Taming False Instincts

We can’t afford to do simply what comes naturally in dealing with our fellow humans.

Think about it: If we did what comes naturally, none of us would be potty trained. We know from vast human experience people can be trained to modestly place waste where it can be safely disposed. Too many other things have become loaded and larded with false notions, and we pay no attention to the vast human experience of history. We previously discussed on this blog the necessity of understanding socio-sexual interactions using the Game Theory Model. Most people simply do not recognize what goes on, and they build a mythology which blinds them in various ways. It was necessary to recognize the real game so we could avoid being trapped by it.

So it is when I write the only real revolt against unjust government is ignoring the various provocations and focusing on simply living justly. The whole emphasis was personal interaction which assumes the other is a real human, and taking them seriously. If more of us did that, many governments would eventually collapse, dying from starvation of the one thing which feeds their power. Take people seriously, not governments.

But we need to understand how and why we fail to take each other seriously. Let’s focus on just one element: how we typically regard those around us. It’s not particularly earth shaking news to note we naturally tend to put people in one of three categories:

1. People have significance to us. We feel obliged to interact with them and take them seriously, regardless whether we actually like them.

2. Machines are people who serve some purpose for us, but aren’t otherwise that important on our radar screens.

3. Scenery is all the other folks out there who fill up the visual space and sometimes require us to go around them, but aren’t at all important to us.

This is our nature; this is what we do when we don’t pay attention. Obviously, the answer is to stop giving so much attention to all the things which distract us, and focus on the people. Nobody imagines you can pay equal attention to every person in Times Square on New Years’ Eve, but you will encounter a significant number if you are there. And it’s not as if every knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing fool warrants our kindness and love in the sense of giving them what they request or demand. The point is to make it a mental habit to evaluate people as people, to break the bad habit of dropping the majority of the world into the scenery category, many in the machines, and only a tiny fraction regarded as real people. The starting point is simply noticing you are doing this.

At some stage, you realize you will surely set many aside as unreachable, or even as a threat. Some people don’t merit your direct interaction. Still, you don’t make that decision until you actually evaluate them, take them seriously. You also decide whether that difficulty is long-term or whether you’ll have to run through it again the next time. But whatever you do, it’s not about you, but the truth — including the truth people are people.

This has nothing to do with your public persona, the image you project, and personality which the world encounters in you. That is often shaped by the environment, but most of us have our own way of handling it. Rather, it’s a matter of awareness, of engaging the brain actively, not simply running on autopilot. Build your persona, adjust it as the situation warrants, but don’t ever nail it all down to a routine. The whole point is people cannot be reduced to a routine until they choose it for themselves. Don’t use your persona as the excuse to drop other humans below their humanity.

This is a part of breaking the programming, because governments are all about dehumanizing. You can’t change what governments do, but you can change what you do. Take people seriously first as a better mental habit, then keep an open mind about how you need to interact so as to live by justice and truth.