Changing Nonsense - Quareness Series (49th "Lecture").
We seem to be programmed to believe in a culture of denial and the educational variable does not appear to negate the fantasy. It's said that few PhDs are ever received by those who would question the system of granting those PhDs. And does not the law of indoctrination specify our illogical behaviour of believing in everything while never daring to enquire into the reasoning for the belief?
The quandary here lies in the nature of truth in this insane asylum where we reside and that in itself poses a paradox - how can we decide what is true or not for the residents who have no idea that they are interned?
Question: Where did you get such an insane outrageous idea?
Answer: It just occurred to me one day that something wasn't right.
Question: It's a well known fact for God's sake, what's wrong with it?
Answer: Well after some observation and a little research it just didn't seem logical.
Question: Have you some sort of scientific qualifications?
Answer: No.
Statement: So you think you know how these things work just because you think (based on your own observations) that it's not logical. Don't you know that when the greatest thinkers of our society have come to a conclusion and most people believe it to be true, for you to come along and say it is not so makes you look idiotic or insane.
Response: But I’m telling you the world is round, not flat like they claim. Just think about it logically.
Retort: We’ve already thought about it and from what we are able to observe, the world looks flat. And when we travel we do not see anything that would lead us to believe otherwise. Whatever proof you think you have is obviously contrived to bring attention to yourself and this insane idea.
Reply: But what you think doesn't make sense because your reasoning is based on a false premise. Even though what you’ve reasoned out may make perfect sense to you, if the premise is wrong your outcome is wrong no matter how flawlessly you’ve come to that conclusion.
Statement: We have recognised that the world is flat for hundreds of years now and you want to tell us that our great scientists and philosophers and thinkers have all been wrong?
Response: But if you do not at least consider what I am trying to share here you could be missing out on the greatest new discovery of our time, one that could change the way we see the world and even the way we see ourselves.
Angry Retort: Stop this nonsense or I will be forced to call the authorities.
Response: Please listen....I have heard of other cultures and people who also believe that the world is round....they've believed it for centuries.
Angry Reply: Those people are just as insane as you are....only the completely daft would believe anything so ludicrous as a round earth. Such madness must be stopped.
Response: So anything that goes against popular belief must be destroyed and anyone who says something other than what the masses believe is a silly idiot. But you are blind and want to see only what confirms your beliefs or what the masses tell you to believe, refusing to even consider other ideas and possibilities. And this is why we will never advance as quickly as our potential allows.
Reply: What most of us today believe is what is right and true. Anything to the contrary simply cannot be right....that's all there is to it. And since you cannot prove your idea and we have more than proven our beliefs, it's best that you be silent and leave such silly musings alone. Let the great thinkers of our time (who are far more qualified than yourself) do the work of understanding the universe. What more proof do you need than the fact that the majority are able to see and to agree with what they have assessed? After all mass reasoning is definitive proof that we must be right....that the world is flat....everyone has pondered this based on our great thinkers’ ideas....it's the factual truth of the matter and anyone who disagrees is simply not worth listening to.
Response: So I'm not worth listening to because I do not have credentials and because everyone else believes otherwise....a sad state of affairs made even sadder by the fact that I won’t live long enough for my ideas and observations to be realised.
Reply: Since your observations are obviously the mad ramblings of someone who knows nothing about the world, there will be nothing to realise. Take my advice and get back to your work....and never speak of this again.
- A strong echo of more modern debates using arguments such as "the science is settled"?
"There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible, and wrong." - Henry Louis Mencken.
"The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety." - Henry Louis Mencken.
“When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental - men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost. All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre - the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - Henry Louis Mencken (American Satirist).
"Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of everyday routine - the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone’s death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot"......from Alan Moore's "V for Vendetta".
"It does not do to rely too much on silent majorities....for silence is a fragile thing....one loud noise and it's gone. But the people are so cowed and disorganised. A few might take the opportunity to protest, but it'll just be a voice crying in the wilderness. Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap. Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations....and it is much much louder than they care to remember." - Alan Moore.
"Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wards, towards the slaughterhouse." - Alan Moore.
"You're afraid because you can feel freedom closing in on you. You're afraid because freedom is terrifying. Don't back away from it. Part of you understands the truth even as part of you pretends not to. You were in a cell....they offered you a choice between the death of your principles and the death of your body....you said you'd rather die....you faced the fear of your own death and you were calm and still. The door of the cage is open....all that you feel is the wind from outside." - Alan Moore.
"Who imprisoned me here? Who keeps me here? Who can release me? Who's controlling and constraining my life except....me?" - Alan Moore.
"You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it." - Alan Moore.
"Equality and freedom are not luxuries to lightly cast aside. Without them, order cannot long endure before approaching depths beyond imagining." - Alan Moore.
"Anarchy means 'without leaders', not 'without order'. With anarchy comes an age of true order, which is to say voluntary order." - Alan Moore.
"Artists use lies to tell the truth." - Alan Moore.
"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." - Albert Einstein.
"The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind." - Albert Einstein.
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein.
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein.
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." - Albert Einstein.
"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." - Albert Einstein.
"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." - Jesus Christ.
And the times they are a-changing.
Sean.
Dean of Quareness.
December, 2014.