Mouse Trap

The second mouse gets the cheese.

Those of you who clicked over to Dr. Godwin's One Cosmos blog may have seen that the man occasionally presents his klan with factual data, some of which actually checks out. My problem with him doesn't trace to his facts but rather to the deductions he makes from them. As a clinical psychologist he must know that, to the mind, facts are logical premises. The behaviors we exhibit on the basis of those facts are logical conclusions the premises force upon us. The reason different people react differently to the same facts traces to several meta-facts. One, our minds naturally and automatically organize all "new" facts around what we already know. Two, the way our minds process facts is unconsciously conditioned by how we imagine the future will unfold, either well or poorly and all stops between. Three, we all have different ideas about the nature of "the good," and our minds judge all facts on the basis of how well or poorly they fit our ideal. And four, we're all somewhat physically different, a fact that affects not only our ability to process new facts but also our ability to retain and recall. These factors operate in the here-and-now to control the way our minds fit new facts into our "data base." Once there, the new facts form a part of the already-in-here-known by which the future activities of the mind -- and thus of ourselves -- will be determined.

We see, for instance, Spike Lee being quoted on Dr Godwn's blog as having said something that could be interpreted as "the government blew up the levees in New Orleans." That's the sort of thing that could be processed as a "new fact." Depending on who we are, we might behave toward that "fact" in many different ways, among them being . . .

1) If our idea of "the good" characterizes us as strict empiricists, we might notice that Mr. Lee said nothing about how he learned this "fact." We will thus store it away as mere talk. For us, our data bank contains all sorts of data, but the data we treat as our "selves" is always the data that has been "objectively proven."

2) If we consider ourselves as street wise guys who identify with Mr. Lee's "in-your-face" style, we might store the data away as a prima facie fact. Mr. Lee has merely coroborated our dark opinion of "the government."

3) If we are, on the otherhand, politically influenced individuals, always on the lookout for "facts" to use as ammunition against our political opposites, we might elevate Mr. Lee's statement into an "issue," demand an investigation, either of Mr. Lee for saying such a stupid thing, or of the deceitful government, depending on our idea of "the good."

4) But if we are truly clever devils, say, of the far right wing of the political horizon, we might recognize the stupidity of Mr. Lee's remark and bodily transfer him and his remark onto the heads of anyone on the left, even though the people we link to Mr. Lee's stupidity may see him exactly as we do.

Being a clever devil myself, I of course aimed all along to arrive at process (4), that being the behavior pattern Dr. Godwin employed -- as a matter of fact -- in reaction to Mr. Lee's stupid remark. Rather than place judgment on Lee -- where it belonged -- Dr. Godwin chose to identify the whole of the American left with the remark, thereby making the left seem as stupid, in this case, as Mr. Lee himself.

The left itself uses similar tactics, choosing to denigrate the nation's entire right wing for the mistakes of the Current Occupant. But some of the ideas traditionally associated with the right are great ideas, and some emanating from the left are, in my opinion, not so good. But so long as our minds remain fixated on a left-or-right axis, we will find ourselves behaving as if all the ideas from the side we favor are right and all the others wrong.

The first disagreeable statement I made to Dr. Godwin -- moderately rude -- was that his obsession with a left-right dichotomy could perhaps be excused by a consideration of his relative youth. He reacted with anger, as perhaps any youngster would have. I suppose if I had asked him politely to explain how he came to the belief that the left was all evil and the right all good, he might have responded differently, but given that my later understanding of where he stands epistemologically places him squarely in category (4), I rather think that no matter how I had behaved toward him, sooner or later, I would have been banished from his presence. Goodbye reason, hello Waco.