Posted on 05/20/2012 5:49:12 AM PDT by knarf
I think when we express a desire to be in, or go back to, simpler days, we're really wanting less thought.
A scene in Ben Hur when an incoming Centurian (to rule Judea) is conversing with the outgoing one and the statement is made by the outgoing Centurian that for the most part, Judea was easy to govern and rule, but that these Hebrews had this damnable idea about having only one God ... and how do you deal with an idea?
Later on in the movie, an event happens that allows the incoming Centurian to refer back to that remark and state,
"You once asked how do you deal with an idea ... I will show youo ... with another idea"
I'm trying to get off the computer and get ready for church and it occurs to me that we are bombarded with ideas.
Ideas that require at least the mental time to consider it's validity and even argue the point.
I have a Norman Rockwell calendar I stare at when at my desk, and this month is a scene of a gran'pa, a boy and a dog all going fishing and the scene is so ... yesteryear.
As all of Rockwell's are.
And yesteryear, to my 64 year old mind wasn't so bad.
I didn't really have a lot to think about.
The future would happen, I hoped to get a girlfriend, a job, money, a car.
To me, all of that may have taken time of my mind, but they were not perplexing and devastating thoughts ... they were just ... life.
I just got through glancing through an article posted here in FR about Raul Casto's daughter is coming to San Francisco to speak about accepting queers or some such notion and .. bingo! .. it hit me.
I (we) am/are being flooded with ideas that require me to determine if I am mad and out of touch, or the world is.
I find myself shaking my head and too often these days, attempt to comment on an article like that and find myself in a mobius loop of logic trying to show how insane that particular thought is.
I aften quit, erase the reply and go on reading in other areas of FR.
Oh, for the good ol' days, when life was easier ... even war.
We get newspapers posted here from an archive that daily tells us how the war is going and from what I can tell, most of America was patriotic and behind our war effort and no matter the outcome of a battle, we were in it for the duration, and our troops came home to honor, glory, respect, and a job.
I don't think my mind can continue rationally contemplating a queer muslim illegal alien bastard as the president and all the confusion that entity is frascilitating.
I think I'll think my thoughts away, I think I've thought enough.
When most people believed and thought the same there was little necessity to have to think and question about every little pinnickitty thing!
Mel
Yeah, that was what I was trying to say ... I get tired trying to actually write the words that my mind thinks.
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
"When Julian Jaynes...speculates that until late in the second millennium B.C. men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis through all the corroborative evidence..."
- John Updike, in The New Yorker
"This book and this man's ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century. It renders whole shelves of books obsolete."
- William Harrington, in Columbus Dispatch
"Having just finished The Origin of Consciousness, I myself feel something like Keats' Cortez staring at the Pacific, or at least like the early reviewers of Darwin or Freud. I'm not quite sure what to make of this new territory; but its expanse lies before me and I am startled by its power."
- Edward Profitt, in Commonweal
"He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior." - Raymond Headlee, in American Journal of Psychiatry "The bold hypothesis of the bicameral mind is an intellectual shock to the reader, but whether or not he ultimately accepts it he is forced to entertain it as a possibility. Even if he marshals arguments against it he has to think about matters he has never thought of before, or, if he has thought of them, he must think about them in contexts and relationships that are strikingly new."
- Ernest R. Hilgard, Professor of Psychology, Stanford University
"The weight of original thought in it is so great that it makes me uneasy for the author's well-being: the human mind is not built to support such a burden."
- D.C. Stove, in Encounter
Yikes .. Sunday morning, 9am ;-)
I thought I had invented the thesis of "all thought processes are polarized"
There is no up, without down (to compare/contrast)
no in, without .. out
no black without white
hot and cold
good and bad
etc.
MY thought was, we develope grey areas so we can sanely function in a world that is aware of absolutes, but cannot operate within an absolute.
Me Thinks, Me Likes this thread.....
Matthew 6:27
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
God Bless ya for doing so - I drive myself nutz on a regular basis!
There used to be social norms that bonded society together and those who didn’t like them were a minority and kept it to themselves. Today, being in the minority seems to mean you should have even more rights.
My great grandmother talked about WWII and the fact that people plowed up their front yards to plant victory gardens because they wanted everyone to know that they supported the troops. If you didn’t plant a victory garden, you were likely ostracized by your neighbors.
Me Thinks, Me Likes this thread.....
Maybe throw in some indians and French-canadian marauders for a little excitement every now and then.
In 1981 I accepted Jesus' invitation to give Him my burden and heavy leadening ... and was born again.
(all of this thinking and thought processing is a great part of that burden)
Christianity's simplicity as another baffeling subject for those that refuse Him.
Those societal norms have been re-branded by the use of words that obfuscate their true meaning - people sound like they are talking about the same things as us but they are not and they use words to hide their true meaning i.e. tolerance to the left is believing what they believe it does not mean tolerance as we know it. Most people believe being intolerant is a bad thing so they feel under the weight of the word to be tolerant as it has been redefined.
Clever/evil b#stards some of those lefties.
Mel
When my brain needs to go into neutral, I watch classic tv shows from the 50’s & 60’s....I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, Dick Van Dyke, Perry Mason
Jaynes's guess at 3000 y/a is way short though.
imo. I'll think about it.
It was the early eighties for me too - I still find it amazing that I struggle with Jesus to rip those burdens back off of him and put them on my own shoulders!
Mel
We get newspapers posted here from an archive that daily tells us how the war is going and from what I can tell, most of America was patriotic and behind our war effort and no matter the outcome of a battle, we were in it for the duration, and our troops came home to honor, glory, respect, and a job.
I am the same age as you and graduated from college in 1969 and then entered the Marine Corps. I remember the hippies and war protestors and the Sexual Revolution. It was a time of discontent and upheaval and a rejection of the culture of the 50's. This was the beginning of the Marxist takeover of education, mass media and government that is bearing it's poisonous fruit today. I long ago gave up my faith in men, who only pursue power, pleasure and possessions. I put my faith in the Lord and eagerly await His return.
Look at the communist goals of 1963. The majority of them are about breaking down societal norms.
1) US acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2) US willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3) Develop the illusion that total disarmament by the US would be a demonstration of “moral strength.”
4) Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5) Extension of long term loans to Russia and Soviet Satellites.
6) Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7) Grant recognition of Red China, and admission of Red China to the UN.
8) Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the Germany question by free elections under supervision of the UN.
9) Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the US has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10) Allow all Soviet Satellites individual representation in the UN.
11) Promote the UN as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the UN as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo).
12) Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13) Do away with loyalty oaths.
14) Continue giving Russia access to the US Patent Office.
15) Capture one or both of the political parties in the US.
16) Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions, by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17) Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for Socialism, and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers associations. Put the party line in text books.
18) Gain control of all student newspapers.
19) Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20) Infiltrate the press. Get control of book review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.
21) Gain control of key positions in radio, TV & motion pictures.
22) Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings,” substitute shapeless, awkward, and meaningless forms.
23) Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24) Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25) Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography, and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.
26) Present homosexuality, degeneracy, and promiscuity as “normal, natural, and healthy.”
27) Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28) Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
29) Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30) Discredit the American founding fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man”.
31) Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of “the big picture”: Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32) Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture - - education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33) Eliminate all laws or procedures, which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34) Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35) Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36) Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37) Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38) Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand or treat.
39) Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40) Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41) Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42) Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special interest groups should rise up and make a “united force” to solve economic, political, or social problems.
43) Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44) Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45) Repeal the Connally Reservation so the US can not prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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