3-Our ancestors

Definition: A better attitude towards our ancestors If we persistently think of people alive today and more specifically experts as superior, more enlightened, more modern, more scientific and so on compared to those poor slobs who came before us, that is an assumption that cuts us off from an enormous amount of known and knowable human experience. It's like shooting ourselves in the foot. Why do that? The urgent matter of death a (1) : preconceived judgment or opinion (2) : an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge b : an instance of such judgment or opinion c : an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics DAN: Talk about prejudice - thinking that others who are different are inferior or even sub-human. It is not socially acceptable nowadays to say such things with regard to many categories of people that in the past were looked down upon. Well our ancestors are one group we are allowed to think of as inferior. In my essay, "Your Sensorium is at the center of meaning," I explained that "if something or someone changes whatever it is that is going-on in your Sensorium up front, the particulars of your Belief about the Truth of the matter at the end of the continuum necessarily change, too." As a result, your Actions will be different. One way "something or someone" can change what is going-on in your Sensorium upfront is by means of conveying an Ideology to you. As I say, it's one way. A 30-second TV commercial is another way. Sticking with the notion of Ideology for the moment, I argue that compared to filtering one's questions and answers through one's Ideology-of-choice, habitually thinking instead - and doing so slowly and carefully - in terms of one's Degrees of Certitude is a better way of going about the business of Solving one's Problems generally. By better I mean more successful in achieving one's goals. As a given Problem is Solved repeatedly in the same fashion as the result of paying Attention to one's own Degrees of Certitude about the Problem - for example, one's fatigue (a Problem) is Solved by sleep (the Solution) - one may properly call the repeated Solution a habit that, among other things, is not slow - it is quick, efficient and effective. It works! If a habitual kind of behavior persists for a long time - even across generations - even hundreds or thousands of generations - it may properly be called a Tradition. Now, at first blush, my using sleep as an example of my Special Term, Tradition, seems odd. Nowadays when we use the ordinary word tradition we think of the traditional Objects and Events surrounding Thanksgiving, for example, or the Fourth of July. Going to sleep seems so - what? - automatic, not deliberate like getting out from storage the Christmas lights. Our notion of traditions are - well - projects. Let's think more about this - Constantly submitting whatever the question is to one's Ideology may seem more efficient, less burdensome, more powerful, more satisfying, more career-enhancing and so on, but it is that very Ideological-driven process - among other things - that has lead us to our current Situation of Social Fragmentation. Answers that make sense Ideologically can be helpful but not necessarily so. They can and often do make matters worse. To cite just one example - After September 11, 2001, someone asked whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction? The Interpretation of the combination of (1) facts and (2) assumptions about "facts" not in evidence that nicely fit the Ideology of the questioner led him or her to answering, "yes." Let's just assume for the sake of argument that pursing Degrees of Certitude - at least when talking about Social Fragmentation and Social Cohesion - is the better way to go. In that case, let me let you in on a secret - I have found that when it comes to building a habit of mind where one seeks throughout the year to become keenly aware of one's Degree of Certitude about whatever question that is presented by others or emerges in one's own mind, starting out with an egalitarian attitude towards our human ancestors and their Degrees of Certitude is extremely helpful. Let me explain why - If we persistently think of people alive today generally - that is to say, one category of people - and more specifically - experts - a super-duper subcategory of contemporary people - as "superior," more "enlightened," more "modern," and so on compared to those who came before our current generation - a different category of people - that is an Ideological-type assumption that cuts us off from an enormous amount of known and knowable human experience. It's like shooting ourselves in the foot. Why do that? Instead of being Ideological about our contemporary, presumed superiority, let's pause for a moment to think about our ancestors generally and so see if it is not appropriate to at least start out by thinking about them and their Degrees of Certitude in an egalitarian way - Is it not amazing? Anatomically modern humans who look just like us were alive and well roughly 200,000 years ago. Behaviorally modern humans who not only look like us, but also talk and behave just like us have been around for roughly 50,000 years. Let's think about that - If we assume that during the last 100 years we have been so superior that our ancestors need not be considered, we prejudice ourselves against 99.8% of human experience based on the 50,000 year-figure. If you are a young person who thinks life began with the Internet, the first two nods of which were connected in 1969, then the figure is more like 99.9%. If we choose to prejudice ourselves against our ancestors, we stand on the microscopically thin ice of the present moment. Does that make sense? Setting the invention of the alphabet aside as a special and unique case, I agree that much if not most of our contemporary technology - all of which descends from the alphabet and continually depends on it - is obviously more Desirable than the technology of our ancestors. But when it comes to our contemporary behavior and relationships compared to our ancestors, our superiority is not so evident. My bottom line proposal is simply this - When it comes to our ancestors - especially in the context of wanting to develop and maintain Social Cohesion - we should work hard at being open-minded towards what they have to say. Snobbishness towards our ancestors is flat-out stupid.