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, clicheés 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.)
Doreen
Ellen Bell-Dotan,