Yes, Virginia, There Are Fnords
I was told by someone who considered the alternative system of mathematics that I developed that he suspects that I suffer from the same delusion that John Nash suffered from. I considered that the second greatest compliment of my life, second only being asked if I am a fairy by a little girl in a supermarket one day. I am sure that had I shared the piece below with him, the suspicions of the person who considers my delusions downright John Nashian would have been confirmed as far as he is concerned.
P.S. Nash was dead-on right and had he had gematria at his disposal, he could have proven it. But I digress. Here is the piece:
Fnords, like all theoretical matters, are inferred to exist, though we have not yet proven their existence, by observing the effects they have on that which we can perceive and empirically determine.
Observing Western culture and the behavior of people in Western societies, we may be far more certain that fnords are being utilized to control thought, emotion and behavior than we may be certain that dark matter exists. Observing Western culture and the behavior of those who live in Western societies, we may be fairly certain that fnords are being employed by very deft hands. They most certainly are imbedded in the messages we are getting from the media. We, in repeating the "lines" from the movies, TV shows and popular songs that strike a chord in us and that seem "cool" or otherwise arouse us to emulation, reinforce those messages. The fnords have been crafted such that they impact on our psyche and become ever-repeated household words. The work of reinforcement by repetition and habituation is carried on as a matter of course. We become the unwitting agents of our brainwashing. The fnord craftspeople are, then, doing a chillingly good job of influencing behavior, thought and emotion.
Not only have the fnord weavers exploited the normal Human needs for love, acceptance, shelter, belongingness and justification by making us feel that we must join one of the state-sanctioned types; they also exploited and reinforced our natural xenophobia when we encounter those outside of our group.
When we encounter the rare, indefinable, personality we have been taught to go into panic mode. The few who managed not to be pigeon-holed are perceived as raptors.
The xenophobia has been exploited and reinforced by making people totally blind to their own xenophobia. They can see it clearly enough in others. Yet, each is absolutely sure that he or she is an open-minded, accepting person, even while they revile those outside their group.
Those who think that they are living various "alternative" lifestyles and/or belong to "subcultures" may rest assured that they too belong to state-sanctioned types. States are served well, very well indeed, by people who are living any lifestyle that so obsesses them that the matter of bettering society is of no great concern to them because all of their energies are channeled into their "lifestyle".
All of the state-sanctioned lifestyles require the purchase of dress and paraphernalia typical to the group. Additionally, the indoctrinating education every group requires costs money as well. Schools, books, seminars, etc., keep the cash registers clinking. This is true of the Fundamentalist, straight-arrow members of conservative, conventional groups; members of non-mainstream, but accepted religions; those who partake in alternative lifestyles and religions, such as Wicca; and those who belong to the furthest out subcultures, such as BDSM, which I have been considering of late because I've suspected for some time that is a state-sanctioned group.
The members of all of all of the state-sanctioned groups Interpret the expression of original ideas negatively and have been programmed to react to such pronouncements viscerally. They all lack the inability to grant credence to the expression of a viewpoint that does not belong to one of the state-sanctioned groups. In other words, the members of each of the groups have been taught to accept only the pronouncements of each of the other groups as valid expressions of diversity. They have been taught to interpret any self-expressing that is not one of the accepted expressions of the other state-sanctioned groups as anti-diversity and otherwise threatening.
They have been rendered incapable of recognition of altruistic motivation for what it is and have been taught to perceive it cynically at best, as a threat at worst. Upon hearing expressions of altruism they go into extreme self-defense mode.
Each of the state-sanctioned groups has been taught to tolerate only the existence of the others. They thus lend support to one another, despite the fact that they may think they are diametrically opposed in their views to some other groups. Only upon the hearing of the standard buzz words, cliche×™s and canards are they aroused to the thought of "live and let live".
(During the course of writing this paper I have been reminded of some models from the behavior of birds that I learned along the way. I know very little about ornithology and would not presume to arrive at even a tentative conclusion that ornithology has provided a basis for our own brainwashing. I hope that someone more knowledgeable than I in this matter would be interested in pursuing this possibility.)
_______________________________________________________
Not in the least bit surprisingly, in fact right on cue, someone responded that I was being "insulting", "arrogant" and "judgemental" in writing this piece.
I responded:
"Insulting". "Arrogant". "Judgemental."
BIG fnords.
How many times have you heard those words in the last month?
Compare that to the number of times you have heard words like: "wisdom", "modesty", "integrity".
When do you hear those words being used by others?
What arouses you to employ those term?
Why did you think I was exempting myself?
Why were you so sure that you knew my motivations and intentions?
Can you put your finger on what tripped your emotional wires?
I'm not defending myself. What I'm doing goes much deeper than that.
I'm trying to get people to see how they are "set off" and to be able to take a step back from the process and observe it objectively.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com
