It's All About Perception

In the first installment
of this two-part post, I mentioned that from my perspective I had understood
Kaepernick had a right to protest as an American, but all of that sentiment had
changed through a series of interlocking events. Here is what I mean by the interlocking
events. There is curious coming together of a few topics from current events
that is taking place now.

In America we have the
right to protest, so when Kaepernick started his protest by refusing to honor
the flag and the national anthem during NFL pre-game ceremonies a lot of people
thought it was wrong, and a lot of people thought it was right. That’s America
for you. And no matter what anybody thought, nobody disagreed about the fact
that it was his right to protest like that – it is part of what it means to be
American. It’s about free speech and our inalienable rights as American
citizens.

If
there was one theme that qualified the new politically correct definition of
morality in higher education it was the idea that the new Affirmative Action
professoriate wanted to do away with everything about civilization that white
men had created. If a white man had made it or done it, then they wanted to get
rid of it. They actually became extremely vocal about the premise of doing away
with the white man’s civilization and replacing it.

When a
tree dies, or when we run across decaying wood in a forest, our first reaction
is to think we should remove it. However, the ecology of the forest is such
that saproxylic organisms, including fungi and insects, depend on the dead wood
that naturally generates the dynamics of the forest. The fact is, however, that
there is a real obsession to eliminate it as soon as possible because it seems
dirty and like it will attract pests. The biggest problem associated with dead
wood is that dead wood plays a very important role in forest life.

Enter the concept of
slight autism. We can define slight autism as a state of autistic perception
that is noticeably but not diagnosably autistic. Here is how we can begin to explain
it and understand it.

Psychology studies the
individual, and sociology studies the group. Social psychology studies the
relation between the individual and the group, and for me that’s where all the
action is. I study perception and the subjective organization of meaning ...

In
the mid-twentieth century, a social psychologist by the name of Harold
Garfinkle (1965) wrote an article titled “Conditions of Successful Degradation
Ceremonies.” This became one of those articles – one of those stand-out pieces
that becomes a signpost for a way of looking at the world. Now largely subsumed
under the rubric of Social Identity Theory in psychology, there is a sizeable
literature of twentieth century social psychology that issued forth from peculiarly
sociological camps.

The recent appearance of
Hurricane Matthew prompted some harsh memories of hurricanes past. I went
through Hurricane Andrew. I was living in Ft. Lauderdale with my youngest daughter,
Lydia, and I will never forget going three weeks without electricity. The storm
was bad enough – having two days of wind and rain shaking the walls of your
home was scary, but surviving for three weeks with no electricity was a
life-changing experience.

Imagine
that there is a discovery by one of us humans allowing the full-blown creation
of holographic simulations in which whole lives are born, live, and die – but
all without self-awareness. They have no real meaningful perception of the
world. They simulate sentience, yet they do not really have self-awareness,
they just act and talk like they do, going through the motions with robotic
design perfection - but, it is all cartoon stuff.

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Thanks to Padre for pointing out that there can only be a Dark Triad of sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism because a tetrad implies four.* * * * *