(Conditioned) Human Nature within the Insane Asylum
By
Cognitive Dissonance
You will always find original articles by Cognitive Dissonance and other authors first onwww.TwoIceFloes.com before they are posted here on ZH. If you wish to subscribe to ‘Dispatches’, a periodic newsletter from Cognitive Dissonance and TwoIceFloes Creations, please click here.
I wish I had a silver dollar for every time I’ve heard the phrase “It is human nature……” or some such derivative or derivation. Alan Greenspan recently popped to the surface of his personal cesspool to proclaim it is human nature to create financial bubbles, thus absolving himself of any blame for a runaway fiat candy machine. His exact words were “Bubbles are functions of unchangeable human nature.”
I will stifle the urge to flush Greenspan back down the commode where he belongs and instead focus upon the mistaken belief we can actually determine exactly what is ‘human nature’ after hundreds if not thousands of years of social conditioning and manipulation.
Our fragile egos, both personally and as a collective, have a difficult enough time accepting “We the People” are effectively influenced by ‘popular culture’, let alone that we would seriously entertain the idea we are thoroughly conditioned humans from birth. But considering we are born the purest of individual humans and spend the rest of our lives attempting to be just like everyone else speaks volumes to the idea we are the sum total not only of our lifelong conditioning, but of multi generational conditioning as well.
Where exactly is the demarcation line between ‘human nature’ and the passively conditioned consumer we have all become to some degree or another? If generation after generation of “We the Consumer” suffer under the influence of cultural, social, institutional, religious and governmental manipulative programming and outright propaganda, how exactly could we ever be fully aware of the sum total of these influences nor what humans would be like if the manipulation were removed or never there in the first place?
Humans are highly adaptive creatures and incredibly ingenious when it comes to modifying our behavior in the face of externally or internally applied pressure and circumstance. ‘Normal’ is a relative term, not some static measurement, and both the body and mind quickly becomes accustomed to the ‘new’ normal when choices appear to be limited and the herd moves to a new grazing field. But this doesn’t mean the results of social pressures and generational conditioning are dictated by human nature or that human nature guides human behavior under these extraordinarily distorted circumstances.
Very interesting read, finish here...
http://bit.ly/XbsJFb
By
Cognitive Dissonance
You will always find original articles by Cognitive Dissonance and other authors first onwww.TwoIceFloes.com before they are posted here on ZH. If you wish to subscribe to ‘Dispatches’, a periodic newsletter from Cognitive Dissonance and TwoIceFloes Creations, please click here.
I wish I had a silver dollar for every time I’ve heard the phrase “It is human nature……” or some such derivative or derivation. Alan Greenspan recently popped to the surface of his personal cesspool to proclaim it is human nature to create financial bubbles, thus absolving himself of any blame for a runaway fiat candy machine. His exact words were “Bubbles are functions of unchangeable human nature.”
I will stifle the urge to flush Greenspan back down the commode where he belongs and instead focus upon the mistaken belief we can actually determine exactly what is ‘human nature’ after hundreds if not thousands of years of social conditioning and manipulation.
Our fragile egos, both personally and as a collective, have a difficult enough time accepting “We the People” are effectively influenced by ‘popular culture’, let alone that we would seriously entertain the idea we are thoroughly conditioned humans from birth. But considering we are born the purest of individual humans and spend the rest of our lives attempting to be just like everyone else speaks volumes to the idea we are the sum total not only of our lifelong conditioning, but of multi generational conditioning as well.
Where exactly is the demarcation line between ‘human nature’ and the passively conditioned consumer we have all become to some degree or another? If generation after generation of “We the Consumer” suffer under the influence of cultural, social, institutional, religious and governmental manipulative programming and outright propaganda, how exactly could we ever be fully aware of the sum total of these influences nor what humans would be like if the manipulation were removed or never there in the first place?
Humans are highly adaptive creatures and incredibly ingenious when it comes to modifying our behavior in the face of externally or internally applied pressure and circumstance. ‘Normal’ is a relative term, not some static measurement, and both the body and mind quickly becomes accustomed to the ‘new’ normal when choices appear to be limited and the herd moves to a new grazing field. But this doesn’t mean the results of social pressures and generational conditioning are dictated by human nature or that human nature guides human behavior under these extraordinarily distorted circumstances.
Very interesting read, finish here...
http://bit.ly/XbsJFb
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