April 27, 2006

• I am having SUCH a good time!

  About four hours ago, when Doug went to bed and I sat down at the
  computer, I was physically exhausted from watering my houseplants
  (yeah, that’s pathetic, I know).  I sincerely thought I would be
  toddling off to bed as soon as I did a little tweaking on Greyfox’s new
  catalog, checked my email and comments, caught up with the latest
  action at Non_Featured_Content,
  looked to see if there was new work awaiting me at KaiOaty, posted
  today’s pretty picture on my picture posting place, and made sure that
  the dog, cats and I were all adequately fed and hydrated.

  It didn’t happen according to that plan.  I wasn’t sleepy, my mind
  wasn’t tired, it was just this abominable chronic fatigue thing. 
  The conversation in comments at NFC triggered an association that was
  associated with the same train of thought I’d been riding through my
  recent adventures with Robert Malthus and Annie Besant.  Without
  giving it much thought, I just started a new Google search.  I
  didn’t even have a clear concept of what I was looking for.  I
  hoped to find some authoritative quotations in support of my position
  on the topics of censorship, denial and related BS.

  I found such a rich vein of cogent prose that I have been happily
  reading page after page, the animals could be starving for all I know,
  I’m thirsty, but I think I’ll share some of what I have just found
  before I shut this down and take care of the practical mundane
  nonsense.  This is going to jump around a bit, so hang on.

  It started with a reference on one website, to a book I haven’t read but will be looking for in the library very soon:  The Corruption of Reality:  A Unified Theory of Religion, Hypnosis, and Psychopathology,
  by John F. Schumaker.  What I saw there aroused my curiosity, so I
  googled Schumaker and waded through dozens of booksellers’ sites before
  I found Freedom Portal and Frederick Mann’s discussion and expansion of Schumaker’s work.

  Schumaker wrote of the “paranormal imperative:”

      “Throughout the writing of this book, I continually
  reminded myself of a character in Thornton Wilder’s ‘The Eighth Day’
  who is overwhelmed by the mad cruelty that human beings show to each
  other. He realizes the extent of our inhumanity to each other, and
  concludes that “the whole world’s wrong,” and that there is something
  terribly flawed at the very heart of the human animal.

      …I too attempt to track down that “problem,” that
  “something wrong.” I discover that it is the human appetite for
  illusion and self-deception which usually comes packaged as paranormal
  belief. If that isn’t odd enough, I also show that this “problem” has
  always been a blessing and solution for us as well. I make the
  seemingly strange case that evolution saved us from an early prototype
  of intelligence by giving us the capacity to be suggestible and
  hypnotizable. At that point, all reality-transcending belief, including
  religion was born.

      In contrast to most books dealing with paranormal
  belief, I point out that this particular ability is taking us down the
  road to self-extinction. That “something wrong” is a flaw in what I
  call the “paranormal belief imperative.” As a life-threatening flaw, it
  is probably part of what Carl Sagan called the “excess evolutionary
  baggage” that we are forced to carry around, despite its
  counterproductive effects on us in modern times.

      A good deal of evidence is offered to show that
  paranormal belief promotes the personality characteristics that
  underlie small-scale and large-scale inhumanity. Very few people are
  without a certain degree of paranormal belief. Although most of us are
  not consciously aware of it, paranormal belief is our strongest drive.”
  – John F. Schumaker  in Wings of Illusion

   Schumaker views humanity’s susceptibility to that mental flaw as an aid to denying our mortality.  
  Stanley Cohen writes about denial.

  In ‘States of Denial,’ Stanley Cohen provides a list of common phrases related to denial:

  • Turning a blind eye
  • Burying your head in the sand
  • She saw what she wanted to see
  • He only heard what he wanted to hear
  • Ignorance is bliss
  • Living a lie
  • Conspiracy of silence
  • Economical with the truth
  • It’s got nothing to do with me
  • Don’t make waves
  • They were typical passive bystanders
  • There’s nothing I can do about it
  • Being like an ostrich
  • I can’t believe that this is happening
  • I don’t want to know/hear/see any more
  • The whole society was in deep denial
  • It can’t happen to people like us
  • The plan called for maximum deniability
  • Averting your gaze
  • Wearing blinkers
  • He couldn’t take in the news
  • Willful ignorance
  • She looked the other way
  • He didn’t admit it, even to himself
  • Don’t wash your dirty linen in public
  • It didn’t happen on my watch
  • I must have known all along

  Denial can be descibed as:

  • Being unwilling to face problems on either a conscious or subconscious level.
  • Acting as if there are no problems to face.
  • A defensive response; protection from pain, hurt, or suffering.
  • A mask to hide feelings or emotions behind.
  • A way to avoid conflict, disagreements, or disapproval from others.
  • A way to avoid facing the negative consequences of reality.
  • A way of retaining our sanity when experiencing unbearable pain.
  • A way to repress the truth of our loss, a way to continue to function in an apparently “normal” way.
  • A pattern of life for individuals who are compulsively driven to “look good.”
  • A way to avoid the risk of change as a result of problems or loss.

  Selected Quotations on Religion

  “Most sermons sound to me like commercials – but I can’t make out
  whether God is the Sponsor or the Product.”
  

    ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966

  “It is fear that first brought gods into the world.”
  

    ~Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon

  “Businesses may come and go, but religion will last forever, for in no
  other endeavor does the consumer blame himself for product failure.” 
  
  

  ~Harvard Lampoon, Doon

  “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”
  

    ~Seneca the Younger

  “This is a little prayer dedicated to the separation of church and
  state.  I guess if they are going to force those kids to pray in
  schools they might as well have a nice prayer like this:  Our Father
  who art in heaven, and to the republic for which it stands, thy kingdom
  come, one nation indivisible as in heaven, give us this day as we
  forgive those who so proudly we hail.  Crown thy good into temptation
  but deliver us from the twilight’s last gleaming.  Amen and Awomen.”
  

   
  ~George Carlin, on Saturday Night Live
  

  Want more?

  
  
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  On the idea of, “The menu is not the meal,” “The map is not the territory,” etc.  Semantic Rigidity, Flexibility and Freedom

  And obliquely off on an entirely different tangent:  Pain and the Erotic.

  Okay, I’ve done my bit for today toward the smartening up of the
  planet.  Greyfox phoned about an hour ago and I told him I’d call
  him back when I got done here.  It’s time to go schmooze with my
  schweetie.
  
  

  
  
  

  • 1:58 am
  • 7 Comments