Huh.
This actually goes some way in explaining why it is that even though I'm not writing about politics, I'm still observing them with a passion. It does feel vaguely like an addiction.
I've long held, however, that there's some other cause for the nature of the red/blue divide. Folks on either side of that slash see the world very differently. From my perspective, they view torture as okay under certain circumstances. I view the NSA's wiretap program as an unabashed violation of the Fourth Amendment; they don't. I've long held, and continue to hold, that what I've called here (in one of my more intemperate moments) "a steadfast refusal to acknowledge reality" (or something like that - too lazy to actually look up the quote) is actually some deeply-rooted, hard-wired difference in how Red versus Blue see the world. There are variations, shades of colors if you will (which explains things like fundamentalists, anarchists and Methodists), but most folks fall into one of the two camps. It does strike me that there should be a reason why. So, let's hear it, all you cognitive specialists out there... whazzup widdat? Bizotch.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Huh II
Posted by CheckyPantz at 17:51
Labels: dipshits, I wrote this, politics
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3 comments:
I am far from a cognitive specialist, but I found this as interesting as you did. Now dig this... Reading other things in the past about cognitive stuff that concerns me and interests me, this article reiterates something that I have taken to be true. The brain is a muscle. If you train it to perform in a certain way, it will continue to do so involuntarily. So, you have a kid with bible thumper parents who vote Republican no matter what, so that kid assumes, cognitively, that is the default for things. His/her neural pathways have been established in a certain polarity so that stimulus can only be routed in a certain way. It makes total sense.
Buddhists have long held (for, like, centuries) that the mind is the most complex and, consequently, trainable muscle in the human vessel. They espouse right thoughts and right action like a modern western doctor would advocate eating well and excercising. To the Dalai Lama crew, there is no difference.
Kind of cool, but in some ways it is just one more thing to worry about. *frets*
While there may be something to the well-worn-paths argument, I can easily point you to many cases of kids I grew up with who were extremely active in their churches (and there were a lot of them) and as time went on only grew to reject church teaching, either partially or in toto. Most of the time, they ended up rejecting parts of church teaching that actually had proved a civlizing factor, as many of these kids turned out to be fodder for trailer parks, divorce and other unfortunate circumstances.
Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that your point isn't valid. Those folks may very well have grown up to be Republicans, simply because everyone there is. But that is less of a cognitive thing than it is a socialization thing I think.
Well, there are so many variables to consider that it renders this line of thought exploration almost moot, but the base line of all this is what informs involuntary response. So, familial relationships aside, examples are, at the very least, observed and catalogued by the subconcious as being part of the environment one is in. So, you have bible thumper parents who, for the sake of argument, hold the bible as a better source of education than, say, an accredited university. So there is no precedence for what you and I would understand as an educated and/or informed decision. However, there is loads of precedence for what you and I would call a downward spiral of ignorance and stupidity that is, on a grand scale, a bigger contributer to the decline of Western civilization than the metal years ever were.
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