The Self-Shackled Mind Effect, or Philosophy Friday

I spent a lot of today listening to voices on the radio saying that the outcome of a court case in New York would have no bearing on how they vote this November.

When we wonder how a person can choose to be wilfully ignorant, consider this social situation:

We get called ignorant.

Or dumb.

Or uneducated.

We get called a redneck, a rube, a “deplorable”.

Will this make us begin to change our opinions through the acquisition of new facts, more knowledge, better education?

No.

Are we happy to accept advice from people who call us such things?

Certainly not.

Why?  Because to do so would be (in our own mind) essentially admitting that we actually WERE in fact deficient in some regard.

AND WHAT IS FAR WORSE, this would also mean conceding that the people who insult us – the people we now actively dislike or hate – are in some way smarter or “better”.

No one wants to feel “lesser” or stupid.  So we dig in our heels.  We look around for allies, for anyone who agrees with us, for anyone else who hates the same people we do.  We join a tribe.

Safety in numbers and all that…

And if we’re the kind to hold a grudge, we hope and pray for the day when we can exact revenge on these people who made us feel small.

Getting revenge is easier, and far more enjoyable, than an honest look in the mirror and a long program of education and self-improvement.

Especially when so many “libs” and their ilk are holier-than-thou, insufferable, self-righteous, self-congratulatory, obnoxious assholes.

And often just as intolerant as the people they mock and criticise.

*****

How many of us, whatever our worldview, are willing to consider, let alone adopt the outlook of people we hate?  Not many, I expect.

We need to rediscover how to disagree without making people feel small or stupid.

We need to share information, rather than attempt persuasion.

This kid glove approach needn’t apply to outright racists and bigots.

The wealthy and powerful (along with certain religious leaders) have been indoctrinating the American public for centuries now.

American leaders and their marketing agents have used the cult of individualism as a way to justify rampant self-interest.

One side effect of this “Because I’m worth it” vox pop TV culture is a society where everyone thinks their opinion on EVERYTHING is a VERY IMPORTANT OPINION.  No one is willing to even consider anymore that opinions have a qualitative value, based on education, life experience, expertise.

That humility was once considered a virtue, not a sign of weakness.

There is an ocean of historical class warfare in the USA, whatever the talking heads on TV say about America being a “classless society”.  The USA simply swapped the old British hereditary class system for a class system based on money and “race”.

Don’t believe it?  Very few western countries have “tipping” as deeply embedded in their culture as the USA.  Tipping culture is a visceral reminder of the master/servant relationship, in which one party is constantly aware that the person with the most money holds the most power.  The “servant” is constantly aware that their very livelihood depends on “performance”.  Not simply performance of their job, but an attempt to read the often unspoken expectations of the customer/master and guessing what type of social performance is most likely to please them.

It is not enough to be professional and polite – one must also be an actor, an actor able to carefully calibrate one’s behavior and personality to the ego of the person holding the cash who decides whether they have “performed” to expectations.

This mini-digression into the social meaning and significance of tipping culture is about illustrating the many ways in which we reinforce superiority/inferiority on a daily basis – even when we are kind at heart, and don’t mean to do this.  We do many other things every day, believing them to be “normal”, when we are in fact simply repeating innumerable behaviors which are the legacy of social caste indoctrination.

People who come from an underclass background are acutely attuned to the ways in which others assert their “superiority”.

Unwrapping the layers of “nationalist indoctrination” and “caste indoctrination”, and helping others to see the world with different eyes, is a bit like trying to help people who have spent years in thrall to a religious cult.

If we happen to meet a family member who has joined a cult, our first conversation in ages probably shouldn’t begin with asking them “How can you be so stupid?”

Especially if we have not asked the same question of ourselves, every day.