The Brain Plague.

There are a thousand instances around the world that point to something happening in our brains. From the notorious, the political, to sport, economics and the wealthy we seem to be going through a phase quite opposite to the enlightenment. It seems so ubiquitous amongst our institutions that it might be termed a plague, a plague of un-enlightened self-interest amongst those in power. I’m not talking here about some covert conspiracy but what the CIA called ‘group think’ to explain their wrong intelligence over Iraq. ‘Sorry guys, honest mistake. Move on, nothing to see here.’ They called it groupthink as a sort of benign explanation of an everyday, common or garden human fallibility, a one-off aberration. It was accepted as such and a hundred thousand people died. In the past I’ve called it Psychotic Group Collusion, PGC on the basis it sounds more scientific than a Mark Twain throwaway comment. PGC has been ever present from Nero to The News of the World. A closed, self-protecting group will incrementally, day by day, invent their own psychotic view behind their closed doors. The problem is the mindset of the group changes so slowly they are unaware of it, and the longer the group is isolated the more they drift into psychosis as famous psychological experiments have proved. It’s why democracy was invented in the first place but with the advent of professional politicians our western democracies have circumvented its true value allowing the ‘political group’ to remain unchanged irrespective of elections. As a result the general public see government as strangely disconnected, in short, psychotic. The ‘political group’, seeing themselves as right-minded, conscientious public servants, feel unfairly attacked by subversive elements and ramp up their defences. National security is in fact political security as they fail to perceive the influence of their own Psychotic Group Collusion. No blame can be attached to this because throughout history no person or group has prevailed over its effects. These days though, due to various technological and social factors, PGC is becoming more rampant and its effects more destructive. As such our systems of governance must take account of PGC as a progressive psychological disorder and implement measures to counter it or suffer the same fate as history’s numerous examples. Sepp Blatter today and maybe Tony Blair tomorrow. They are not bad men, they have just done bad things under the influence of PGC. I suggest it is vital this condition is studied, conclusions drawn and measures implemented to take account of it.

A Message to All our Dear Friends at this joyous Time of Year.

Time does fly when you’re enjoying yourself, I’m told. Well whoopee-do. It must be nice for some people tiptoeing through the tulips on a Cancun beach listening to Cold Play, whose progenies have become a successful wang distributor and Doctor of Philosophy at St Gertrude’s College Cambridge. Bully for them for good parenting. Ours struggle to reach average. One’s dyslexic, which is at least trendy, and the other smokes so much pot he can hardly remember his own name. One can’t spell bed and the other can’t get out of it. So what year have we had? Well ‘I’m a Celeb’ was a high point. The car keeps stalling, our broadband’s rubbish and Mothermouse feels neglected. And that’s after me buying her a shed, ungrateful cow. We did go on holiday but I backed the hire car into an Audi and it cost an arm and a leg. The four-sum with Jim and Brenda backfired. Apparently I should have told them first so Brenda got quite upset. I never liked them anyway. What a waste of oysters that was. My attempt at amateur dramatic back in April didn’t go much better. ‘Something to do to get out of the house, meet new friends’ she said. It was Pirates of Penzance and some woman laughed when I took along a CD of his greatest hits. Snotty bitch. And Mothermouse’s rash has come back, which is nothing; I repeat nothing to do with me. So that’s 2015, just another year of struggle for us nonentities. Much love and kisses and thanks for your missives, they’ve been so interesting. 

Thinking! What is it Good For!

So a recent scientific study has found that people who like pseudo profound quotes are less intelligent. All those Facebook one liners rubbished if, that is, you consider yourself intelligent. So what are you, dumb or a dreamer? I will term this reduced logic. One is presented with two linked alternatives, so if not one then the other. Maybe we’re being infected with binary thinking. Cameron’s recent speech for air strikes was a case in point. He created a series of binary alternatives each one containing one ‘oh my god I don’t want that!’ and the other ‘whatever it is Cameron wants you to choose.’ It’s probably taught in schools under persuasive writing. “Imagine children you are a government minister and you want your brother-in-law to get a fracking licence, how might you phrase a binary alternative?”  “Miss, miss, how about ‘do you want your children to freeze to death or allow fracking?’ “Very good Hilary B. See what he did children? He posed a binary alternative only one of which is acceptable.” Then of course there’s the exact opposite, a sort of diffusion of logic where everything is possible in the best of all possible worlds. That’s the domain of Facebook one-liners. ‘Everything you seek is seeking you. You have what it takes to get everything you desire.’ There’s a sort of momentary swirl of understanding that feels nice but is gone in the time it took to read it. They’re all probably true but one could read a hundred and be none the wiser. Which neatly leads on to conspiracy theorists where equally, one could read a hundred and be none the wiser. I get the feeling all the great thinkers of the past are turning in their graves at this demise of thinking. And I believe they have a point. Only gross universal non-thinking could lead to unhinging our climate, living unsustainably, fighting perpetually and generally striding out so energetically towards our own demise. So bear a thought for, well anything for god sake! 

The Elephant in the Room.

Watching the human zoo of ‘I’m a Celebrity …..’ I’m struck by one human cognitive activity that could be the root of all our problems. It’s only mentioned obliquely in therapy and even old wisdoms don’t tackle it head on. It’s self-justification. At first sight it doesn’t seem particularly pivotal or damaging, in fact it can seem a positive necessity in the cut and thrust of life but delineate it as a specific cognitive activity and for me a picture emerges. I hear much talk of ‘the self’, is it real or multiple, are there higher, lower, conscious, unconscious selfs etc? but little about the cognitive activity surrounding it. I hear about the axis of love and fear but little about the active driver that positions us along it. We seem to focus on entities rather than vectors and motive forces.
Firstly lets separate some realities. The real fear of an approaching tiger is necessary and valuable, and there is a reality to one’s fundamental being, as opposed to the cognitive construction we normally perceive as being. Our fundamental reality is of a ‘being’ in a ‘circumstance’ and these constructions are our attempt to ameliorate or justify the interaction between the two. I’m-a-Celeb’s many manipulations stress the participants relationships and in every reaction self-justification appears pivotal. “I am worthy of being me, of having that, my beliefs are true, my actions are warranted, I’m a good human being etc” and the general reaction is, “Well I am too so don’t belittle me with your assertions.” It rapidly becomes an escalating competition between self-justifications. Those well practiced bluster and dominate while others feel hurt and justify inwardly or turn to friends to justify mutually. Either way the cognitive activity of self-justification dominates. It’s easy to see how every human hierarchy is both a sponsor for and a structure of self-justification. This self-justification addresses neither the reality of the being nor the reality of its circumstance. Sepp Blatter is neither true to his being nor to FIFA. His self-justification only provides his self with the appearance of success and happiness. It’s like an oyster that, when ingesting a piece of grit, endlessly coats it with calcium carbonate to ease itself from the sore. It may become a lustrous pearl but the pearl is dead matter, made by the oyster but foreign to both it and its circumstance. (It’s no coincidence Lady C loves her pearls) And like the oyster it can become habitual to add layer upon layer to our self-justifications until they becomes a solid shiny pearl, our solid shiny self, at least in our own estimation. But I am neither the grit nor the pearl, I’m the oyster and oysters can live totally comfortably in their circumstance without a need for either. They, we, can live far more vividly without the myriad of stories of self that make up the layers of the pearl. I am not stories, I am being. But how difficult it is to trust that my individuality, my qualities, my character, behaviour, my very persona is in my being not my inventions of a self. If you would like to imagine writing on a blackboard all your stories of self, ‘I am strong or weak, I am easily hurt, I am caring and helpful, I am put upon, handsome, ugly etc ….’, every one. And when they’re all there in black and white rub them all out and look at the pristine blackboard, blank but far more substantial than those scratchings of chalk. Now you have no stories to defend or maintain. As a being in a circumstance you will respond from your being more freely and vividly. You will see and hear your circumstance more freely and vividly without the need to defend your (pearl) self and the huge amount of energy you used in self-justification will be free to use elsewhere.
Without really realising it I fell into this way many years ago and found the following results.
By not maintaining beliefs of who I am, my pearl as it were, I don’t feel the restraints of the aughts and shoulds that arise from my imagining a persona I need to live up to. I’m left only with my intents as a being to be the best I can be, and somehow work as defined from the aughts and shoulds has transmogrified into the playful endeavour of simply being. This is no less demanding just not as arduous. By not having a prescribed way of doing things I’m free to play with alternatives and to evaluate them free of constructs of right and wrong. And strangely rather than loosing an identity people respond to me lovingly as real, imaginative and competent, if somewhat eccentric.
By not maintaining beliefs of who I am I can, in circumstances were I might normally be expected to defend myself, find I have nothing to defend and as such I can hear and respond cleanly without defence. I can feel free to play with and assess my own and other opinions without fear or favour. I can accept another’s opinion without feeling hurt and disagree without feeling superior. This connects my being to my circumstance far more than having to maintain some self-position by self-justification. Of course this doesn’t stop me from being unbearably smug or cursing when I bang my head, I’m not perfect.
Lady C on the other hand has a pearl the size of a tennis ball. Her powers of self-justification are second to none. As a result the other celebs find her unbearable, either a manipulative friend or an infuriating enemy, a being trapped in a self and isolated from her circumstance. But that’s aging for you. With the passage of time we seem to either loose our sense of self or become trapped by it. So for me the cognitive act of self-justification is the elephant in the room. Will someone please open the very large door? That’s it the one at the end next to the aspidistra.