The last two years have reminded me and no doubt many others, of how easily people will 'fall into line' and support an official narrative, largely without question.
And that includes highly intelligent and well educated people and I am not saying intelligence and education necessarily go together for they do not. Someone with a string of PhD's may not be particularly intelligent and someone who left school at 12 may be exceptionally intelligent.
However, we tend to think that a good education and/or intelligence will make people more curious, more sceptical, more questioning but that is also not a given it seems.
The desire to 'run with the herd' without asking questions is no doubt hardwired into our primitive 'reptilian' human brain because it was, for aeons a matter of survival that we remained a part of the tribe, the group, the clan given the difficulties if not impossibilities of surviving alone. The age of individualism, in which we live and which is barely a century old, does not take account of human biological, physiological and psychological realities and that is why so much can go so wrong, so easily. And it does, consistently.
The best laid plans of mice and men - did not arise in a vacuum.
Whether it is the success of bullying in getting people to comply to fascistic regulations and medical treatments in the name of Covid, or the desire so many seem to have in regard to the Russia/Ukraine war to be a matter of good versus evil or bad guy/good guy in absolute terms, there is no doubt that we humans can be herded into compliance and complacency very easily.
Covid was never a threat to the vast majority but most people believed that it was because officials told them it was, even though there was a wealth of information to counter what they were being told. Not only did most line up and hold out their arms for the genetic experiment, they had their children line up and hold out their arms for a poorly tested, unapproved and dangerous experiment. Why? Because being 'outside the herd' was just too terrifying. The evidence was there to be easily seen which countered the official narrative but most people dismissed, denied or ignored it. There had to be a Why for the What to my mind.
Ditto for the easily whipped up hatred of Russia for a war which was largely of US/Nato/Ukraine's making. Of course Russia is to be condemned but so are the Americans, Europeans and Ukrainians who acted in ways which made such a war inevitable.
But do people want balance and an understanding of why this is happening? No, most want to hate one side or the other and split it into a very simple issue of right and wrong, good and bad. Why? Because taking sides in such a way projects evil outside of our group, herd, tribe and self.
Why would more people not want to understand why something is happening and ask the questions to find out? Because for thousands of years such a path for most meant alienation and death. Banished, ostracised, shunned are words which litter human experience across millions of years. And this inevitably lead to death. Although even isolation and the lack of connectedness with other humans is a trauma few can bear. We are hardwired to connect, to belong to a group, to relate to other humans.
Cultures of all kinds had various ways, means and methods to punish those who challenged the rules of the group and this must be 'written' into our genes in some way, or passed down consciously, unconsciously, emotionally through millennia.
It takes someone very brave or very foolish to challenge such rules. Perhaps it is why in some societies, the fool, halfwit, mentally inadequate member was honoured. The fool could say things and do things which the society would not generally tolerate. The dance of madness could serve a purpose.
Shocking things could be whispered, nay, shouted by the Fool who expressed what others dare not say.
And yet without questions, without some brave, mad fool asking questions humanity would not have evolved and the scientific system of enquiry would never have appeared. The 'rules' could be broken a little in the arts, in music, theatre, painting, writing, but humans learned that when it came to survival it was most important to follow the crowd, remain acceptable to the group and to be obedient and a 'good' citizen.
The adult desires the warm glow which comes from 'being good' as much as the child. Perhaps even more so because few of us believe we are truly good and most would never feel good enough.
It is interesting how often that phrase has been used 'doing the right thing' in regard to participation in the genetic experiment called a vaccine, for Covid. In truth, doing the right, sensible and logical thing would be to refuse the treatment given that it is all risk and no gain as any thorough research of both Covid and the Jabs easily reveals.
But what people really mean when they say 'doing the right thing' is doing that which will gain approval from the group, the herd, the society, i.e. doing that which will allow you to be retained within the society and not banished into the borderlands where your survival is unlikely.
Look how easily some have turned against the Unjabbed as if they had committed some terrible evil, instead of simply refusing to participate in a genetic experiment which provided no gain.
And look how easy it has been to get most people to jump on the Evil Russia/Saintly Ukraine bandwagon?
So, for many people, thinking is just too dangerous and questions are not worth the risk they carry. Survival is all that matters, even if it kills you literally. Rejection or banishment from the group is the greatest fear of all. To be thrown out of the 'cave' into the darkness alone, is as terrifying to a human mind today as it was a million years ago. Not all human minds, but many, probably most.
It is this disconnect between what we may wish, what we may choose to believe, and our very human natures which creates so many problems and destroys some very good ideas with noble goals, like religion, democracy and the scientific system of enquiry. We ignore our nature at our peril. It is our unconscious nature, that which has been learned over millions of years, which will triumph over any conscious belief.
This is why truly excellent ideas end up shattered at the feet of history. No more than dangerous shards of what they might have been. The great divide between what we think or believe and what we are hardwired to feel, think and believe can and does consume anything, including the greatest and potentially most noble concepts.
Take liberal democracy for instance. A great idea in concept but almost doomed to fail like the rest because human nature will decide the outcome far more powerfully than any belief. As it is, the war in Ukraine exists because the United States believes, at least during the time of a unipolar world, that it has the right and the power to impose liberal democracy on any country in the world.
Who would not support such a ‘good’ cause? Probably anyone who understands human nature, global dynamics, social and political realities and common sense.
There is the idea and there is the reality and unless the two can walk together, there will be failure and often terrible, ghastly, deadly, shocking failure.
I read a book many years ago about the difference between transformation and reformation which made the point that Reformers often create more harm than any intended good because they demand that their beliefs, ideas, concepts be projected and imposed on the individual regardless, all the while demanding a perfect expression of their concept.
While Transformers, work with individuals to bring as much ‘good’ as possible out of their human realities accepting imperfection and understanding that each person is uniquely different and will transform in their own way.
But, the key factor at work with humans is that we are social animals and that need will always speak with a louder voice than any system of belief. Particularly when we have consigned that reality to the darkness where it drip-feeds on ignorance and fear.
Know Thyself was carved into the sign over the gate which led to the Eleusinian Mysteries in ancient Greece and those two words hold the key to being the best that we can be as individuals or as members of any group.
Without the courage to ask questions we can know nothing, least of all ourselves.
