(This is a serialization of the draft for my book, Expectations, Hopes and Dreams.)
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Most people who know English agree that our language offers a very wide range of subtle flavorings. Our words can be used to paint exquisite images with both artistry and precision. Yet, most people prefer to use that flexibility for deception.
The only reason deception is possible on such a grand scale and with such depth is because of a basic deception about language itself. A primary expectation in the West is that language is meant to convey facts. It can be done to some degree, but this is not the default in our human wiring. Without conscious consideration, we assume that language is supposed to convey an honest report of the speaker’s mind. It’s not that we are unaware of lying, but that we tend to think of accuracy and deception both on the same level in the most simplistic terms.
That is not how we are wired. The fundamental purpose of human communication is conveying meaning in far more subtle and imprecise terms. The default use of language is to tell a story, not factually, but in terms of the impact it had on the narrator. Humans are generally incapable of factual accuracy. We can approach it only when we don’t have any real interest beyond truth itself. Bringing ourselves to that point requires far more than any book, or even a whole shelf of books, can convey.
The problem goes to the very fundamental core programming of our thoughts and assumptions about reality. I contend that this can be fixed, but that it is a task far larger than most people would imagine. Not only are we burdened with a wealth of false assumptions about reality, but we are burdened with a mythology about how marvelous and perfect is our mythology.
Because we believe language is meant to convey facts, and that we are wired to rise to a pure rational response to those facts, we are unable to notice what is actually going on in our subconscious processing. Whether or not our abusers are consciously aware of the process, they are at least well-trained monkeys performing according to what their owners reward, however imperfectly. They feed us carefully disguised lies knowing that we will react as if they had shared a narrative filled with personal meaning.
As social creatures, we are predisposed to merge our lives with others in a given context. We don’t enjoy protracted isolation, so we look for something familiar in others. If you feel what I feel, you are likely to act somewhat as I act. If I can persuade you by narrative to feel a particular way, you’ll tend to act on those feelings. Labeling does not convey facts, but a wealth of totally non-factual information. That is how it is supposed to work. That’s how we are wired and it really makes a big difference if this is what we learn to expect. It’s not a question of believing the person or their words, per se, but of granting a measure of personal loyalty regardless of facts.
In the first place, none of us can possibly obtain a pure and undefiled experience with reality. One writer described our memory as a tape recording with multiple parallel tracks. We experience reality as the passing of time in a particular sequence. Our five senses compose a record of varying width depending on how developed our sensory perception is. But however much of the space on that memory tape is dedicated to the sensory data, our feelings about that experience is geometrically larger in our memories. We humans are incapable of disconnecting that huge experiential factor of emotional evaluation no matter how hard we try.
More, what we might imagine as the proper approach to minimizing the emotional connection of our sensory experiences is based on totally flawed assumptions. We believe we can teach ourselves to be objective, but that effort is diluted by the degree to which we are interested in the experience in the first place. It’s not possible to be objective about something that consumes much of your time and energy.
So, no two of us experience reality in precisely the same way. If you and I were best friends and we passed through life in each other’s back pockets, as it were, we would find ourselves pulled in two directions. On the one hand, to the degree we feel it’s in our best interest to do so, we will tend to merge our personalities and experiences. But in the full tilt of our human natures, we will also make note on some level of things that simply cannot be shared. In the most guttural terms, we cannot both have the same orgasm at the same time. The human state forcibly individualizes us, something we desperately try to ignore at times.
What should scare us is how thoroughly a false experience can be implanted in folks who aren’t aware it is happening. For with that false experience comes all the attendant feelings and commitments. Thus, we come to know things we cannot possibly have experienced, but it seems to us subjectively as all too real. It actually requires some talent and training to avoid this in our Western world.
Meanwhile, we cannot see how this conditioning is actually a normal result of Western mythology. If we had built an intellectual tradition that assumed conditional perception and narrative, we would be much more free to evaluate things differently. We would be less likely to respond with such depth of passion to labels people throw at us in an attempt to manipulate our behavior.
