911 and 77 (21)
I read somewhere some years ago in a book I think might be called "Emotional Intelligence" that there is a simple test to discover how the state of a society will be in the future. You take a class of four or five year olds and put a sweet or cookie in front of them and tell them that you will be back in a few minutes and those who still have their sweet will get an extra one.
When you come back you can count on those who chose to wait as more advanced than those who couldn't wait. The ratio is the important factor. That's all you have to do.
What was set up in such a test is a war. Bear with me if you think 'war' is too strong or just think "ongoing conflict with friendly fire casualties and miscellaneous psyop events" if you prefer.
The war of reason versus emotion.
It is the same war when you tell youngsters that smoking will ruin their health, make them smell sexually and socially objectionable and later on will give them some serious or terminal illness.
But this doesn't stop them smoking or worse, taking up smoking.
That is a well known fact that's been established at least since the 60s.
That isn't the difficulty. The difficulty is the failure to learn from this.
The message to youth is the same regardless of the known negative effect.
"It's all we know so that's what we teach" might be the unamimous professionals outcry.
It's the same with 9/11 and 7/7.
We're really dealing with emotion versus reason, again, as in each of my examples.
The reasoning part is the argument put forth. It's unassailable and obvious.
People make the mistake of thinking well it couldn't have been loud enough or long enough so they get louder for longer.
And still it doesn't work, and still they don't figure it out.
When reason stops, for whatever reason, or more likely for no reason at all, it is emotion that stepped in. We never say "listen to emotion" but always "listen to reason" and "be reasonable". We never say "be emotional" but when reason fails that is exactly why very often, emotion took over.
That is why you will note that the "reasoned argument" put forth in an emotional decision, ie it was an emotional decision posing as a reasoned one, then you will find the argument is totally transparent and obviously lacking in reason.
I would say that reason and emotion are a balancing act. In fact I would say that unless we do pay attention to balancing these two aspects of our consciousness then one will push away the other.
With 9/11 it is not the need for evidence that makes the basic facts knowable but the implication of those facts -- which is an extremely emotional one. "How could they do that, how could anyone do that?" meaning how could we do that to ourselves and leading to "I feel afraid".
If the religions are the toddler and infant mentality that we exhibit as a society - the need for a controlling but loving parent figure as a god - then I think this 9/11 and 7/7 aspect (of our same society) is more like that of the suicidal adolescent unable, in essence, unable to bear the facts of his or her own life. Yet again that would suggest that emotion is uppermost and has gone haywire ballastic.
The truly mature person, I think, is able to exercise enough insight to be more self aware and therefore doesn't make the, ubiquitous, mistake of choosing to be blind to his or her true motivation. (Do I need to point out that 'motivation' is a variation on 'emotion'?)
When a five year old exercises patience in order to make a bigger gain while his contemporaries hastilly enjoy the moment while it lasts without a thought for the betterment of their future, he will probably also note too that after some have eaten their own sweets they will attempt to steal the sweets of those who are exercising patience. This complicates the situation for him. Does he continue to exercise patience or does he eat his sweet before one of the others steals it?
And what does a child do who having seen his own sweet stolen by another child do about it, especially if he also is told "tell and I'll kill you". Does he do nothing? Does he say nothing? Does he complain? Does he call for attention? Does he team up with the most evil person, child, in the room? Does he reach out and steal another child's sweet and join what can seem to be the common mentality?
Moreover, when the tester returns, does he or she have the 'insight' to be aware that just because sweets have disappeared doesn't mean that each child just ate his own sweet
In the UK such a test would need to take account of these variables.
For us as, now, more grown up, we should have enough experience to be able to distinguish between the arguments that we make to ourselves to stop ourselves from seeing the truth - emotionally biased pseudo-reasoning, so to speak, and the arguments that we formulate because we are actually interested to find out the truth.
I would say this is a major modern problem, though.
So much so in fact, that, for me, I don't spend much time paying attention to arguments that clearly lack reason and are heavily weighted emotionally. For me they are 'false starters'.
An example? Take a common phrase used by intelligent and educated people: "I sincerely believe...". Think. Reply like this: "But do you genuinely believe that too?"
When I hear that opener (or closure) "... I sincerely believe..." I have alarm bells and red alerts all over.
What does it mean when anyone says that they sincerely believe something? Well that's a good topic for another article but for now let me just point out that:
Our current difficulty, it seems to me, is this incompetence. We seriously lack the ability to be able to reason and emotion properly. Or, we are failing to reason because our emotion has stepped in to stop it. We do that because our emotion doesn't want to allow our reason to establish the truth. Why would be be so stupid? Fear. Failure to face our feelings, emotions, our fear.
We seriously lack the ability to reason and emotion properly. I repeated that because I wanted to draw attention to the our lack of grammer for handling emotion: we lack the ability to reason, that part is fine, but 'we lack the ability to emotion'? If that is not acceptable grammer then why is that? Doesn't that just show it? Our inability to emotion is even apparent in the grammer - we can't even say it!
If I am right, that bravery is really about being able to reason despite our fear, then isn't cowardice the refusal to think, the refusal or inablity to reason due to fear? I think it is.
So all these men, police and a more hidden pseudo-police, who think they are brave - well, their refusal to face the truth is actually a big statement about cowardice. They are going along with a robot policy, a policy which is roboticising their minds by stealth and persistence and small steps, not because they couldn't see it if they cared to look but they don't care to look because they don't have the courage to face reality.
Even some three year olds can be brave enough to face their fears!
The problem is that this emotion(al) reaction, this ongoing 'denial' state, doesn't work the way emotion wants it to, it doesn't just 'go away'. This is a real monster, it is here, it is noisy and messy and it's claws and teeth are not only sharp they are infected with virulent pus and our wounds when it bites will be truly terrible and it is just growing bigger and stronger and with a growing appetite and it won't just go away on it's own. It has to be recognized. It has to be hunted. It has to be controlled.
The monster is real because we have collectively failed, refused, to see it. We reason, pseudo-rationally, that it does not exist but the phoney quality of the arguments, the rationalizing, the pseudo-reasoning, makes it blatantly clear that it is emotion that is really behind the 'reasoning'. If we had more insight, as a society, then we could at least surmise this much and ask ourselves just how wise we are being in continuing in this blind fashion and what it can only lead to later on.
The monster we all need to be aware of is the new nazi era for want of a better term for it and the big wake up to it's real existence is perhaps to note the way the police have changed, yes, that might just prompt you in the right direction but, no, it isn't enough so the only real way to 'wake up' is to see through the scams that were 9/11 and 7/7 and although I say "were" they are really ongoing scams. Once you see through those two huge criminal tricks then you are ready to see that what we are really living in now is a kind of nazi era; a huge monster that we are all contributing to by 'feeding' it and failing to 'chain' it instead. This is not just a metaphor it is the most frightening reality but as mature adults we need to face it and respond appropriately to it because it will not just fade away of it's own accord.
By Paul E. Coughlin
SaneThinking.com
27 June 2008
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