NoMad MaN: Newsgroups

America: 1 in 4 believe the unthinkable

2005-12-31T18:54:51-08:00

From the AB Progressives Newsgroup. From: Randall Date: December 30, 2005 1:56:54 PM EST Subject: Re: [IP] more on Interesting Harris poll: 24% of Americans still believe that 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis] On Fri, 2005-12-30 at 10:58 -0500, David Farber wrote: > > Dave, > > I believe that it was John Kenneth Galbraith who observed, given that > 1/4 of the American populace continued to support Richard Nixon after > he resigned in disgrace over the Watergate coverup, that you could > persuade 25% of Americans to believe ANYTHING. A fellow going by the Nym ShadowThief once wrote: "Bush could beat a sweet little old lady to death with a bag full of cute puppies and STILL get 45% of the American people to approve of him. Reality just does not affect that 45%." -- Shadowthief A fellow nymed Patmaniac wrote: "If you believe in the creation of the Universe in 6 days, Adam and Eve, talking serpents, a man being swallowed by a fish and emerging unharmed to tell the tale, a trumpet knocking down the walls of Jericho, Commandments chiseled into stone tablets by a burning bush, an old man collecting 2 of every animal on earth onto one boat, virgin birth, walking on water, 900 year old people, raising people from the dead after their bodies have begun rotting, etc... If you can believe all of those ridiculous fairy tales, then I guess it isn't such a stretch that you might also believe that George Bush is a good President". -- "Patmaniac" Those two quotes describe the phenomenon perfectly. . http://htdaw.blogsource.com

Re: [oriental-list] MEEP!! MEEEEEEEP!!!

2004-02-09T00:47:12-08:00

I found the Oriental List, maintained by the travel guide author Peter Neville-Hadley, while cycling across China in 1998. It's a great resource for anyone considering a visit to China of any length. I don't contribute so often anymore. It's been over 5 years since my trip and China's changing so rapidly much of my experience is probably obsolete. On the other hand, there are some Chinese traits I'm sure haven't changed yet...

Peter Neville-Hadley commented on the honking of horns... > Of course on the > highways there's less honking. The horn is used several times to tell a > driver being overtaken (and who, of course, has no idea where his rear > view mirror is) that the bus is coming alongside. It's also used to > blast tractors out of the overtaking lane on otherwise deserted roads. > Aside from the hanging smudge in the atmosphere (see Black Mask Valley) the second-worst aspect of cycling in China are the horns, particularly the klaxons employed by the ubiquitous blue dump trucks. These, I'm sure, are capable of drowning out a fog horn, or the din of a 747 on takeoff. I can't possibly count the number of times I waved my pinky finger at a receding trucker after a sonic laser from just 50 metres behind caused me to jump out of my cycling jersey. It was worst in Xinjiang where 2,000km of hot, dusty, lonely and often under-construction/destruction highway were trial enough. It's not as if several blue tons of clanking, rumbling metal could possibly sneak up on a cyclist in the middle of an absolutely vacant stretch of asphalt. And no matter how, as that tell-tale rattling approached from behind, I'd steel myself for a potential ear shattering, it's impossible to prepare for the aural equivalent of a physical blow from a blunt, heavy object. Cheers, Patrick.

The Screwtape Letters & Mysticism, in these critical times...

2003-12-24T03:44:18-08:00

A suggestion for the Critical Texts for Critical Times page... From: "Drew Clausen" To: [Helprin List] Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 6:56 AM Subject: Re: [Helprin] Critical Texts for Critical Times I've just finished reading C.S. Lewis's "The Screwtape Letters" for this first time (after many aborted attempts) and if you're open to something that's not "eastern" in thought or philosophy, I would definitely add this one to your list. Everyone knows the "plot," right? Through a series of letters, an elder demon instructs his nephew in the art of temptation. What makes this book timely is that it is set at the start of World War II, and much of the conversation concerns the "patient's" thoughts and attitudes about war and his view of the enemy.

Philosophies other than Eastern are most welcome. For example, last night I added Martin Luther King Jr. to the list. Doris Lessing is somewhat influenced by Sufism, but Stanley Milgram is of a Western mind built upon the foundation of empirical science. Noam Chomsky is a secular Jew while John Ralston Saul, Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain and Nadine Gordimer span a wide experience and varied insight of Westernism. Heck, I've even got the philosophy of Hollywood in there ;-) Still Buddhism and Daoism have an undeniable pull on me, though I'm certainly no practicing Buddhist or Daoist. (Don't even meditate.) A friend of mine cycled through China into Pakistan & Afghanistan a few years back, managing to get arrested a couple times in China and play with automatic weapons, anti-air guns and ride tanks with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The next year, I cycled across China, never got arrested once, spending my most memorable moments with Tibetan and Mahayana monks. Sometimes I envy the excitement of my friend's path, though not very often and not for very long. The Dao De Jing is a gentle antidote to the hatred and ignorance professed by both those who we call enemies and those we more typically consider allies. And while it seems on the surface rather unWestern, it's not so 'alien' to the West as Helprin would have us believe. This has been demonstrated (lovingly and brilliantly) in Benjamin Hoff's "The Dao of Pooh," and is obvious from any considerate reading of the New Testament for that matter. Peace, Patrick. Presently contemplating:The Screwtape Letters - C. S. Lewis/" target="_blank">/" target="_blank">" hspace="4" align="right" border="0"> Presently contemplating:The Dao De Jing - Lao Zi - Stephen Mitchel (trans.) /" target="_blank">/" target="_blank">" hspace="4" align="right" border="0"> ]]>

Behold the man!

2003-12-24T03:34:10-08:00

/" target="_blank">" hspace="4" align="right" border="0"> ]]>

Re: [Helprin] Bush's Speech [rather verbose]

2003-12-21T18:07:26-08:00

This post appears in a much shortened form, and is more tightly edited, at Reciprocal Madness, as part of my eJournal Travelogue. In that form, Reciprocal Madness, appeared as part of the In Honor of the Bravest gallery show mounted by the Aaron Ross Gallery, September 3-30, 2002 in Vancouver, Canada. The final word of the exhibit, the text was printed in full to a single 12 foot long X 11" sheet which hung from the exhibit wall at 6' and ran out several feet onto the gallery floor. Among the newsgroups and mailing lists I belong to is one devoted to Mark Helprin, one of my favourite authors. While Helprin has written several extraordinary novels, most of which I've loved to dog-eared tatters, he also regularly contributes opinion pieces to the Wall Street Journal. I am often stunned by them, not simply for their right-wing political stance but, most remarkably, the jingoism and unabashed militarism defining them. Shortly after 9-11, I was forced me to re-evaluate his fiction. In the process, I was motivated to speak to larger issues. Before posting it to the mailing list, just to make certain I was on the right track, I emailed it to another list member for comment. ]]>

> From Bush's speech: > > "We have seen their kind before. They're the heirs of all the > murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life > to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the > will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and > totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way to where > it ends in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies." > > Worthy of Helprin? > Maybe my memories are a bit sketchy. But wasn't it back in the early '80s another President was referring to these same guys, the ones we were then arming and training, as "Freedom Fighters?" I'd like to know, because I'm a bit afraid that 20 years from now maybe we'll be going through all this again. I'd kinda like to not make the same mistake twice. Or however many times we've already made it. Let's try and stop ourselves before we do it again. I mean, twenty years ago we helped them because they were fighting, apparently, for Freedom. Now, it seems, they've attacked the very foundation of it. I'm not sure that their methods, other than sheer scale of the horror, are much different than what we were training them to do. I bet a few people in the Pentagon and the White House would've privately danced a jig if these guys had somehow managed to bomb the Kremlin back when the Iron Curtain still stood. But hey, those Russki's are evil. I mean, were evil. Poor bastards. Well, nothing we can do about that. That's what they get. Deserve it. Evil empire and all. You know, maybe we should at least be slapping ourselves on the wrist for abandoning every value by propping up such totalitarians as Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, paving the path of fascism for their ascendancy. Should we say, "Never again!" I don't know. I didn't think it was wise at the time. I said it then...like many others. Not that it helped. There was the Suharto thing with East Timor. Hush hush for years and years. But we all saw how that turned out. Not that it hurt our trading situation with Indonesia much, except we couldn't sell them attack aircraft and heavy infantry equipment anymore. Lost a lot of money there. And it hurt a bit when we finally got around to putting our money where our mouth was with the apartheid lot. Well, those of us who actually participated. That's OK. That's all in the past. We're going to root these bastards out. Make the world safe for Democracy again. Just like the Israelis have done in the Middle-East. Wait a minute. The Israelis, owners of the best damn military outside the US, and the best intelligence outfit anywhere, have utterly failed in all their attempts to wipe out terrorism in Israel. And their terrorists aren't spread out all over the planet. They're generally not more than an artillery shell away from any position within Israel's plastic borders. They shoot a couple rockets from a village, so the Israelis retaliate (need to get used to hearing that word a lot more) and practically level the whole village with artillery. Collateral damage notwithstanding. The next day, or the next week, the terrorists are back, lobbing mortars. And even with all the draconian withdrawals of any semblance of civil liberty, the terrorist violence only escalated. This is just going to get ugly, I guess. Batten down the hatches, damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead, don't shoot 'til you see the whites of... Wait. WAIT. There's gotta be another way. I mean, last century we had a "war to end all wars." And then promptly had another. Now we're in a state of constant petty wars and revolutions and genocides all over the planet. How do we stop this cycle if we keep jumping back on the merry-go-round? But the terrorist thing is getting way out of hand. We do have the hammer. We've got the military. We'll pound them into submission. Smite them. Destroy them. What is that wisdom about hammers? If it's the only tool you've got, every problem looks like a nail. Maybe. Maybe we need to put the hammer away for a little bit. Maybe the problem we really have here is a screw. Or something else. That hammer might not be much good for this. The Israelis have the biggest one in their neighbourhood, and the enemy just keeps coming back. I don't know, it's a bit like that gopher game. You bop one on the head with a hammer and another pops up somewhere else. There're always more gophers. No, I think we have to use the hammer. At least a little. This is a time that Lao Tse might agree is 'direst necessity.' But our language, our reasons for using force are hateful ones. Retaliation. Retribution. Revenge. And that is what we are seeking. "Satisfaction," as the euphemism goes. Destroy them. Let's ignore the moral and ethical implications for a moment. Are we capable of obtaining it? Satisfaction? Is bin Laden worried? He fought the Soviets to retreat, even though they occupied the country with infantry and air power. He had to know this was coming. Are we walking into a trap? Maybe we need to look at this a bit more. I don't know. People are saying scary things. One of my favourite authors, Mark Helprin, referred to an "alien civilization." Who? The terrorists? Are they a civilization? Did he mean the people of Afghanistan? Iraq? The Taliban? Muslims? All of Islam? What does he mean by "alien?" What? Muslims don't belong on this earth? Is that what he's saying? Should we allow our own civilization to be characterised by the likes of Timothy McVeigh and a bunch of fanatical Christian abortion clinic bombers, who are also bent on destruction in some twisted sense of righteousness? Helprin talked about strategic campaigns in all 'states of concern' around the globe. Pakistan, Iraq, North Korea are such states, just to name a few. Wipe out their nuclear and biological programs, he said. Can we do that? What are the repercussions? We'd need American military bases all over the globe, he says. A global military state? Is that really what we want? Is that really what we need? Scary things... On the radio the other day, someone said, "I am a pacifist. I hate violence. But I don't know. I think there's only one solution. We have to get not only the terrorists, we have to kill not just them, but their mothers and fathers too, their children, their aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews. We have to wipe out the entire gene pool." I could tell this really broke him up. He didn't like saying it. And I could tell something else. He meant it. Wow. Genocide. And the host, Rex Murphy no less, was stunned into silence. Or was he stunned? Maybe even Rex felt that surge of anger. I don't know. There's so much blind hatred floating around. Rage and rhetoric. Maybe his cooler head prevailed? What's wrong about that caller's plan is you can't stop with the gene pool. I felt like shouting at him. No! For that to work, you'd have to wipe out every soul sympathetic to the demands of the terrorists. No. There's more. There will be those who are not sympathetic, but who hate us every bit as much for their own reasons. (So many reasons!) We'll have to wipe them out too. Some of them call themselves American, or Canadian or Irish or French. But we'll weed them out. You have to obliterate the very ideas they have. We're not born with these ideas, afterall. You're not genetically a terrorist, or a capitalist, a dove or a hawk, a Christian or Muslim. Not really. You might be born into it, but people lapse or convert all the time. We'd have to take out all the people that think that way for genocide to make any sense. And then we'd have to go after the ones who are inclined to start thinking that way all by themselves. People who willingly submit themselves to tear gas and arrest in the name of protest. Thought control. That's what we need. And we'd have the hammer for backup. Why not? We're already talking about eradicating a civilization. Wait. Wait. But how can we militarily obliterate the idea of violence as a means to an end without instructing soldiers and their mothers and fathers, their children, their aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews in the unfortunate necessity of using violence as a means to an end? Can it be good to use violence in such a way? How do we know when it's good? Who is supposed to tell us? Our leaders? Is it OK to use violence only if you're a soldier supported by the taxes and votes of a democratic people? Does that make sense? Madness. With madness we'll eradicate madness. The President said the terrorists struck at freedom, which they hate. Maybe they do. But what they struck at was the Pentagon and The World Trade Center. Not the Liberty Bell. Not the Statue of Liberty. Not the Washington Monument, or the Jefferson Memorial. The Pentagon and The World Trade Center. Are they striking out at Freedom? I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe they are striking out at power. A power that controls destinies around the world. A power metaphorically and physically centred in two places. If I marched in Seattle, or at APEC in Vancouver, was I attacking freedom? If I speak out against the military actions in the Gulf War and in Serbia, am I attacking freedom? Oh, Jesus. Don't lump me in with mass murderers. No, don't imagine that I believe terrorism is a proper form of protest. I can't even imagine a mind that could bomb buildings, killing thousands, or hundreds, or even just one. It's unfathomable. It's a crime beyond all reasonable understanding. But I can protest, non-violently. I can speak. I can urge others to listen, to reflect, to think about this all a bit more. I can take C.S. Lewis' prescription and look inward, at the hatred, rather than outward at the object of it. Maybe then I will understand something. There are many people who do not like what the WTC or the Pentagon represent. They are among us. No, they are us. We are a little afraid of that power too, even if it is, nominally, our own. We are called various things. Anti-globalists, anti-free trade. We have chanted, "Bring down the WTO." But not like that. Not like that horror. Still, are we attacking Freedom? No, we are expressing it. The freedom my father defended in a NATO jet. The freedom my grandfather fought for in the Great War, the one that nearly took his life and left him hobbling. The same freedom upon which I would lay my life, were it threatened. But is it threatened? Freedom? I don't know? Security. Is that it? A security unique to us in North America. Security! I have been in Belfast, at a time of relative calm. Had my bags checked on my way into shops. I walked through a mall, and a shoe salesman saw the long-hair and the large bag, then quietly took 3 long, cautious steps back from the doorway, never for a moment taking his eyes off me. Walked into Donegal Pass, and felt the oppressive malaise of bipolar power. I watched uniformed men and women check every bus entering the malls at Donegal Place for bombs. And in London's double deckers and at the airport, they warn you not to touch any stranded bags. Here, in our little haven, the airports warn not to leave bags unattended due to thievery; there unattended bags are destroyed by the bomb squad. We have been living in a dream world here. Isolated. Secure. No longer. (Or were we really secure? I have been on the elevated in South Chicago at night, and never felt more threatened. I won't go exploring in any large American city without knowing my path will take me through safe neighbourhoods.) But it is not our fault. What did we do to them? We have done nothing wrong. Have we? Well, maybe we have. Nothing to deserve the calamity that has befallen us. That was madness. I won't offer the perpetrators any excuse. That is not protest; it's violent acting out on hatred. But still perhaps we have done something wrong. Or maybe it's not so bad. Maybe we just haven't done something right, or very well. Like when you think you're doing a friend a favour, only to find out you had it all wrong and ruined the friendship to boot. I don't know. I don't want to get into all that. Not right now. Too much anger and hate floating around to get anywhere. Round and round in circles we'd go. But I know this. We know no more about them than they know about us. Perhaps less. Their lies about us; our lies about them. Us and them. Familiar refrain? We thought that melted away with the Cold War. Ahh, but we can teach 'them' something about us. We will. We will, because we can. We use the UN when practical, the IMF when profitable and, when all else fails, we teach them with force. Because we've got the biggest goddamn sledge hammer on the planet and we're not afraid to use it. Even if the problem might not be a nail. And what will they learn about us? What lessons do bullets teach? Ask the Israelis and Palestinians who have distilled their hatred for each other to a bitter little pill they take daily. Ask the Northern Irish, who have managed to shock even themselves with their own hatred of late. And will we bother learning anything about this alien civilization as we slay them? Did we learn anything about the Vietnamese? The gooks, as we called them? Or are we only just now, in the last few years, curious enough to even ask? Was Bush's speach worthy of Helprin? At Helprin's raging rhetorical best, not quite. Bush may never top last week's WSJ editorial for knee-jerk, racist (alien civilization?) reactionism, and neither may Helprin. I love Helprin for his lyrical prose, for the idealism expressed toward love and beauty in all its forms. For his sense of humour and the absurd--coffee as evil! Some of the other stuff, particularly his WSJ editorials, show a side of him that makes me nervous. No. It outright scares me. Patrick. Presently listening to:The Gates of Delirium - Yes - Relayer (40:29)/" target="_blank">/" target="_blank">" hspace="4" align="right" border="0">

Re: Military family organization protests US presence in Iraq

2003-12-16T23:46:03-08:00

"Otis Willie" wrote in message news:0kcslv8hjtg66esm7b9prtnv89njpr5pb7@4ax.com... > Military family organization protests US presence in Iraq [Link to news article deleted] [Patrick Responds] From the article, beginning with the wife of a serviceman: [quote] "Sometimes, I think that Congress thinks it is so easy to make a decision that involves another country, but they overlook the effects it will have on our military, their families and children," she said. "No one speaks up, but our voices need to be heard."

/" target="_blank">" hspace="4" align="right" border="0"> ]]>

Symbols of government.

2003-12-16T23:18:18-08:00

Newsgroups: alt.fan.noam-chomsky Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 12:01 PM Subject: Symbols of government. I was watching 60 minutes last night. The entire show focussed, in documentary format, on Bush's experience during the minutes, hours and days following the 9-11 attacks. Interesting and often riveting show, even if it glossed over those shaky early hours (remember that phone call to--was it Giuliani?--from the oval office? -- 60 minutes left it on the cutting room floor.)

/" target="_blank">" hspace="4" align="right" border="0"> ]]>

Mo're: Bullies

2003-12-15T08:54:43-08:00

Below, MJ and I pick up the thread begun in re: Bullies. If you haven't read that one yet, you might want to first.

"Patrick Jennings" wrote in message > news:2d97b.116 > > Quality post, Patrick, if I may say so. You deserve our thanks; I hope you > receive more than just mine. Thanks, MJ. We shall see... > > What amazes me, rather than how little people do see these tendencies > > underlying all our behaviour, is how much effort we expend in turning a > > blind eye to them. The results from these and other experiments have been > > around for decades. Yet, they are not part of our vocabulary. Certainly, > > they are not a part of media/political discussion and analysis. > > > Indeed. I have myself on occasion tried to interest the media in this very > topic - but found that no-one is ever prepared to do anything beyond > vicarious and evasive gloating over the crimes of dead dictators (another > documentary about Hitler, anyone...?)... >Elsewhere I have tried to formulate a > memorable or convenient aphorism which points out that - > > "The development of a mature and civilised morality in an individual is only > achieved when the need 'not to disappoint' is replaced in the psyche by the > need *not to harm*". Nice. Well put. A little like the Golden Rule, particularly the Confucian version: What you do not want done to you, do not do to others Words can be powerful. However, even the most elegant aphorisms, even those which speak most clearly and universally, even the most popular--especially those--are not necessarily any more powerful than common platitudes. The post of yours I initially responded to can be summed up in oneof the great truisms of governance: Absolute power corrupts, absolutely. We know this, and yet we hand ourselves over to it. How many times have I read in these news groups the admonition: We should not question our leader during this critical period. Or something like that. Might as well just refer to the leader as "our benevolent dictator." [snippage] > Anyone really think a dirt-bag species like this should get the chance to > spread its fucking filth through the solar system...?? Well, fortunately, without some outside interference, we're a long way from that. I'm more worried about the filth that's getting spread around within our own atmosphere. Still. There's a lot of good out there. Alot to be hopeful for. It's just getting smothered by power and its affects. p. And there, true to human form, is where the thread stopped. MJ and I waited for someone to pick it up, but no go. It was more important to debate whether George Bush Jr. is a moron or not. I don't know. I think of our species as just waking up. Well, that's not quite the metaphor. We're just beginning to realise we're lost. We thought we had a road map, but it's turned out to be a child's finger painting, and although it's real and meaningful, the truth in it can only be discovered if you stop looking at it like a road map. p. Presently listening to:Can't Be Sure - The Sundays - Reading Writing & Arithmetic (03:26)/" target="_blank">/" target="_blank">" hspace="4" align="right" border="0"> ]]>

re: Bullies

2003-12-15T06:43:28-08:00

Newsgroups like alt.fan.noam-chomsky and alt.politics are a good places to get a feel of what the mood of the politically loud-mouthed is.There's a fair bit of rhetoric, much jockeying for position, posturing, pontificating and rampant back-pedalling attacks. Really it's all just a big pissing contest. Still, in the storm of ego and self-conscious witticism--and I am often no better than most of the participants if I stick around in these things too long--there are some good points made. But mostly I go back for visits to refresh my distaste for the adversarial forum. And to fire off shots from the grand stand.

> "MJ" wrote in message > news:vT67b.4272$1%2.74581@newsfep4-glfd.server.ntli.net... > > if > > you take a person - even an 'ordinary person' with no particular history of > > violence - and give them complete power and domination over one or more > > other individuals, then sooner or later that person's thoughts turn to > > *torture*. You can see this in history books; you can see it in > > psychological case-studies; and you can on occasion even see it in reality > > TV' programmes. And yet, so far as I know, no-one even wants to notice that > > this defining characteristic of the human psyche even *exists*... > > If it's that well-documented, surely an awful lot of people *have* noticed > it, which would seem to undermine your point somewhat ..? Very well documented. Which highlights the point. See the Stanford Prison Experiment for example. The initial idea was to simulate a prison experience using college students to take on the roles of prison guards and prisoners. This two-week experiment was halted after six days due to the emotional torture and physical deprivation the guards were subjecting the prisoners to. One of the more interesting aspects: it was an outside scientist, making her first visit to the 'prison' on the sixth day, who called for the halt. The scientists who'd been attending the experiment did not perceive the extreme nature of the violence, until it was pointed out to them by a third party who hadn't experienced its development over time and, perhaps, hadn't developed an insensitivity to it. Add into this mix the effects of authority on the behaviour of individuals, and the human condition can get ugly fast. For example, The Milgram Experiment, also @ http://home.swbell.net/revscat/perilsOfObedience.htm and http://www.synaptic.bc.ca/Contact/viewtopic.php?t=12 It is ironic that virtues of loyalty, discipline, and self-sacrifice that we value so highly in the individual are the very properties that create destructive organizational engines of war and bind men to malevolent systems of authority.(Stanley Milgram in Obedience to Authority, 1974, p.188) Milgram's experiments, and the numerous other trials of it around the world, show that an authority figure as seemingly innocuous as a man in a grey lab coat can induce 2/3rds of us to administer a potentially lethal electrical shock to another person. That person, the victim, in obvious, agonisingly vocalised pain, had done no more to deserve the punishment than fail to learn a simple concept. After several rounds of the victim's pleading and demanding to be let out of the experiment, what possible inducement from the authority figure would 'force' us to continue? "Please, the experiment must continue." No threats, physical or otherwise. It's kind of hard to do experiments on these kinds of human tendencies due to the effects it has on participants in the experiment. The Stanford experiment was halted midstream. Because of the extreme agitation the teachers experience, even as they apply the highest possible shock to the now apparently unconscious and unresponsive learner, the Milgram experiment is presently considered unethical and you'll have a hard time getting a grant to run one. And so we're left with the living laboratory, a notoriously difficult research environment, particularly given the difficulty of remaining scientifically dispassionate in such emotionally volatile conditions. What amazes me, rather than how little people do see these tendencies underlying all our behaviour, is how much effort we expend in turning a blind eye to them. The results from these and other experiments have been around for decades. Yet, they are not part of our vocabulary. Certainly, they are not a part of media/political discussion and analysis. This knowledge about ourselves is not part of our school curricula to teach our young children that, unless they are extremely vigilant, they are vulnerable to the whims of authority. We may say, "absolute power corrupts absolutely" but we don't follow up with "and you are as susceptible to it as the next guy." And so, even the observations which do accurately portray our human condition are reduced to innocuous platitude. We can always escape from the reality by saying, "Those guys are animals, beasts, evil. We're not the same; we're the good guys." Or, "Yes, I've heard of that experiment, but I would never do anything like that." Doris Lessing put it aptly in her Massey Lectures of 1986, published as Prisons We Choose to Live Inside. I think when people look back at our time, they will be amazed at one thing more than any other. It is this--that we do know more about ourselves now than people did in the past. But that very little of it has been put into effect... The sciences in question are sometimes called the behavioral sciences and are about how we function in groups and as individuals, not about how we like to think we behave and function which is often very flattering. But about how we can be observed to be behaving when observed as dispassionately as when we observe the behaviour of other species. There is a great mass of new information from universities, research institutions and gifted amateurs, but our ways of governing ourselves haven't changed. Our left hand does not know--does not want to know--what our right hand does. This is what I think is the most extraordinary thing there is to be seen about us, as a species, now. And people to come will marvel at it, as we marvel at the blindness and inflexibility of our ancestors. -- Doris Lessing Prisons We Choose to Live Inside Those words were first spoken in 1986. It's nearly 20 years later and all that knowledge remains within the universities, research institutions and gifted amateurs. Not in our government. Not in our media. Not in the classrooms of our young children. p. You can pick this discussion up in More re: Bullies Presently talking about:Prisons We Choose to Live Inside, Doris Lessing/" target="_blank">/" target="_blank">" hspace="4" align="right" border="0"> Presently talking about:Obedience to Authority, Stanley Milgram/" target="_blank">/" target="_blank">" hspace="4" align="right" border="0"> Presently listening to:Down In the Park - Gary Numan - Replicas - (04:21)/" target="_blank">/" target="_blank">" hspace="4" align="right" border="0"> ]]>