While cognitive dissonance certainly is a problem, as people don't like to hear what they don't like to hear, if you keep digging to the lowest of the underlying layers, the problem is that people have lost touch with the realities of their natural habitat. This has been facilitated by urbanization, globalization, technologies, overall departure from nature and real reality toward increasingly abstract structures, such as financial economics and today the virtual world (you could argue that most people, especially W.E.I.R.D.O.S., live most of their lives in the virtual world through their phones.
If you go back, say, 100 or even 50 years ago, people cultivated land, produced their own food, largely consumed stuff from the place where they lived. Life was largely local and people could see first hand what they could afford - in terms of the real stuff. How many children they could afford to have. Etc.
That connection has been lost. Not only masses of people have moved to urban areas where they see shit, but abstract structures have been established that further obscure reality. The only measure of resource availability is money. That's ridiculous given that money has no intrinsic value and is grossly manipulated by bankers. In other words, people have lost touch with their natural habitat - nature. Their natural habitat is the fucking mobile phone now. Or TV. Or computer screen.
Within that realm, cognitive dissonance sure is a problem, but the above is the underlying issue. I'd to venture say that a person living off of a patch of land, some woods, keeping animals, so on so forth, would have too much of a problem with cognitive dissonance because he'd know that if they consume too much of what they harvest, there won't be enough to plant the next season. Ditto everything else.
Cognitive dissonance is a disease of the sick W.E.I.R.D. mind, detached from reality.
From all of the available solutions and things that can and should be done to 'save humanity', going local is the most important. Sure, the human mind plays tricks on us and makes us adopt decisions that keep us from experiencing unpleasant sentiments, but people are not that effing stupid and they won't do things detrimental to them if they seem in plain view.
Gotta go from global => local and from abstract => real.
First in a new series from Local Futures. A bunch of recordings from their Planet Local Voices festival in 2023. Sounds like it might be up your street.
SO much in there. I'm glad Sarah referenced going "full Buddhist", as both the self / reality as a window section, and the embodied stuff was almost like a modern Buddhism podcast. So interesting how modern neuroscience is providing new perspectives on these insights that the philosophy was articulating 2500 years ago.
AND the section about the limited value of debate. I've long suspected that the same is true of the TED / TEDx style short-form lectures. They allow people to feel smart, and informed, and active - but actually achieve very little. Or worse, allow us to feel like we're engaged in change, when actually the energy is just diffused into thin air.
I also loved the slowing down / doing less / lying down as a response to the challanges we face. And what I came here to write is that I would love you to invite Tricia Hersey on to talk about the Nap Ministary and her book Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto. She is a black liberation theologian who is spreading the word of rest as a conscious and deliberate rejection of capitalism and white supremacy and calling out the traps the current system lays for all of us in the ways we are conditioned to operate within the current system. Her focus and priority is black liberation, and obviously one would need to tiptoe into the territory with due acknowledgement of the risk and history of appropriation, but I think the whole idea of Rest as Resistance is so relevant in the broadest terms to resisting the current extractive planet eating system I would love to hear you two chat.
"Rest as rejection of capitalism" or anything along those lines like hugging trees, meditating, living off the energy in the ether are delusional hallucinations stemming from the fact that in the hyper-luxurious civilization of ours people have to do pretty much FUCK ALL to live a highly comfortable life with running water, heat, food, stuff, everything provided at a minimum effort, especially physical work. All courtesy of fossil fuels (regardless of whether they are fossil or not). For the stuff people produce by sitting in an office chair is nowhere near what they'd have to produce did they not have the boost provided by energy-rich resources, and therefrom stemming technologies.
Instead of resting, people should shovel some manure, make firewood, build something, etcetera. That might make them understand what's going on, where vital stuff comes from.
Black liberation or white supremacy is pure phantasmagoria, an abstract construct of mammoth dimensions.
Have injustices happen in the past? Damn yes! Can we go back and unring the bell? Hardly. Show must go on. Better let wounds heal than reopen them and put salt in them on top of it.
People need to focus on two things - a) resisting divide and rule tactics & joining forces in resisting efforts by the 'elites' to subjugate and parasite on them and b) restructuring civilization so as to be sustainable as opposed to pillaging resources.
The key factor that needs to be kept in mind is that whatever is done must be embraced by the mainstream, the common folk many of whom are, say, kinda simple. For instance, we have a bar frequented by quite a few people, but I don't think there's anyone who has the first clue as to what cognitive dissonance is, would be willing to have it explained, and would act on thus newly acquired knowledge.
I suspect we agree on some things, and definately don't agree on others. Obviously it's tempting to get into it all, but sat here as I am in my office chair, I need to apply my thinking and keystrokes to where they're being paid to be. Big up.
I think it's good when people disagree or rather confront one another. That's conducive to fine-tuning your arguments. Sometimes realizing that you're wrong. Sometimes you agree to disagree, which is good too.
With so much atomization in the world, people have to focus on a) finding stuff to agree on and b) not allowing the stuff they don't to prevent them from a). In fact, that's another dichotomy currently at issue - gotta go from fragmented => cohesive.
Rachel, thanks for your body of work. Even if you choose not to share this note you might enjoy my Cognitive Dissonance Experience video collage that heads up my Psychology playlist.
I thought I had posted a comment here yesterday, but it seems not to have stuck so I'll send another.
Among the most interesting aspects of this very interesting podcast was the suggestion that we may at last be moving toward a socio-political reality that corresponds to the psychedelic psychological awareness of the self as a non-autonomous non-cartesian phenomenon. One of the major stumbling blocks in the way of addressing climate change as well as many other problems in the world today is that the standard western notions of both the self and the world are based on ancient metaphysical and eschatological myths of non- or quasi-physical, eternal or otherwise supernatural entities (souls, spirits, platonic Ideas/Ideals, etc) that keep us from seeing and relating to substantive, symbiotic, synergistic reality. It's a pleasure to see two young intelligent people discussing our environmental situation and searching for helpful ways. to address the problems with full awareness of the need to see with new eyes.
Wonderful conversation. So inspiring. I was waiting for you to mention Deliberative democracy! I think deliberative democracy (citizen assemblies, civic lotteries etc) are an obvious candidate for the social infrastructure that you talk about. They creates the social space of change that you talk about. Now as a result of this podcast and the deeper understanding of the neurophilosophical back ground it creates, I see public deliberations as spaces where our sense of self can evolve. They allow consistency to emerge! The stress free reduction of cognitive dissonance! See deliberationgateway.org
If you examine reality, you will see that democracy, in the sense of the majority calling the shots, is just about non-existent in real life. The vast majority of transactions and interactions happen in a spontaneous fashion. In organizations, decisions are made authoritatively by individuals at a higher level of the hierarchy. Democracy, a sacred cow for reasons unknown to me, is practiced mainly in theory in politics, where it's constantly shoved down people's throats to prop up the oligarchic governance system.
What needs to be kept in mind is that democracy is a hierarchical system, where entities at higher levels control people below them. Since the axiom applies that people will opportunistically fuck up any system, no matter how noble its origins might be, wouldn't it be worth it to get rid of hierarchy and governance per se, and advocate for anarchy? That is a system free of hierarchy where people interact on a horizonal level, which in fact is what they naturally do in real life?
Tom Bailey below refers to the limited value of debate which you cover with Sarah. Interesting that our language itself seems to understand this: etymologically "debate" comes from the same root as words such as "batter" and "beat" and when teased out pretty much literally means "to beat down." - 'nuff said.
While cognitive dissonance certainly is a problem, as people don't like to hear what they don't like to hear, if you keep digging to the lowest of the underlying layers, the problem is that people have lost touch with the realities of their natural habitat. This has been facilitated by urbanization, globalization, technologies, overall departure from nature and real reality toward increasingly abstract structures, such as financial economics and today the virtual world (you could argue that most people, especially W.E.I.R.D.O.S., live most of their lives in the virtual world through their phones.
If you go back, say, 100 or even 50 years ago, people cultivated land, produced their own food, largely consumed stuff from the place where they lived. Life was largely local and people could see first hand what they could afford - in terms of the real stuff. How many children they could afford to have. Etc.
That connection has been lost. Not only masses of people have moved to urban areas where they see shit, but abstract structures have been established that further obscure reality. The only measure of resource availability is money. That's ridiculous given that money has no intrinsic value and is grossly manipulated by bankers. In other words, people have lost touch with their natural habitat - nature. Their natural habitat is the fucking mobile phone now. Or TV. Or computer screen.
Within that realm, cognitive dissonance sure is a problem, but the above is the underlying issue. I'd to venture say that a person living off of a patch of land, some woods, keeping animals, so on so forth, would have too much of a problem with cognitive dissonance because he'd know that if they consume too much of what they harvest, there won't be enough to plant the next season. Ditto everything else.
Cognitive dissonance is a disease of the sick W.E.I.R.D. mind, detached from reality.
From all of the available solutions and things that can and should be done to 'save humanity', going local is the most important. Sure, the human mind plays tricks on us and makes us adopt decisions that keep us from experiencing unpleasant sentiments, but people are not that effing stupid and they won't do things detrimental to them if they seem in plain view.
Gotta go from global => local and from abstract => real.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/local-futures-podcast/id754918890?i=1000643377255
First in a new series from Local Futures. A bunch of recordings from their Planet Local Voices festival in 2023. Sounds like it might be up your street.
Really enjoyed this episode thankyou.
SO much in there. I'm glad Sarah referenced going "full Buddhist", as both the self / reality as a window section, and the embodied stuff was almost like a modern Buddhism podcast. So interesting how modern neuroscience is providing new perspectives on these insights that the philosophy was articulating 2500 years ago.
AND the section about the limited value of debate. I've long suspected that the same is true of the TED / TEDx style short-form lectures. They allow people to feel smart, and informed, and active - but actually achieve very little. Or worse, allow us to feel like we're engaged in change, when actually the energy is just diffused into thin air.
I also loved the slowing down / doing less / lying down as a response to the challanges we face. And what I came here to write is that I would love you to invite Tricia Hersey on to talk about the Nap Ministary and her book Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto. She is a black liberation theologian who is spreading the word of rest as a conscious and deliberate rejection of capitalism and white supremacy and calling out the traps the current system lays for all of us in the ways we are conditioned to operate within the current system. Her focus and priority is black liberation, and obviously one would need to tiptoe into the territory with due acknowledgement of the risk and history of appropriation, but I think the whole idea of Rest as Resistance is so relevant in the broadest terms to resisting the current extractive planet eating system I would love to hear you two chat.
"Rest as rejection of capitalism" or anything along those lines like hugging trees, meditating, living off the energy in the ether are delusional hallucinations stemming from the fact that in the hyper-luxurious civilization of ours people have to do pretty much FUCK ALL to live a highly comfortable life with running water, heat, food, stuff, everything provided at a minimum effort, especially physical work. All courtesy of fossil fuels (regardless of whether they are fossil or not). For the stuff people produce by sitting in an office chair is nowhere near what they'd have to produce did they not have the boost provided by energy-rich resources, and therefrom stemming technologies.
Instead of resting, people should shovel some manure, make firewood, build something, etcetera. That might make them understand what's going on, where vital stuff comes from.
Black liberation or white supremacy is pure phantasmagoria, an abstract construct of mammoth dimensions.
Have injustices happen in the past? Damn yes! Can we go back and unring the bell? Hardly. Show must go on. Better let wounds heal than reopen them and put salt in them on top of it.
People need to focus on two things - a) resisting divide and rule tactics & joining forces in resisting efforts by the 'elites' to subjugate and parasite on them and b) restructuring civilization so as to be sustainable as opposed to pillaging resources.
The key factor that needs to be kept in mind is that whatever is done must be embraced by the mainstream, the common folk many of whom are, say, kinda simple. For instance, we have a bar frequented by quite a few people, but I don't think there's anyone who has the first clue as to what cognitive dissonance is, would be willing to have it explained, and would act on thus newly acquired knowledge.
There's so much in here Paul.
I suspect we agree on some things, and definately don't agree on others. Obviously it's tempting to get into it all, but sat here as I am in my office chair, I need to apply my thinking and keystrokes to where they're being paid to be. Big up.
I think it's good when people disagree or rather confront one another. That's conducive to fine-tuning your arguments. Sometimes realizing that you're wrong. Sometimes you agree to disagree, which is good too.
With so much atomization in the world, people have to focus on a) finding stuff to agree on and b) not allowing the stuff they don't to prevent them from a). In fact, that's another dichotomy currently at issue - gotta go from fragmented => cohesive.
Rachel, thanks for your body of work. Even if you choose not to share this note you might enjoy my Cognitive Dissonance Experience video collage that heads up my Psychology playlist.
I thought I had posted a comment here yesterday, but it seems not to have stuck so I'll send another.
Among the most interesting aspects of this very interesting podcast was the suggestion that we may at last be moving toward a socio-political reality that corresponds to the psychedelic psychological awareness of the self as a non-autonomous non-cartesian phenomenon. One of the major stumbling blocks in the way of addressing climate change as well as many other problems in the world today is that the standard western notions of both the self and the world are based on ancient metaphysical and eschatological myths of non- or quasi-physical, eternal or otherwise supernatural entities (souls, spirits, platonic Ideas/Ideals, etc) that keep us from seeing and relating to substantive, symbiotic, synergistic reality. It's a pleasure to see two young intelligent people discussing our environmental situation and searching for helpful ways. to address the problems with full awareness of the need to see with new eyes.
Wonderful conversation. So inspiring. I was waiting for you to mention Deliberative democracy! I think deliberative democracy (citizen assemblies, civic lotteries etc) are an obvious candidate for the social infrastructure that you talk about. They creates the social space of change that you talk about. Now as a result of this podcast and the deeper understanding of the neurophilosophical back ground it creates, I see public deliberations as spaces where our sense of self can evolve. They allow consistency to emerge! The stress free reduction of cognitive dissonance! See deliberationgateway.org
If you examine reality, you will see that democracy, in the sense of the majority calling the shots, is just about non-existent in real life. The vast majority of transactions and interactions happen in a spontaneous fashion. In organizations, decisions are made authoritatively by individuals at a higher level of the hierarchy. Democracy, a sacred cow for reasons unknown to me, is practiced mainly in theory in politics, where it's constantly shoved down people's throats to prop up the oligarchic governance system.
What needs to be kept in mind is that democracy is a hierarchical system, where entities at higher levels control people below them. Since the axiom applies that people will opportunistically fuck up any system, no matter how noble its origins might be, wouldn't it be worth it to get rid of hierarchy and governance per se, and advocate for anarchy? That is a system free of hierarchy where people interact on a horizonal level, which in fact is what they naturally do in real life?
Tom Bailey below refers to the limited value of debate which you cover with Sarah. Interesting that our language itself seems to understand this: etymologically "debate" comes from the same root as words such as "batter" and "beat" and when teased out pretty much literally means "to beat down." - 'nuff said.
Another powerful, insightful episode. Well done Rachel and Sarah
Ah, "neurophilosophy". I've been looking for a word like this. Many thanks.