tolerance, acceptance, and fanaticism

[Ralitsa]

The thread about CDs being made or born had a lot of interesting points, that I thought deserved consideration in a separate thread.

Elly said that we should be better than condemning and judging people, and yet we are still doing it. To which Anthony made the point that it seems heterosexual males feel the need to be superior to everyone else.

I would suggest that there is something deeper in our psyche that drives such behavior. I think every person feels, or wants to feel, that they are in some way special and unique. They feel that somehow, in some way or detail, they are different than and better than others. This is OK, and probably necessary for survival, because otherwise one would feel like their continued existence is pointless.
This being the case, people would tend to seek out and to associate with others who will reinforce this feeling. Actually that is why we are all here.
So if we think that in some way we are a little bit better than others, then the corollary is that everyone else is not quite as good as we are. Which gives us the right to look down our noses at them.

Well you can see where this line of thinking leads.

Also, there is probably some factor from evolutionary history that causes groups of animals to reject the one that is different. Perhaps because different is equated with faulty genetics, perhaps because it will draw attention to the group and make it more susceptible to predators. Something. So why do kids beat up on and bully the one who is weird? I don't buy the argument that they learn that behavior from adults.

So the only way this behavior stops, is by evolutionary progress. When decisions are made primarily in the amygdala then the behavior will be very primitive. More advanced people move their thinking and decision making into the neo-cortex, and can interrupt the primitive instincts, apply a larger degree of logic and information and consequently come to a better decision. Basically what I'm saying is that most people haven't evolved their thinking much past the monkeys. It's normal for children to behave very primitively because their brains are still developing and the neo-cortex has not yet been programmed, if you will.

OK now ladies, jump in with your thoughts and comments!

[Anita]

I would suggest that there is something deeper in our psyche that drives such behavior. I think every person feels, or wants to feel, that they are in some way special and unique. They feel that somehow, in some way or detail, they are different than and better than others. This is OK, and probably necessary for survival, because otherwise one would feel like their continued existence is pointless.

This is interesting to me, Ralitsa. I subscribe to a philosophy that specifically says that "specialness" is the one of the largest problems we have, if not the largest. It tries to teach me that reality is based on a common heritage we all share, and that I need to look for that common reality at all times. This is a tall order, but I work at it. It's my choice. Sooner or later, specialness leads to pain, either mine or someone else's. You can say, "Well, yes, that's just the way the world works," but I can say from experience that if you focus on the common ground, and not the specialness, there's less of that pain.

We're not taught to do that, and I think it does have to do with survival. Oh, we give it lip service, because we can see that it works better in some ways. But to practice it consistently is to go against the grain of our reptile brain's insistence that we and the tribe have to be superior to make it in the world.

This is one reason I would have liked to have been a parent. To me, it looks like the parent-child relationship is the closest thing we have to unconditional love and acceptance. That doesn't mean every parent succeeds at that, but it does mean they see and feel the need to do that, and they do it more consistently.

[Anthony Simon]

There are so many places you could go with this. Here's one:

Also, there is probably some factor from evolutionary history that causes groups of animals to reject the one that is different. Perhaps because different is equated with faulty genetics, perhaps because it will draw attention to the group and make it more susceptible to predators. Something. So why do kids beat up on and bully the one who is weird? I don't buy the argument that they learn that behavior from adults.

Yeah, but you know as well as I do that evolution happens when you get mutations. I.E. Things that are, from the point of view of the existing population, "faulty genetics". With the benefit of hindsight, mutations that provide an evolutionary advantage are "naturally selected" as the progenitors of future generations.

From that point of view the animals with "faulty genetics" are a threat to the unmutated population. If such individuals turned up in the human population, "ordinary people" would have to feel threatened by them - and from that it wouldn't take much for them to be labelled 'weird'.

So I doubt you could say CDs are entirely like this, but there might be some element of it. Like we might point the way, to a degree, to a world where the female element of society gets a better deal.

[Paula G]

Recommended reading HG Wells short story, "The Country of the Blind" which suggests rather than the one eyed man being king, he is so weird as to be unacceptable, and ends up blinding himself in order to fit in.

[Anthony Simon]

Well, OK - Here's a different way of looking at it:

Elly said that we should be better than condemning and judging people, and yet we are still doing it. To which Anthony made the point that it seems heterosexual males feel the need to be superior to everyone else.

I would suggest that there is something deeper in our psyche that drives such behavior. I think every person feels, or wants to feel, that they are in some way special and unique. They feel that somehow, in some way or detail, they are different than and better than others. This is OK, and probably necessary for survival, because otherwise one would feel like their continued existence is pointless.

I actually think there's two distinct ways that people can experience that "special" feeling. Like Ralitsa says, one says "I'm a special person" because implicitly I have a quality (or qualities) which make me superior in some way or another. But I would maintain that there's another which revolves around you doing stuff that you really want to do and haven't been able to do - like the "dream come true" type of experience.

This is what dressing up has become for me, in part. Like I believe I always used to look at female impersonators and wish I could do that - like look in the mirror and see a woman looking back. So, now that I've managed to do it (some of the time and not very often in photographs) it just makes the experience special to me.

My analyst told me that he thought my CDing was "compensation", by which he meant when life wasn't going so good I would dress up. So it's like a way, for me, of making me feel I'm living when other stuff is going against me. That probably means that, inside of me, there's this woman side - and when I let her out, give her life, it's like I'm letting that side of me live.

But this sort of thinking is an anathema to many. Like they have a very cookie-cutter idea of what people who are born genetically male are allowed to do. There is this "one size fits all" type male role. And if, in fact, it doesn't fit you that's not the fault of the role, it's your fault and you're weird (or whatever).

But really the whole thing defies common sense. Of course there are going to be people who don't fit the role - and it's better to let them come to some sort of (relatively) healthy other position rather than beating up on them.

[Elly (SO)]

I agree, sure there's evolutionary basis/biological basis as well as deep psyche... But what most fail to realize is that from the day we're born we're conditioned to believe & 'buy into" gender roles, societal roles, and values/morals based on our family country and peers... It's such a cycle that they all influence one another and bam we wind up at this juncture of either 'fitting' or being labeled/feeling 'wrong' or 'abnormal' when we are all abnormal, because there's just no normal there's merely a majority and to save time/brain power we substitute majority for all and wind up excluding very very valuable people in the process! I feel like by discounting people who don't 'fit' into a label or 'box' we as a society suffer- we're left without their input, their stance on issues and the solution that was the 'best fit' for any situation just might have been brought by that very person we 'discredited' so to speak.

In other words, it's not just those who are left out or shunned or labeled that suffer - we all suffer.. in the action of shunning we are, in a sense, shunning aspects of ourselves as a collective society that would be better expressed through embracing & acceptance (this doesn't mean condoning, simply allowing others to be who they are entirely).. in the consequence of discrediting those aspects that are simply easier to turn a blind eye to.. Overall, those shunned suffer, and the culture & society stunts it's own growth.... Just IMHO

[Ralitsa]

so combining a few of the thoughts: as in H.G. Wells story society as a whole suffers (as Elly points out) because we insist that the one who is different (and in that story let us say superior) change and conform to the norms of society.
I absolutely agree that mutations drive evolutionary change, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, mutations are random and cannot be relied upon. Then by ostracizing the mutated, or unique organism, herd behavior places a higher than natural pressure against change. So the mutation must not only be for the better, but so much for the better that it also overcomes the barrier of being different.
Now in recent history we are more accepting of specialness and value the unique contributions of individuals. This acceptance is making it easier for certain groups. But Anita points out that specialness leads to a host of other issues.
What I find fascinating about this subject is how inter-related and seemingly contradictory all of these factors can be. Yes, society does put pressure on individual from the moment they are born to conform. Or is it "society" that does it, or rather does the reptilian remnant of our brain dictate that we have arranged our society this way? It's the chicken and egg problem.
But another, uniquely American aspect comes to my attention from reading this, and that's the majority rule. We are taught to believe that the majority opinion is always to be followed. Of course the majority opinion is not always right, hence the problem of tyranny of the majority. I believe that majority rule is a better system of civil structure than previous forms, but I don't believe that it can be relied upon to give moral direction. And the idea of moral direction is located so far in the frontal lobe as to be outside the skull of many hominids.
OK, all that is fine, but what do we really do about it? Having some idea of the source, cause, location, whatever, of this behavior, how do we react? And particularily, how do we shape the thought process to retain the benefits and minimize the damage. I think we all agree that some degree of conformance to norms is essential. We cannot have people saying "I reject your moral standards and I think for myself that rape and murder is fine so I'm going to rush right out and try it." The typical Dostayevsky scenario.

[Anthony Simon]

What I find fascinating about this subject is how inter-related and seemingly contradictory all of these factors can be. Yes, society does put pressure on individual from the moment they are born to conform. Or is it "society" that does it, or rather does the reptilian remnant of our brain dictate that we have arranged our society this way? It's the chicken and egg problem.

Well, I don't think society puts pressure on the individual from the moment it's born. You've got the baby and the mother at the beginning - like no conception of society at all.

Then the baby grows up and becomes a child and goes to kindergarden (ca 5 years or maybe a bit earlier). That's the first time it's outside of the immediate family in an ongoing way, so that's the first time it meets society face to face so to speak.

Before that it always gets a mediated version of what society demands through its parents - and, at the beginning, most the demanding is coming from the baby.

You could argue, in a way, that creative people are like babies that never grow up - in the sense that they keep going "I want my way" against a society that wants its. Or maybe that just makes society like a gigantic baby.

In the tyranny of the majority thing in De Tocqueville, you could argue that, in fact, society does act as a gigantic baby. It has great big screaming sessions that shut up the opposition: "No, no, no...".

In a way, that's how you might construe some of the fanaticism you see out there. Great big screaming sessions from very large babies.

[Ralitsa]

I like that analogy Anthony, screaming from a lot of big babies.
I think it may be more than just an analogy though, I think in a very real way that society is not intellectual but that behavior of the majority degenerates to the least common factor.
I have immense admiration for de Tocqueville, I'm utterly amazed that someone who spent such a relatively short amount of time in the States had a comprehension of its workings which far surpasses most of the life long residents. His observations are astonishingly insightful.
But it leaves unanswered my basic question: does our thinking follow our societal structure, or is our societal structure a product of our brains structure?

[Paulette]

When you consider evolution and genetics, think in geological terms.

We are essentially the same species we were 300,000 years ago. What's changed is not our genetics, but our exploration of culture and society. We've had so many variations and combinations of elements that IMHO the only thing that can be said about human beings as a whole and with any certainty is that we're supremely adaptable given our current genome.

At the same time we have a strong not-us discrimination that we apply to any individual or group that doesn't conform to the social/cultural set that shaped us.

I believe all of this, our variations within and between cultures and sexes and genders, is psychological, not physical. What this means is that until we are two or three years old, we are like a huge 3,000-position sound mixing board, with very few slides moved from neutral or zero. What moves those slides is our culture and society as expressed through our experiences with parents, playmates, schools, and everyone we meet.

Even the strongest body dysphoria is more understandable to me in this way than as a genetic difference. Otherwise we'd have to explain the differences between nationalities in terms of genetics. Nor is how strongly we feel about our orientation, desires, sexuality or any other aspect of ourselves an indication of whether that feeling corresponds to or is based on genetic difference. If that were the case then there would be genetic differences between Catholics and Muslims, Serbs and Croats, Texans and Californians.

And of course and always, YMMV.

[Anita]

Nor is how strongly we feel about our orientation, desires, sexuality or any other aspect of ourselves an indication of whether that feeling corresponds to or is based on genetic difference. If that were the case then there would be genetic differences between Catholics and Muslims, Serbs and Croats, Texans and Californians.

I'm going to turn it back around. The reptilian brain feels strongly about whatever it has chosen. The "not us" feeling begins ticking right away. Certainly people can start to make difference choices--i.e., I can decide at age 6 that even though I'm living in County Cork, I'm not really Catholic. However, the same fanaticism / big baby tantrum feelings will attach to my new choice, whether it be Protestant, Satanism, or atheism, because I'm programmed to think that my choices are vital to my survival.

I can dress up those choices in all kinds of intellectual arguments for and against, but the main program is that I survive, and that my children and immediate family survives. So it's not important whether I'm a Texan or a Californian, so much as it is that I have some secure platform underneath me that will ensure my food, shelter, and mates. Then I find the reasons why that choice is superior, and fight to defend it at all costs. If I can justify it with religious reasons, that makes it even more urgent.

This is an extreme picture. I'm playing devil's advocate here.

[Anthony Simon]

But it leaves unanswered my basic question: does our thinking follow our societal structure, or is our societal structure a product of our brains structure?

This is too big a question for me, at least in general terms. So that's probably why I didn't answer it. All I can do is give my sort-of answer for where we are now.

In de Tocqueville, democratic society demands the individual conforms in her thinking. If you don't and open your mouth it gives you the big-baby tantrums until you do. The exception to this is foreigners and experience. An outsider might be able to say something - or if something fundamental goes wrong, then society might want to look for new ideas to solve the problem.

There is thus sometimes a possibility of people's thinking changing society's structure. Otherwise you're going to be expected to accept the received wisdom about society as "wisdom".

My sense of it in the UK is that people see no way that this country is going to get out of the economic hole it's in. On some fundamental level they think the system, as it stands, cannot compete properly in the world. So the potential exists for change (in de Tocqueville's terms).

My instincts say there's an underlying identity between the position in the UK and that elsewhere in the West (FWIW).

[Noeleena]

Hi,

my theme is

........About acceptance,............

Being different yet is that really the case, okay im weird so . dont we all have gifts are there not atributes about us that make us different in many aspects of who we are, are we all ment to be the same . robots yes sir no sir three bags full ...SIR... western socity has not got it right yet who are the ones that say yes sir as youll see i left the = no sir = out this time because we are not robots we every one of us even twins are individuale,

i dont conform to a set standard of i have to be a particular way or dress in a way that says we all have to dress in the socalled socity way, like China male & female all wore the same type of clothes same colour & so on conform to dress & the mind set , ill say did theres been a few changes ,

So because my hormones are different am i any the less or i should be down graded because some other boffn thinks im useless because im not like him. useless at school ,oh yes till the last year, all ways last in every class oh well i am useless in his eyes, yeap weird,

Yet did he get to know me first , well why the hell should he till he finds out i can do things he cant, oh...oh .... cant have that now can we, eh , old chap. , then one day he really does need my help ,& he gave me a right bollicing in front of some 10 women how embarrised i was, & i told Jos i dont wont to go back when he's there at our meetings some of the women stepped in between him & me so i was keeped safe, & he was told to step away & go cool off,

Later on another day a few months later on.

right, will i give in or tell him to bugger of, & dont come back or maybe give him a chance ,,okay ill help. well the end is he now looks up to me he's realised i am worth more than just being a bloody usless idiot, & i can do things so maybe when others see beyound the outer im different , look different im more than worth knowing & as a friend ,

I know many people & its not a few 100 its you get the idear, & there are some who are weird , oh are they , really,

Well i must be as well to have them as friends so there you go. they are not weired just different, & they can be accepted as well. ....Gee did i tell you about those clothes they were ......wearing..... you get the idear,

...noeleena...