The Pavlov analogy is reasonable because it primarily involves the conditioning of dogs, and one of the characteristics of dogs is that they are unable to grasp the concept of an object being indicated at a distance: when you point at something far away the dog looks at your finger not what it’s pointing at. IDENTITY POLITICS, which is the sine qua non of most college/ university/high school, even grade school curricula, produces a mindset that functions in precisely this way. When someone indicates something to an individual that is inconsistent with instruction, the individual does not look toward the idea but at the ‘finger’ pointing it out. They assess the sex, color, and age of the ‘finger ‘and based on those parameters, either consider the idea or dismiss it. In some cases, they bite the finger.
Parrots also present a version of this idea. Once a parrot has been instructed over and over to repeat a phrase, it invariably does so indefinitely, but it cannot modify the phrase or qualify it. It can only repeat it. “Polly wanna cracker” does not allow for elaboration or discussion, the parrot cannot describe the kind of cracker it wants, how many, how often, what kind of cracker it does not want or even what a cracker is. Most significantly, the phrase cannot be unlearned. A parrot cannot be instructed to stop saying polly wanna cracker, it would simply start repeating, ““Stop saying polly wanna cracker.” It would nevertheless repeat it over and over, loudly and insistently.
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Malcolm Mc Neill
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That’s all too true. The ability to ‘consider’ – and the time needed for ‘reflection’ – are casualities of the systematic mechanism of pure superficiality. It reverses reality: the objective becomes to be shallow instead of deep. To be in the flow of the indoctrination programme – rather than questioning it and finding one’s own path. This will burn itself out at some point -let us hope soon.
Comment by Julian on 16 July, 2024 at 7:27 am