Post by Elliot Kane on Oct 21, 2009 9:10:19 GMT
The Making Of A Human
It is an interesting fact that humans are not born. We are created beings. Artificially manufactured, if you like. Nonsense, you say? Then consider...
From the moment we emerge from the womb, the indoctrination begins. We are taught to speak. We are made to stand and encouraged to walk. We are taught to wear clothes, to go to the toilet rather than relieving ourselves wherever we will. We are imprinted with the ideas of 'Mother' and 'Father' (Somewhat optionally, I will grant, but still...) and 'Family'. As we grow, we are slowly enmeshed in 'culture', in 'values', in 'things we eat' and 'things that are valuable'. We are taught to be 'good' by a system of rewards and punishments.
Then we are sent to school, where the indoctrination intensifies. We are taught 'history' - often a very one-sided and biased affair, that shows the establishment's version of events, whatever that currently may be, and teaches us something of the world we live in. Or rather, it teaches us the way other people would rather we believe the world to be...
We learn a whole raft of other subjects, too, of course. Facts and figures to be memorised, with little in the way of thought required. After all, at the early stages, 'thought' would be inconvenient, would it not? Questioning orthodoxy is not a thing to be encouraged in the young. They might start spotting flaws, and that would never do!
For after all, all societies run upon agreed upon 'truths' (What I call Consensual Reality) and they need those 'truths' to be unquestioned in order to work. As long as the majority of all members of a given society are on the same page, as it were, then the society will run smoothly. We all dream the same dreams, want the same things, feel kinship with those we are raised to believe are 'One Of Us'. (This is, of course, where religion comes in, sociologically speaking, but that would be a digression, here).
Collectively, humanity creates, maintains and perpetuates this huge fantasy that has no real bearing on Objective fact at all.
For example, we accept the lines our ancestors drew on ancient maps that divide us from each other, and we say 'this is France, this is Germany, this is England'. Language and culture underline the differences. Anyone who knows faces can easily tell the difference between an Englishman a Frenchman and a German at a glance, even before they open their mouths. And this perpetuates the illusion even more. Yet what really ARE the differences? If the Englishman, the Frenchman and the German had been born in Spain and raised as Spaniards, would they not BE Spaniards? Would they not be brothers culturally, linguistically, in every way that counts?
Where then are the real 'differences' between peoples? Only in our heads, perpetuated by the myths we have inherited from our forefathers and from those same myths we spin today.
Being human has no real bearing on how we are born, at all. It lies in how we are raised. In the things we are taught, the values we learn, the 'truths' that unite and divide us. Humans are taught to think, after a fashion and we are taught to question within certain limits, but ultimately we are slaves to our collective dreaming. We inhabit a vast network or myth, some wonderful and comforting and others harsh and nightmarish. And the greatest of those myths is that humans are born, not made.
Welcome to Samsara, the dream of the world.
***
Yeah, this is all easy and obvious stuff. Figured it might be good for starting a discussion, though
It is an interesting fact that humans are not born. We are created beings. Artificially manufactured, if you like. Nonsense, you say? Then consider...
From the moment we emerge from the womb, the indoctrination begins. We are taught to speak. We are made to stand and encouraged to walk. We are taught to wear clothes, to go to the toilet rather than relieving ourselves wherever we will. We are imprinted with the ideas of 'Mother' and 'Father' (Somewhat optionally, I will grant, but still...) and 'Family'. As we grow, we are slowly enmeshed in 'culture', in 'values', in 'things we eat' and 'things that are valuable'. We are taught to be 'good' by a system of rewards and punishments.
Then we are sent to school, where the indoctrination intensifies. We are taught 'history' - often a very one-sided and biased affair, that shows the establishment's version of events, whatever that currently may be, and teaches us something of the world we live in. Or rather, it teaches us the way other people would rather we believe the world to be...
We learn a whole raft of other subjects, too, of course. Facts and figures to be memorised, with little in the way of thought required. After all, at the early stages, 'thought' would be inconvenient, would it not? Questioning orthodoxy is not a thing to be encouraged in the young. They might start spotting flaws, and that would never do!
For after all, all societies run upon agreed upon 'truths' (What I call Consensual Reality) and they need those 'truths' to be unquestioned in order to work. As long as the majority of all members of a given society are on the same page, as it were, then the society will run smoothly. We all dream the same dreams, want the same things, feel kinship with those we are raised to believe are 'One Of Us'. (This is, of course, where religion comes in, sociologically speaking, but that would be a digression, here).
Collectively, humanity creates, maintains and perpetuates this huge fantasy that has no real bearing on Objective fact at all.
For example, we accept the lines our ancestors drew on ancient maps that divide us from each other, and we say 'this is France, this is Germany, this is England'. Language and culture underline the differences. Anyone who knows faces can easily tell the difference between an Englishman a Frenchman and a German at a glance, even before they open their mouths. And this perpetuates the illusion even more. Yet what really ARE the differences? If the Englishman, the Frenchman and the German had been born in Spain and raised as Spaniards, would they not BE Spaniards? Would they not be brothers culturally, linguistically, in every way that counts?
Where then are the real 'differences' between peoples? Only in our heads, perpetuated by the myths we have inherited from our forefathers and from those same myths we spin today.
Being human has no real bearing on how we are born, at all. It lies in how we are raised. In the things we are taught, the values we learn, the 'truths' that unite and divide us. Humans are taught to think, after a fashion and we are taught to question within certain limits, but ultimately we are slaves to our collective dreaming. We inhabit a vast network or myth, some wonderful and comforting and others harsh and nightmarish. And the greatest of those myths is that humans are born, not made.
Welcome to Samsara, the dream of the world.
***
Yeah, this is all easy and obvious stuff. Figured it might be good for starting a discussion, though