstractions. That's why sensual words and phrases can drive behavior, regardless of whether they carry meanings:
Rhythmic flowing streams of words
Can soothe and still like lullabies.
But words that bite
Incite to fight.
Clearly, redundant political chants and slogans are relics of infantile thinking.
Sensori-motor thinking is also revealed in raucous shouting matches (usually called "debates" or "discussions"), wherein contestants behave as though noise can substitute for reason. Fortunately, humans can progress beyond this point in their mental development.
Pre-operational thinking
From the ages of two to seven years (the pre-operational period), we learn by rote, like parrots, using nouns for labeling things, adjectives for describing things, and numbers for counting things. To the brain, however, all linguistic symbols are equivalent, so it does not matter whether the things named, described, and counted are real or imagined. Thus, humans who don't progress beyond the pre-operational stage of development can't discern the differences between reality and political fiction. This deficiency makes them extremely vulnerable to manipulation by opportunistic leaders.
Humans could reduce their susceptibility to political manipulation by learning the rudiments of abstract thinking, for example, that self-aggrandizing symbols such as "sapiens," "reasoning animal," and "in the image of God," are mere words, fanciful verbal constructs that lack any correspondence to real human attributes. Of if they figured out the implications of such words being learned by children--and by parrots.
It is critical to recognize and understand the products of pre-operational mentality, for most human political behavior is driven by two aspects of this deficient mode of abstract thought: self-reference and animistic thinking.
As children, we are vulnerable to reality distortions produced by our self-centered view of the world. These perversions are typically expressed in the mental attribute of autistic certainty, where "autistic" means self-generated without reference to external reality, and "certainty" means the unequivocal conviction that a particular belief constitutes knowledge of reality (Watson, 1993).
Autistic certainty is supported solely by self-reference: "I would not believe something that is not true. I believe [this]. Therefore, [this] must be true." Though self-reference is absurd, its nonsense is lost on persons locked into pre-operational thinking. If they don't outgrow this method of thinking, adults perceive themselves to be the models for ideal humanity. In this way, their self-reference produces the standards for "good" (like themselves) and "evil" (different from themselves). They say, "If only everyone were like me, the world would be perfect." Even if they don't say this aloud, they think it privately, and act accordingly--that is, self-righteously.
Autistic certainty is reinforced by a second characteristic of pre-operational thinking, animistic thinking. Using animistic thinking, children attribute self-modeled qualities to other persons, and even to lifeless objects. These qualities include self-awareness, free will, and the spirits of good and evil.
In its most common political application, animistic thinking is expressed as animistic labeling--that is, tagging whole human beings with one-dimensional labels, as though they were possessed of animating spirits that totally determine their thinking and behavior. Humans use animistic labeling for the same reason they wear distinctive uniforms: They can't comprehend strangers as complicated, sentient beings that differ very little from themselves. That's why judges, preachers, journalists, and politicians alike characterize fellow humans simply as good or evil, Jew or Moslem, liberal or conservative, guilty or innocent, worthy or unworthy, and gay or straight. Similarly, primitive thinking has been known to label entire nations: as The Great Satan, for example, or The Evil Empire.
Though animistic labeling is a product of pre-logical thought, it occurs regularly in humanity's most respected institutions. Not only does it support holy wars, it produces the ad hominem arguments popular in legal proceedings. In courtrooms, for example, witnesses are regularly labeled as liars. Then, acting as though liars are inhabited by the spirit of falsity, which categorically prevents their speaking the truth, judges and juries dismiss their words as unbelievable. Witnesses judged as credible, on the other hand, are wholly believed. Familiar with this trait, persons who make their livings by lying--e.g., swindlers, salespersons, prophets, politicians--conspicuously speak the truth, for it serves to establish their credibility.
In their most malignant forms, autistic certainty and animistic thinking drive the destructive behavior of self-righteous persons: Certain that the spirit of good animates them, they know they can do no evil. Therefore, they are justified in any kind of violence, provided only that it is directed against "evil" ones. Humans abusing abstract thought in this way routinely express themselves through subhuman savagery. The irony is, though Serbian gunners aim their weapons at Croats, human beings die, not the imaginary spirit of "Croatness."
In short, when blinded by autistic certainty, persons are oblivious to external reality. Yet, guided by animistic self-righteousness, they are aggressive in proclaiming their opinions. Astonished that others don't appreciate their beliefs and values, they take steps to correct these disbeliefs: If they can't verbally impose their beliefs on the infidels, they kill them--if not literally, then figuratively. Such thinking has written much of human history, and probably foreshadows its future. Given today's arsenal of nuclear weaponry, and the willingness of primitive humans to use it against each other, it is difficult to imagine how humanity can escape a thermonuclear catastrophe, triggered by virtual six-year-olds. Yet, humans are capable of higher levels of thinking than that.
Concrete Operations
Between the ages of seven and twelve (the period of concrete operations), we can learn how abstractions apply to concrete objects, e.g., "Two apples plus three apples equals five apples." However, we can't yet grasp pure abstractions, for example, that two is the set of all pairs. Because persons using concrete operations can use the language of abstract thought without appreciating its significance, they regularly abuse it, though unwittingly.
For example, adults abuse the language of logic to disguise the illogic of fallacies such as non-sequitur arguments. Even more popular is disengaging words from their original meanings, and flinging them about as free agents to whimsically gather new meanings on the fly. Though such concrete thinking is absurd, it is a staple of human political behavior. Yet, these abuses are inexcusable, for most humans can learn to think beyond the level of concrete operations.
Formal Operations
In our twelfth year, when we enter the period of formal operations, we can begin to master our abstract thought. Then, we can learn that we readily confuse our perceptions of reality and fiction, for neither is more than a fleeting, abstract pattern of neuronal activity in our brain. We can also learn that words are abstractions of abstractions: They carry no intrinsic meaning, but merely symbolize our perceptions of reality or fiction.
Because abstract thinking is so powerful, humans who have mastered it can critically reflect on a wide range of topics, including the complexities of government. Yet, this potential is never realized by most humans, for their journey toward mastery is derailed in an accident of nature: During the spring of life, when they could be learning the elegant intricacies of abstract thought, the thoughts of young humans turn to a primal biological imperative: the instinct to reproduce, as expressed as the drive for sexual pleasure.
Despite its overriding influence, the instinct to reproduce doesn't necessarily preclude mastering abstract thought, for most humans are capable of enjoying both sex and thinking, though at different times. Nonetheless, nature makes it difficult to learn to think, for unlike the seasonal mating seasons of other animals, the human period of reproduction is continual. Because human sexual physiology doesn't provide respites for learning to think, to humans using primitive modes of thought, the constancy of their mating season symbolizes the importance of mating, and diminishes the importance of thinking.
In short, the sex drive naturally entails ignoring mental fitness in favor of physical fitness. Moreover, with their minds still governed by the thinking modes of childhood, members of each sex carry their peculiar mating roles and rituals into their political behavior.
Sexualized Politics
For subhuman males, mating rituals take the form of physical contests for dominance, with nature's promise of attractive females as prizes. Moreover, these characteristics of primitive thinking translate directly to human behavior. In medieval times, for example, male combatants marched to war flanked by women baring their breasts to demonstrate what the men fought for. Today, cheerleaders fulfil this role, displaying their assets to male athletes as they compete for dominance. Similarly, female political groupies lavishly praise their men, urging them to prevail--and thereby to prevent strange men from reaping the feminine harvest of victory.
Subhuman mentality dictates much of today's politics. For example, the notion of females exercising choice over their reproductive resources is unthinkable to lower animals: Prizes don't award themselves. If they did, the contests of males would be rendered purposeless. As obvious as this primitive thinking is in dumb animals, it is not self-evident in human politics, for politicians use the foggy verbiage of religious dogma or political idealism to disguise the real trophies they seek--sex and power. Nevertheless, as with the phallic displays of monkeys, human political dominance is prominently symbolized by manly symbols: dangling neckties, and penetrating weapons such as swords, guns, and missiles.
Humanity loses much in investing its political behavior in male instincts, for females carry two instincts that make them far better than males at organizing social behavior. First, they dedicate themselves to posterity, not to the passions of the moment. This means they think first of protecting their progeny, not destroying the progeny of others. Second, females naturally appreciate the survival value of cooperation and mutual dependency. This means they can comprehend peace as an active process of economic interdependence, not merely as an interval between wars. (Shupe, pp. 35-52).
These female qualities notwithstanding, the war between the sexes, as fought in the political arena, is always won by males. That's because instinct drives humans to resolve their conflicts by the most decisive method. This is always the most primitive, and often the most savage, because eliminating an enemy is far more decisive than negotiating with him--or her.
Hence, male aggressiveness leaves females only two choices in subhuman politics: Stay on the sidelines to cheer, or blend into politics as a mock male. That's why the typical behavior of women who join politics, like that of female whales that lead their pods, is indistinguishable from males. Not only do they speak in familiar terms of penetrating weapons, they often modify their physical appearance, adopting neckties as phallic symbols of dominance, to emulate the male posture.
Hope for Healthy Politics
The ultimate outcomes of using primitive mentality are familiar facts of life: First, the political behavior of humans is driven by subhuman instincts because representative members of the species never bother to master their capacity for abstract thought. Second, typical humans learn to speak before they learn to think, and transform their primitive mentality and patterns of speech into their political behavior. Third, they institutionalize primitive thought by incorporating concrete, imaginary perceptions of reality into their religious and political traditions. And fourth, individuals who comprise human herds are easily manipulated by their leaders who control them with seductive words. For example, humans engage in self-destructive actions, following leaders who assure them that their obedience entitles them to celestial immortality or worldly booty--depending on whether the actions are holy or secular.
The ultimate result of humanity's failure to master its capacity for reasoning is ironic: The same instincts that have perpetuated the species in the first order operate to extinguish it in the second order. Recognizing human political behavior as the natural product of instinctive drives creates dreary prospects for the future of the species. Yet, where there is potential, there is hope.
This hope, in turn, inspires the question, "Is it possible for humanity to govern itself through democratic rule?" The affirmative answer to this question follows from a qualification of Seneca's assertion: "Humans are reasoning animals if they are forced to think for themselves."
We know this, because opportunities for independent thinking occur frequently during life crises, and many persons prove adept at taking advantage of them. For example, many persons today inherit the opportunity to find new careers when their old ones disappear. Many others are confronted with ethical dilemmas surrounding the technically prolonged deaths of their loved ones. In critical circumstances such as these, many persons, perhaps the majority, can rise above clique mentality to resolve these challenges by themselves. They may even find reasoning so rewarding, they choose to develop their mental talents further (Watson, 1994a).
On the other hand, many other persons remain slaves to primitive beliefs and superstitions they learned before they were old enough to think for themselves. The most malignant of these thought patterns is blind obedience to authority, for it annihilates the discriminating thinking imposed by the responsibilities of democracy.
The bottom line is, we can assure democratic rule only if we learn to respect mental fitness at least as much as we revere physical fitness. For more than 30 years, the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports has encouraged our young persons to develop their physical potentials. Were our political leaders to listen, wisdom would counsel them to invest no less in developing the uniquely human mental gifts of our young. Yet, there is no corresponding Council on Mental Fitness. This absence undoubtedly reflects the reason for political intolerance of advanced individual thinking: Self-serving shepherds of human flocks would have much to lose if their followers started thinking for themselves.
Conclusion
Obviously, many political factors retard mental fitness. Therefore, the transformation from instinctive to reasoning political behavior, if it could occur at all, would likely require several generations. Given the lethal mixture of primitive politics and powerful technology, our species may not have enough time to realize such a revolution in thinking.
Nevertheless, we have only one reasonable choice: to proceed as though we can ultimately learn to govern ourselves in healthy ways. This means that, even if we offend those whose minds are bound by primitive thinking, we must teach the elements of mastering abstract thought in our homes, schools, broadcast media, and religious institutions. Meanwhile, we can develop governmental mechanisms that deliberately bypass clique mentality in favor of the cultivated wisdom of individual humans (Watson, 1994b).
REFERENCES
Shupe, C. (1989). The Natural Patterns of Human Bonding. Phoenix, AZ: Spiritual Freedom Press.
Watson, D. E. (1993). Autistic Certainty. Telicom Vol. XI (7), pp. 43-46. April, 1993.
Watson, D. E. (1994a). Surviving Your Crises, Reviving Your Dreams. New Bedford, MA: Mills & Sanderson.
Watson, D. E. (1994b). The Uniform Code of Political Justice. In this volume.
(http://www.enformy.com/$politic.html)
© 1993 Donald E. Watson
"Man is a reasoning animal," declared Seneca. But he was describing a theoretical ideal. Real humans reason as cats swim: They can do it, but they avoid it whenever possible.
Reasoning requires effort and discipline; it certainly isn't automatic. Therefore, instead of using their advanced brain to cultivate their gift of abstract thought, typical humans use their primitive brain to think, believe, behave, and vocalize. Because this makes them slaves to their primal drives, humans prefer shouting to debating, fisticuffs to philosophy, and physical fitness to mental fitness.
As a species, humanity expresses its undeveloped mentality through its political behavior, which does not differ significantly from the social behavior of other animals. That is, human political behavior is driven by the same instincts that guide the behavior of sheep, wildebeests, and other herding animals. For example, the majority of humans stampede to join the herds, or "bandwagons," of charismatic leaders. There, they delight in winning decisive victories, though it isn't always clear exactly what they win. Nevertheless, having won, the majority regards minorities as losers, unfit to participate in the activities of the herd. That's democracy as we know it.
Included with the instincts to follow leaders is the warning that straggling invites predators. Yet, a minority of humans do straggle, preferring to override their instincts with their own thinking. In the history of humankind, a few such non-herd individuals have produced the ideas and inventions that account for what is romantically, but unrealistically, termed the "ascent of man." Naturally, members of the herd shun these stragglers as pariahs.
Still, the herd adopts a select few of their technological products, particularly those that entertain them, or support their destructive urges. Of course, giving potentially destructive tools to instinct-ridden political leaders is like giving loaded guns to a party of six-year-olds: Sooner or later, a catastrophe will occur.
After the atomic bombs were detonated in Japan, Albert Einstein observed, "Everything has changed, except human nature." He was noting that humans destroy each other with any available tools. In this way, leaders invite mass extinction by turning the products of abstract thought against their own species. In other words, in their advanced brains, most humans carry a powerful potential resource for adaptation and survival, but since they don't know how to use it, they abuse it. Moreover, they do this to popular acclaim.
Popular Opinion
Contrary to popular opinion, popular opinion does not constitute truth. Nevertheless, when humans gather in large herds, they think with one mind, and this mind assures them that their numbers secure them from predators. The irony is, many leaders are themselves predators, leisurely feasting on the minds, bodies, and property of their followers. Many other leaders are simply compelled to lead, regardless of their mental fitness to do so. Thus, as pods of whales beach themselves by following their surrogate thinkers, humans obliviously, but fashionably, flock to their deaths.
One herding trait obvious in political behavior is caucusing in exclusive cliques. Cliques organize human behavior by relieving their members of reasoning for themselves: The group's dominant members determine the beliefs, values, and behaviors of all the members. This is agreeably efficient, for each clique requires only one mind. Indeed, typical humans carry this characteristic over to larger groups: mobs and political parties. Clique mentality probably indicates a natural limit on the size of human flocks. That is, typical humans can't comprehend huge herds as collections of individuals. To distinguish friends from foes, they must rely on uniforms, if not literal, then figurative--e.g., religion, ethnicity, or skin color.
Humans are herded by strong personalities because instinct merely requires following leaders; it does not compel evaluating their abilities and motives. This would require reasoning, and instinct doesn't reason. Yet, though their political behavior is not rational, humans do rationalize: They contrive specious reasons for their behaviors after they act, not before. Then, to save themselves further mental work, they crystallize these rationalizations in the language and other symbols of their political mythologies.
These icons develop lives of their own, for they disguise primal instincts, and distort potentially accurate perceptions of reality. In these ways, the brutish nature of humanity masquerades as political idealism, and distorted reality-testing postures as self-evident truths. Hiding their subhuman behavior behind such curtains of meaningless words, political leaders secure immunity from critical scrutiny by their followers. This masquerade points to the major flaw in the evolution of humanity: its capacity for speech.
Speaking vs Reasoning
Herds require effective communication to maintain their coherence, and because speech is available to humans, it is the principle organizer of human politics. Of course, to be effective, the ideas expressed in political speech must be comprehensible to the majority. Most members of the majority avoid serious intellectual tasks, so human politics must be conducted at the lowest common denominator of thought. And this level of thought is decidedly low.
The use of language is one of the highest achievements of abstract thought. However, speech itself is quite primitive. Children learn to speak several years before they can learn to think--even before they can control their bowels and bladders. Indeed, for the rest of their lives, most humans speak before they think.
Speech appears early in life because the human brain possesses specific regions dedicated to the mechanics of vocalizing and perceiving complex patterns of sounds. However, the brain does not include regions dedicated to logic, judgment, or reality-testing. That's why we humans are not inherently wise, discerning, or sagacious. Hence, our species designation, Homo sapiens sapiens (tool-making bipedal primate, wise, wise), is gratuitous: We are not born sapient; to acquire wisdom, we must learn it.
As with any other acquired skill, learning wisdom requires mastering an innate talent; in the case of language, this talent is our capacity for abstract thought. Yet, our ability to master it develops slowly, in four periods, as categorized by the Swiss scientist, Jean Piaget.
Sensori-motor mentality
In our first two years of life (Piaget's sensori-motor period), our mental capacity is limited to motor activity and sensory learning. By the age of two, we can recognize and vocalize words, but our brain does not support interpreting these sounds as abstractions. That's why sensual words and phrases can drive behavior, regardless of whether they carry meanings:
Rhythmic flowing streams of words
Can soothe and still like lullabies.
But words that bite
Incite to fight.
Clearly, redundant political chants and slogans are relics of infantile thinking.
Sensori-motor thinking is also revealed in raucous shouting matches (usually called "debates" or "discussions"), wherein contestants behave as though noise can substitute for reason. Fortunately, humans can progress beyond this point in their mental development.
Pre-operational thinking
From the ages of two to seven years (the pre-operational period), we learn by rote, like parrots, using nouns for labeling things, adjectives for describing things, and numbers for counting things. To the brain, however, all linguistic symbols are equivalent, so it does not matter whether the things named, described, and counted are real or imagined. Thus, humans who don't progress beyond the pre-operational stage of development can't discern the differences between reality and political fiction. This deficiency makes them extremely vulnerable to manipulation by opportunistic leaders.
Humans could reduce their susceptibility to political manipulation by learning the rudiments of abstract thinking, for example, that self-aggrandizing symbols such as "sapiens," "reasoning animal," and "in the image of God," are mere words, fanciful verbal constructs that lack any correspondence to real human attributes. Of if they figured out the implications of such words being learned by children--and by parrots.
It is critical to recognize and understand the products of pre-operational mentality, for most human political behavior is driven by two aspects of this deficient mode of abstract thought: self-reference and animistic thinking.
As children, we are vulnerable to reality distortions produced by our self-centered view of the world. These perversions are typically expressed in the mental attribute of autistic certainty, where "autistic" means self-generated without reference to external reality, and "certainty" means the unequivocal conviction that a particular belief constitutes knowledge of reality (Watson, 1993).
Autistic certainty is supported solely by self-reference: "I would not believe something that is not true. I believe [this]. Therefore, [this] must be true." Though self-reference is absurd, its nonsense is lost on persons locked into pre-operational thinking. If they don't outgrow this method of thinking, adults perceive themselves to be the models for ideal humanity. In this way, their self-reference produces the standards for "good" (like themselves) and "evil" (different from themselves). They say, "If only everyone were like me, the world would be perfect." Even if they don't say this aloud, they think it privately, and act accordingly--that is, self-righteously.
Autistic certainty is reinforced by a second characteristic of pre-operational thinking, animistic thinking. Using animistic thinking, children attribute self-modeled qualities to other persons, and even to lifeless objects. These qualities include self-awareness, free will, and the spirits of good and evil.
In its most common political application, animistic thinking is expressed as animistic labeling--that is, tagging whole human beings with one-dimensional labels, as though they were possessed of animating spirits that totally determine their thinking and behavior. Humans use animistic labeling for the same reason they wear distinctive uniforms: They can't comprehend strangers as complicated, sentient beings that differ very little from themselves. That's why judges, preachers, journalists, and politicians alike characterize fellow humans simply as good or evil, Jew or Moslem, liberal or conservative, guilty or innocent, worthy or unworthy, and gay or straight. Similarly, primitive thinking has been known to label entire nations: as The Great Satan, for example, or The Evil Empire.
Though animistic labeling is a product of pre-logical thought, it occurs regularly in humanity's most respected institutions. Not only does it support holy wars, it produces the ad hominem arguments popular in legal proceedings. In courtrooms, for example, witnesses are regularly labeled as liars. Then, acting as though liars are inhabited by the spirit of falsity, which categorically prevents their speaking the truth, judges and juries dismiss their words as unbelievable. Witnesses judged as credible, on the other hand, are wholly believed. Familiar with this trait, persons who make their livings by lying--e.g., swindlers, salespersons, prophets, politicians--conspicuously speak the truth, for it serves to establish their credibility.
In their most malignant forms, autistic certainty and animistic thinking drive the destructive behavior of self-righteous persons: Certain that the spirit of good animates them, they know they can do no evil. Therefore, they are justified in any kind of violence, provided only that it is directed against "evil" ones. Humans abusing abstract thought in this way routinely express themselves through subhuman savagery. The irony is, though Serbian gunners aim their weapons at Croats, human beings die, not the imaginary spirit of "Croatness."
In short, when blinded by autistic certainty, persons are oblivious to external reality. Yet, guided by animistic self-righteousness, they are aggressive in proclaiming their opinions. Astonished that others don't appreciate their beliefs and values, they take steps to correct these disbeliefs: If they can't verbally impose their beliefs on the infidels, they kill them--if not literally, then figuratively. Such thinking has written much of human history, and probably foreshadows its future. Given today's arsenal of nuclear weaponry, and the willingness of primitive humans to use it against each other, it is difficult to imagine how humanity can escape a thermonuclear catastrophe, triggered by virtual six-year-olds. Yet, humans are capable of higher levels of thinking than that.
Concrete Operations
Between the ages of seven and twelve (the period of concrete operations), we can learn how abstractions apply to concrete objects, e.g., "Two apples plus three apples equals five apples." However, we can't yet grasp pure abstractions, for example, that two is the set of all pairs. Because persons using concrete operations can use the language of abstract thought without appreciating its significance, they regularly abuse it, though unwittingly.
For example, adults abuse the language of logic to disguise the illogic of fallacies such as non-sequitur arguments. Even more popular is disengaging words from their original meanings, and flinging them about as free agents to whimsically gather new meanings on the fly. Though such concrete thinking is absurd, it is a staple of human political behavior. Yet, these abuses are inexcusable, for most humans can learn to think beyond the level of concrete operations.
Formal Operations
In our twelfth year, when we enter the period of formal operations, we can begin to master our abstract thought. Then, we can learn that we readily confuse our perceptions of reality and fiction, for neither is more than a fleeting, abstract pattern of neuronal activity in our brain. We can also learn that words are abstractions of abstractions: They carry no intrinsic meaning, but merely symbolize our perceptions of reality or fiction.
Because abstract thinking is so powerful, humans who have mastered it can critically reflect on a wide range of topics, including the complexities of government. Yet, this potential is never realized by most humans, for their journey toward mastery is derailed in an accident of nature: During the spring of life, when they could be learning the elegant intricacies of abstract thought, the thoughts of young humans turn to a primal biological imperative: the instinct to reproduce, as expressed as the drive for sexual pleasure.
Despite its overriding influence, the instinct to reproduce doesn't necessarily preclude mastering abstract thought, for most humans are capable of enjoying both sex and thinking, though at different times. Nonetheless, nature makes it difficult to learn to think, for unlike the seasonal mating seasons of other animals, the human period of reproduction is continual. Because human sexual physiology doesn't provide respites for learning to think, to humans using primitive modes of thought, the constancy of their mating season symbolizes the importance of mating, and diminishes the importance of thinking.
In short, the sex drive naturally entails ignoring mental fitness in favor of physical fitness. Moreover, with their minds still governed by the thinking modes of childhood, members of each sex carry their peculiar mating roles and rituals into their political behavior.
Sexualized Politics
For subhuman males, mating rituals take the form of physical contests for dominance, with nature's promise of attractive females as prizes. Moreover, these characteristics of primitive thinking translate directly to human behavior. In medieval times, for example, male combatants marched to war flanked by women baring their breasts to demonstrate what the men fought for. Today, cheerleaders fulfil this role, displaying their assets to male athletes as they compete for dominance. Similarly, female political groupies lavishly praise their men, urging them to prevail--and thereby to prevent strange men from reaping the feminine harvest of victory.
Subhuman mentality dictates much of today's politics. For example, the notion of females exercising choice over their reproductive resources is unthinkable to lower animals: Prizes don't award themselves. If they did, the contests of males would be rendered purposeless. As obvious as this primitive thinking is in dumb animals, it is not self-evident in human politics, for politicians use the foggy verbiage of religious dogma or political idealism to disguise the real trophies they seek--sex and power. Nevertheless, as with the phallic displays of monkeys, human political dominance is prominently symbolized by manly symbols: dangling neckties, and penetrating weapons such as swords, guns, and missiles.
Humanity loses much in investing its political behavior in male instincts, for females carry two instincts that make them far better than males at organizing social behavior. First, they dedicate themselves to posterity, not to the passions of the moment. This means they think first of protecting their progeny, not destroying the progeny of others. Second, females naturally appreciate the survival value of cooperation and mutual dependency. This means they can comprehend peace as an active process of economic interdependence, not merely as an interval between wars. (Shupe, pp. 35-52).
These female qualities notwithstanding, the war between the sexes, as fought in the political arena, is always won by males. That's because instinct drives humans to resolve their conflicts by the most decisive method. This is always the most primitive, and often the most savage, because eliminating an enemy is far more decisive than negotiating with him--or her.
Hence, male aggressiveness leaves females only two choices in subhuman politics: Stay on the sidelines to cheer, or blend into politics as a mock male. That's why the typical behavior of women who join politics, like that of female whales that lead their pods, is indistinguishable from males. Not only do they speak in familiar terms of penetrating weapons, they often modify their physical appearance, adopting neckties as phallic symbols of dominance, to emulate the male posture.
Hope for Healthy Politics
The ultimate outcomes of using primitive mentality are familiar facts of life: First, the political behavior of humans is driven by subhuman instincts because representative members of the species never bother to master their capacity for abstract thought. Second, typical humans learn to speak before they learn to think, and transform their primitive mentality and patterns of speech into their political behavior. Third, they institutionalize primitive thought by incorporating concrete, imaginary perceptions of reality into their religious and political traditions. And fourth, individuals who comprise human herds are easily manipulated by their leaders who control them with seductive words. For example, humans engage in self-destructive actions, following leaders who assure them that their obedience entitles them to celestial immortality or worldly booty--depending on whether the actions are holy or secular.
The ultimate result of humanity's failure to master its capacity for reasoning is ironic: The same instincts that have perpetuated the species in the first order operate to extinguish it in the second order. Recognizing human political behavior as the natural product of instinctive drives creates dreary prospects for the future of the species. Yet, where there is potential, there is hope.
This hope, in turn, inspires the question, "Is it possible for humanity to govern itself through democratic rule?" The affirmative answer to this question follows from a qualification of Seneca's assertion: "Humans are reasoning animals if they are forced to think for themselves."
We know this, because opportunities for independent thinking occur frequently during life crises, and many persons prove adept at taking advantage of them. For example, many persons today inherit the opportunity to find new careers when their old ones disappear. Many others are confronted with ethical dilemmas surrounding the technically prolonged deaths of their loved ones. In critical circumstances such as these, many persons, perhaps the majority, can rise above clique mentality to resolve these challenges by themselves. They may even find reasoning so rewarding, they choose to develop their mental talents further (Watson, 1994a).
On the other hand, many other persons remain slaves to primitive beliefs and superstitions they learned before they were old enough to think for themselves. The most malignant of these thought patterns is blind obedience to authority, for it annihilates the discriminating thinking imposed by the responsibilities of democracy.
The bottom line is, we can assure democratic rule only if we learn to respect mental fitness at least as much as we revere physical fitness. For more than 30 years, the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports has encouraged our young persons to develop their physical potentials. Were our political leaders to listen, wisdom would counsel them to invest no less in developing the uniquely human mental gifts of our young. Yet, there is no corresponding Council on Mental Fitness. This absence undoubtedly reflects the reason for political intolerance of advanced individual thinking: Self-serving shepherds of human flocks would have much to lose if their followers started thinking for themselves.
Conclusion
Obviously, many political factors retard mental fitness. Therefore, the transformation from instinctive to reasoning political behavior, if it could occur at all, would likely require several generations. Given the lethal mixture of primitive politics and powerful technology, our species may not have enough time to realize such a revolution in thinking.
Nevertheless, we have only one reasonable choice: to proceed as though we can ultimately learn to govern ourselves in healthy ways. This means that, even if we offend those whose minds are bound by primitive thinking, we must teach the elements of mastering abstract thought in our homes, schools, broadcast media, and religious institutions. Meanwhile, we can develop governmental mechanisms that deliberately bypass clique mentality in favor of the cultivated wisdom of individual humans (Watson, 1994b).
REFERENCES
Shupe, C. (1989). The Natural Patterns of Human Bonding. Phoenix, AZ: Spiritual Freedom Press.
Watson, D. E. (1993). Autistic Certainty. Telicom Vol. XI (7), pp. 43-46. April, 1993.
Watson, D. E. (1994a). Surviving Your Crises, Reviving Your Dreams. New Bedford, MA: Mills & Sanderson.
Watson, D. E. (1994b). The Uniform Code of Political Justice. In this volume.
(http://www.enformy.com/$politic.html)
søndag 3. mai 2009
"Noe å tenke på?"
Is Homo sapiens sapiens a Wise Species?
© 1997 Donald E. Watson
(Reprinted from Telicom XII, 11: 22, May/Jun, 1997.)
We have named our subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens: tool-making, bipedal primate, wise, wise. But have we named ourselves wisely? Or have we merely engaged in typical human self-puffery? It turns out that our species is not wise, but we believe it is, and this is a serious failure of reality testing.
Since wisdom is often equated to intelligence, we could ask if Homo sapiens sapiens is intelligent. Humans are by far the most intelligent species on earth, as measured by IQ tests--but only because we designed these tests for ourselves. Intelligence entails the ability to learn, remember, and recall in the context of reasoning abstractly, associating concepts, and performing other cognitive skills. But it does not correlate with wisdom. Many intellectually gifted humans are unwise, and many individuals of modest intellect are wise.
The distinction between wisdom and intelligence is pivotal to assessing the wisdom of our species. Intelligence predicts the success of individuals without regard to the consequences of their success to others. Hence, sociopaths can be intelligent. But sociopaths can't be wise, because wisdom reflects the ability to make adaptive decisions in a social context. It requires altruism, balanced judgment, competent reality testing, and a consistent view of the big picture. Indeed, that's why wisdom, not intelligence, applies to the survival of species. Of course, wisdom's opposite--stupidity--also applies.
Since wisdom can't be defined in terms of specific abilities, we can define it generally. Such a definition must (a) apply to all kinds of animals, and even plants; (b) imply that wisdom entails thinking--information-processing that organizes behaviors; (c) include abstract thought as well as sensori-motor ("concrete") thought; (d) apply effective reality testing; and (e) comprehend instinctive and acquired abilities. Here's a definition that fits these criteria: Wisdom is the set of mental attributes that allows a species to adapt to changes in its environments.
Using the adaptability definition, now ask, "Is Homo sapiens sapiens wise?" Or is our species too self-centered, short-sighted, narrow-minded, reluctant to think, and fearful of change? To address these questions, it would help if we had a standardized index for species wisdom. Since we don't, we'll define such an index: the Species Wisdom Index (SWI). The SWI is not an absolute measure; it indicates deviations from a norm. Since there's no such thing as an average species, this norm can't refer to the wisdom of an average species. Instead, we can tie the SWI to a measurement that reflects the ultimate product of adaptability: the duration of time a species survives. Then we can arbitrarily pick a species survival time of one million years as our norm. Because sharks have survived 400 million years, for example, their SWI is about 400. By the same measure, the SWI of horseshoe crabs is about 350, and that of sturgeons is about 200.
Homo sapiens, including Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, its earliest known subspecies, has survived about one-tenth of a million years. Hence, the SWI of our species is a mere 0.10. We can therefore conclude that sharks, crabs, and sturgeons possess great wisdom but meager intelligence, whereas Homo sapiens possesses great intelligence but meager wisdom.
Obviously, we can't yet determine whether our species will ultimately prove to have a higher SWI because we don't know how much longer we will survive. But we can confidently predict that we won't likely survive another hundred years. This prediction is based on our well-documented failure to adapt to the classical apocalyptic horsemen: Power, War, Pestilence, and Famine.
1. Power. Given that we have failed to devise a method of self-government that prevents corrupting species-service to self-service, we are inviting our extinction by organizing our political behaviors around personal, national, ethnic, ideological, political, and religious mythologies. These artifices preclude us from conforming our collective behaviors to the requirements of species health. Moreover, because we refuse to rear our children to produce wise adults, we sabotage our future ability to participate in adaptive self-government.
2. War. It is not likely that we will survive another world war, given that we (a) exhibit instinctive xenophobia; (b) perpetually try to annihilate one another; (c) possess the technology to carry out total annihilation; and (d) ultimately use whatever technology we possess to win wars. Notice that the wisdom of individual humans is irrelevant to this species suicide. A single charismatic leader could trigger a nuclear, chemical, or biological war, and his followers would enthusiastically march to their deaths. That is, large groups of humans behave just as unwisely as the small groups we characterize as cults.
3. Pestilence. Given the inability of our leaders to realistically anticipate, recognize, and prepare for new diseases, we are vulnerable at any time to extinction from a fulminating global infectious epidemic. New viruses such as HIV and ebola Zaire are appearing spontaneously, and super strains of ordinary bacteria are being developed by the promiscuous use of antibiotic technologies. Transportation technologies, especially air transport, would quickly spread such an epidemic. Moreover, it is irrelevant whether the plague originates spontaneously, as an act of war by a sovereign state, or as the mission of a small band of terrorists. Although such an epidemic would not likely kill all humans, it would destroy civilization and regress the remnants of our species into a new Stone Age.
4. Famine. Given our exponential population growth with its attendant pollution and squandering of planetary resources, we are poised to cross some still unknown threshold of environmental stability and destroy our habitat cataclysmically. We might have already crossed this threshold, but won't realize it for several years--when it's too late. To illustrate, imagine "Super Kudzu"--a potentially hardy but dormant plant that has never fostered natural enemies. Say that Super Kudzu requires levels of carbon dioxide slightly higher than current levels to proliferate. And imagine that, once turned on by carbon dioxide pollution, Super Kudzu would spread inexorably to displace worldwide agricultural crops by taking over all arable land. The seeds of Super Kudzu would become the seeds of our destruction.
In short, any one of the four horsemen, or any combination of them, is virtually certain to carry us off within the next few decades. When another species capable of abstract thought eventually inhabits Earth, its paleontologists will interpret our failure to adapt to these challenges as evidence of species stupidity. Moreover, if that species is truly wise, it will learn from our experience--something we don't do well.
Ironically, it is our intelligence, based on our rendition of abstract thought, that accounts for our relative stupidity. That is, whereas the SWI of other species relies on the instinctive wisdom provided by Nature, our wisdom attaches to our ability to learn, think, and communicate symbolically. But because we regularly abuse this ability, our version of abstract thought is too primitive to help us, but advanced enough to destroy us. That's largely because it provides us with self-awareness, which sustains self-centeredness--the root of our self-defeat.
Because we rarely look beyond our own immediate needs and wants, antecedents of our self-defeat are found in virtually every aspect of human activity. Our rudimentary abstract thought (a) allows us to invent, fabricate, and apply tools, but does not require us to use these tools wisely; (b) allows us to conceptualize healthy government and ecologically sound economies, but does not force us to apply these notions; and (c) allows us to create scientific models of high predictive value, but does not oblige us to apply these to prevent our own demise. Indeed, our political leaders resolutely culture scientific illiteracy--theirs and ours.
The fatal flaw in the human version of abstract thought is found in the conflict between our ability to use logic and symbols, and our inability to automatically think logically or distinguish the symbols from the realities they represent. This discordance is a natural consequence of our sequential development of speech and reasoning. We can speak early in life because that ability is built into our brains. On the other hand, we must learn how to reason. Thus children can speak many years before they can reason wisely. This pattern is carried into adulthood by typical members of our species, who routinely speak before reasoning. Although children can't reason, they can readily lie. This abuse of abstract thought also carries over to adulthood. Humanity's most revered social institutions--law, religion, politics--are founded on seductive lies. Significantly, these lies reinforce our grandiosity by alluding to the fictitious wisdom of juries, the Fathers, and the majority.
Optimists willing to overlook our innate stupidity imagine that our species will survive indefinitely, arguing that our ability to reason provides unlimited adaptability to any challenge. Indeed, this might be true if Homo sapiens sapiens were a reasoning animal, as the lavishly sanguine Seneca asserted. But realistically, reasoning is to humans as swimming is to cats: We are capable of it, but avoid it whenever possible. Even though exceptional humans regularly apply their ability to reason, the species can't benefit from this; the SWI of the masses dictates the dominant common level of our thought. The debasement of spiritual ideas illustrates this process. To appeal to the masses, religious leaders have replaced spiritual concepts with concrete symbols, and corrupted altruistic principles to self-serving rituals. Thus popular religions pervert any impetus humans may feel to save the species into motivation to save their own souls.
In theory, we might still learn to apply our abstract thought to develop wisdom. After all, we pride ourselves in our flexible adaptability. Or do we? In fact, we don't. We pride ourselves in our bondage to our traditions, relentlessly clinging to folklore, customs, and rituals that guarantee our extinction. For example, our honoring fighting to solve problems is especially conspicuous when we embrace scientific or technological innovations: We value these when they serve our attempts to defeat Nature--or one another. Such stupidity is a direct result of our scanty SWI.
To show evidence of wisdom, our species would be required to achieve radical transformations in our approaches to the apocalyptic categories. To visualize the obstacles created by our abuse of abstract thought, consider the likelihood that our species will accomplish the following transformations:
1. Power to servitude. We would abandon both oligarchic ("top-down") and democratic ("bottom-up") governments. Both are subject to abuse; it doesn't matter whether a minority or a majority abuses power to serve themselves at the expense of the species. We must develop a "middle-out" system of government patterned after systems that actually work: living systems. Under such a government, officials would gladly serve the species by adopting the anonymity and humility of individual neurons, immune globulins, and white blood cells.
2. War to peace. Wisdom requires that we supersede our instinctive xenophobia by choosing to love things, plants, animals, and persons we don't know. Although we could learn to love strangers who produce our food and consume our products, achieving this transformation is our most difficult task. This task would be simplified if we realized that peace is not merely the passive absence of war. It is the active, homeostatic interdependence with Earth's resources and all the species of flora and fauna. Like the economy of ants, the equilibrium of a healthy economy would depend on the unimpeded flow of accurate information. If we waged peace as exuberantly as we wage war, our instinct to compete would be used to serve Earth's eco-community, not individual competitors.
3. Pestilence to hygiene. The health of the species requires mental, not physical, fitness. Mental fitness entails the competent use of abstract thought, which would enable us to abandon superstitious beliefs in favor of demonstrable knowledge of global hygiene. Wisdom requires that we recognize species diseases as the inevitable consequences of social disintegration: products of xenophobia, narcissism, and national conceit. We must therefore discard our traditional belief that our survival depends on xenophobia, ancestral hatreds, and the means to inflict mass destruction.
4. Famine to stability. We must abandon the myth that we are free to breed indiscriminately because technology will provide what Nature does not. We are the only species on Earth that tries to make our environment adapt to us, yet we have repetitively shown that, for every problem our technologies solve, they create several more. Wisdom requires that we abandon our cherished belief that Homo sapiens sapiens is the perfect end result of evolution, and humbly acknowledge that our species can survive only as an integrated element of a global ecosystem. Only then can we manage our population to participate in a salubrious global eco-economy. The message is clear: If we don't apply our wisdom to manage our population, Nature will apply her wisdom and do it for us.
Apologists for our species might argue that I am ignoring the progress our species has made, pointing to our recently discovered ability to negotiate instead of fight, our recent attention to global ecosystems, and our nearly complete abolition of slavery and cannibalism. But these changes, as significant as they are, required centuries to accomplish. Many more centuries would be required to achieve the far more important transformations mentioned above. But we don't have time. This century, by all prudent calculations, offers our final opportunity to survive.
In sum, the probability that humanity is wise enough to forestall extinction is vanishingly small. Even if our species were to prove as successful as Australopithecus afarensis, which survived a million years, we would have an SWI of only 1.0. Compared with the requirements imposed by Nature, that's far too stupid to survive.
Does this mean that Homo sapiens sapiens is a failed species? From the human perspective, the death of our species would represent the ultimate failure. But the wisdom of Nature provides a radically different appraisal. We are a successful species if we are serving as a forerunner of the next complex species. But for this species to be realized, we must relinquish our dominant position on the planet. Otherwise, if that species tried to find a foothold, we would summarily exterminate it. Humanity is the kudzu of the animal kingdom.
To see ourselves as successful, we must adopt the perspective of Nature, which is indifferent to human puffery. We must think of ourselves as parents who are ready to step aside to make room for their progeny. Relatively few humans are humble enough to adopt the broad perspective necessary to accomplish this. The vast majority find it unacceptable to surrender their existence for a species they can't understand or appreciate. Indeed, many parents even find it unacceptable to step aside for their own children. Nevertheless, like adaptive parents, those humans who can celebrate their infinitesimal individual roles in the boundless process of life can hopefully enjoy contemplating the success of their progeny. We can hope that our progeny will be imbued with a version of abstract thought that generates wisdom as automatically as it produces speech. If so, it will undoubtedly survive longer than we have. Yet, even if the SWI of that species is 100, it won't survive forever. It must serve as a predecessor of the next species.
(http://www.enformy.com/$homosap.html)
© 1997 Donald E. Watson
(Reprinted from Telicom XII, 11: 22, May/Jun, 1997.)
We have named our subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens: tool-making, bipedal primate, wise, wise. But have we named ourselves wisely? Or have we merely engaged in typical human self-puffery? It turns out that our species is not wise, but we believe it is, and this is a serious failure of reality testing.
Since wisdom is often equated to intelligence, we could ask if Homo sapiens sapiens is intelligent. Humans are by far the most intelligent species on earth, as measured by IQ tests--but only because we designed these tests for ourselves. Intelligence entails the ability to learn, remember, and recall in the context of reasoning abstractly, associating concepts, and performing other cognitive skills. But it does not correlate with wisdom. Many intellectually gifted humans are unwise, and many individuals of modest intellect are wise.
The distinction between wisdom and intelligence is pivotal to assessing the wisdom of our species. Intelligence predicts the success of individuals without regard to the consequences of their success to others. Hence, sociopaths can be intelligent. But sociopaths can't be wise, because wisdom reflects the ability to make adaptive decisions in a social context. It requires altruism, balanced judgment, competent reality testing, and a consistent view of the big picture. Indeed, that's why wisdom, not intelligence, applies to the survival of species. Of course, wisdom's opposite--stupidity--also applies.
Since wisdom can't be defined in terms of specific abilities, we can define it generally. Such a definition must (a) apply to all kinds of animals, and even plants; (b) imply that wisdom entails thinking--information-processing that organizes behaviors; (c) include abstract thought as well as sensori-motor ("concrete") thought; (d) apply effective reality testing; and (e) comprehend instinctive and acquired abilities. Here's a definition that fits these criteria: Wisdom is the set of mental attributes that allows a species to adapt to changes in its environments.
Using the adaptability definition, now ask, "Is Homo sapiens sapiens wise?" Or is our species too self-centered, short-sighted, narrow-minded, reluctant to think, and fearful of change? To address these questions, it would help if we had a standardized index for species wisdom. Since we don't, we'll define such an index: the Species Wisdom Index (SWI). The SWI is not an absolute measure; it indicates deviations from a norm. Since there's no such thing as an average species, this norm can't refer to the wisdom of an average species. Instead, we can tie the SWI to a measurement that reflects the ultimate product of adaptability: the duration of time a species survives. Then we can arbitrarily pick a species survival time of one million years as our norm. Because sharks have survived 400 million years, for example, their SWI is about 400. By the same measure, the SWI of horseshoe crabs is about 350, and that of sturgeons is about 200.
Homo sapiens, including Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, its earliest known subspecies, has survived about one-tenth of a million years. Hence, the SWI of our species is a mere 0.10. We can therefore conclude that sharks, crabs, and sturgeons possess great wisdom but meager intelligence, whereas Homo sapiens possesses great intelligence but meager wisdom.
Obviously, we can't yet determine whether our species will ultimately prove to have a higher SWI because we don't know how much longer we will survive. But we can confidently predict that we won't likely survive another hundred years. This prediction is based on our well-documented failure to adapt to the classical apocalyptic horsemen: Power, War, Pestilence, and Famine.
1. Power. Given that we have failed to devise a method of self-government that prevents corrupting species-service to self-service, we are inviting our extinction by organizing our political behaviors around personal, national, ethnic, ideological, political, and religious mythologies. These artifices preclude us from conforming our collective behaviors to the requirements of species health. Moreover, because we refuse to rear our children to produce wise adults, we sabotage our future ability to participate in adaptive self-government.
2. War. It is not likely that we will survive another world war, given that we (a) exhibit instinctive xenophobia; (b) perpetually try to annihilate one another; (c) possess the technology to carry out total annihilation; and (d) ultimately use whatever technology we possess to win wars. Notice that the wisdom of individual humans is irrelevant to this species suicide. A single charismatic leader could trigger a nuclear, chemical, or biological war, and his followers would enthusiastically march to their deaths. That is, large groups of humans behave just as unwisely as the small groups we characterize as cults.
3. Pestilence. Given the inability of our leaders to realistically anticipate, recognize, and prepare for new diseases, we are vulnerable at any time to extinction from a fulminating global infectious epidemic. New viruses such as HIV and ebola Zaire are appearing spontaneously, and super strains of ordinary bacteria are being developed by the promiscuous use of antibiotic technologies. Transportation technologies, especially air transport, would quickly spread such an epidemic. Moreover, it is irrelevant whether the plague originates spontaneously, as an act of war by a sovereign state, or as the mission of a small band of terrorists. Although such an epidemic would not likely kill all humans, it would destroy civilization and regress the remnants of our species into a new Stone Age.
4. Famine. Given our exponential population growth with its attendant pollution and squandering of planetary resources, we are poised to cross some still unknown threshold of environmental stability and destroy our habitat cataclysmically. We might have already crossed this threshold, but won't realize it for several years--when it's too late. To illustrate, imagine "Super Kudzu"--a potentially hardy but dormant plant that has never fostered natural enemies. Say that Super Kudzu requires levels of carbon dioxide slightly higher than current levels to proliferate. And imagine that, once turned on by carbon dioxide pollution, Super Kudzu would spread inexorably to displace worldwide agricultural crops by taking over all arable land. The seeds of Super Kudzu would become the seeds of our destruction.
In short, any one of the four horsemen, or any combination of them, is virtually certain to carry us off within the next few decades. When another species capable of abstract thought eventually inhabits Earth, its paleontologists will interpret our failure to adapt to these challenges as evidence of species stupidity. Moreover, if that species is truly wise, it will learn from our experience--something we don't do well.
Ironically, it is our intelligence, based on our rendition of abstract thought, that accounts for our relative stupidity. That is, whereas the SWI of other species relies on the instinctive wisdom provided by Nature, our wisdom attaches to our ability to learn, think, and communicate symbolically. But because we regularly abuse this ability, our version of abstract thought is too primitive to help us, but advanced enough to destroy us. That's largely because it provides us with self-awareness, which sustains self-centeredness--the root of our self-defeat.
Because we rarely look beyond our own immediate needs and wants, antecedents of our self-defeat are found in virtually every aspect of human activity. Our rudimentary abstract thought (a) allows us to invent, fabricate, and apply tools, but does not require us to use these tools wisely; (b) allows us to conceptualize healthy government and ecologically sound economies, but does not force us to apply these notions; and (c) allows us to create scientific models of high predictive value, but does not oblige us to apply these to prevent our own demise. Indeed, our political leaders resolutely culture scientific illiteracy--theirs and ours.
The fatal flaw in the human version of abstract thought is found in the conflict between our ability to use logic and symbols, and our inability to automatically think logically or distinguish the symbols from the realities they represent. This discordance is a natural consequence of our sequential development of speech and reasoning. We can speak early in life because that ability is built into our brains. On the other hand, we must learn how to reason. Thus children can speak many years before they can reason wisely. This pattern is carried into adulthood by typical members of our species, who routinely speak before reasoning. Although children can't reason, they can readily lie. This abuse of abstract thought also carries over to adulthood. Humanity's most revered social institutions--law, religion, politics--are founded on seductive lies. Significantly, these lies reinforce our grandiosity by alluding to the fictitious wisdom of juries, the Fathers, and the majority.
Optimists willing to overlook our innate stupidity imagine that our species will survive indefinitely, arguing that our ability to reason provides unlimited adaptability to any challenge. Indeed, this might be true if Homo sapiens sapiens were a reasoning animal, as the lavishly sanguine Seneca asserted. But realistically, reasoning is to humans as swimming is to cats: We are capable of it, but avoid it whenever possible. Even though exceptional humans regularly apply their ability to reason, the species can't benefit from this; the SWI of the masses dictates the dominant common level of our thought. The debasement of spiritual ideas illustrates this process. To appeal to the masses, religious leaders have replaced spiritual concepts with concrete symbols, and corrupted altruistic principles to self-serving rituals. Thus popular religions pervert any impetus humans may feel to save the species into motivation to save their own souls.
In theory, we might still learn to apply our abstract thought to develop wisdom. After all, we pride ourselves in our flexible adaptability. Or do we? In fact, we don't. We pride ourselves in our bondage to our traditions, relentlessly clinging to folklore, customs, and rituals that guarantee our extinction. For example, our honoring fighting to solve problems is especially conspicuous when we embrace scientific or technological innovations: We value these when they serve our attempts to defeat Nature--or one another. Such stupidity is a direct result of our scanty SWI.
To show evidence of wisdom, our species would be required to achieve radical transformations in our approaches to the apocalyptic categories. To visualize the obstacles created by our abuse of abstract thought, consider the likelihood that our species will accomplish the following transformations:
1. Power to servitude. We would abandon both oligarchic ("top-down") and democratic ("bottom-up") governments. Both are subject to abuse; it doesn't matter whether a minority or a majority abuses power to serve themselves at the expense of the species. We must develop a "middle-out" system of government patterned after systems that actually work: living systems. Under such a government, officials would gladly serve the species by adopting the anonymity and humility of individual neurons, immune globulins, and white blood cells.
2. War to peace. Wisdom requires that we supersede our instinctive xenophobia by choosing to love things, plants, animals, and persons we don't know. Although we could learn to love strangers who produce our food and consume our products, achieving this transformation is our most difficult task. This task would be simplified if we realized that peace is not merely the passive absence of war. It is the active, homeostatic interdependence with Earth's resources and all the species of flora and fauna. Like the economy of ants, the equilibrium of a healthy economy would depend on the unimpeded flow of accurate information. If we waged peace as exuberantly as we wage war, our instinct to compete would be used to serve Earth's eco-community, not individual competitors.
3. Pestilence to hygiene. The health of the species requires mental, not physical, fitness. Mental fitness entails the competent use of abstract thought, which would enable us to abandon superstitious beliefs in favor of demonstrable knowledge of global hygiene. Wisdom requires that we recognize species diseases as the inevitable consequences of social disintegration: products of xenophobia, narcissism, and national conceit. We must therefore discard our traditional belief that our survival depends on xenophobia, ancestral hatreds, and the means to inflict mass destruction.
4. Famine to stability. We must abandon the myth that we are free to breed indiscriminately because technology will provide what Nature does not. We are the only species on Earth that tries to make our environment adapt to us, yet we have repetitively shown that, for every problem our technologies solve, they create several more. Wisdom requires that we abandon our cherished belief that Homo sapiens sapiens is the perfect end result of evolution, and humbly acknowledge that our species can survive only as an integrated element of a global ecosystem. Only then can we manage our population to participate in a salubrious global eco-economy. The message is clear: If we don't apply our wisdom to manage our population, Nature will apply her wisdom and do it for us.
Apologists for our species might argue that I am ignoring the progress our species has made, pointing to our recently discovered ability to negotiate instead of fight, our recent attention to global ecosystems, and our nearly complete abolition of slavery and cannibalism. But these changes, as significant as they are, required centuries to accomplish. Many more centuries would be required to achieve the far more important transformations mentioned above. But we don't have time. This century, by all prudent calculations, offers our final opportunity to survive.
In sum, the probability that humanity is wise enough to forestall extinction is vanishingly small. Even if our species were to prove as successful as Australopithecus afarensis, which survived a million years, we would have an SWI of only 1.0. Compared with the requirements imposed by Nature, that's far too stupid to survive.
Does this mean that Homo sapiens sapiens is a failed species? From the human perspective, the death of our species would represent the ultimate failure. But the wisdom of Nature provides a radically different appraisal. We are a successful species if we are serving as a forerunner of the next complex species. But for this species to be realized, we must relinquish our dominant position on the planet. Otherwise, if that species tried to find a foothold, we would summarily exterminate it. Humanity is the kudzu of the animal kingdom.
To see ourselves as successful, we must adopt the perspective of Nature, which is indifferent to human puffery. We must think of ourselves as parents who are ready to step aside to make room for their progeny. Relatively few humans are humble enough to adopt the broad perspective necessary to accomplish this. The vast majority find it unacceptable to surrender their existence for a species they can't understand or appreciate. Indeed, many parents even find it unacceptable to step aside for their own children. Nevertheless, like adaptive parents, those humans who can celebrate their infinitesimal individual roles in the boundless process of life can hopefully enjoy contemplating the success of their progeny. We can hope that our progeny will be imbued with a version of abstract thought that generates wisdom as automatically as it produces speech. If so, it will undoubtedly survive longer than we have. Yet, even if the SWI of that species is 100, it won't survive forever. It must serve as a predecessor of the next species.
(http://www.enformy.com/$homosap.html)
Abonner på:
Innlegg (Atom)