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This is a fallacy promoted by people over time
and has become almost a truth.
Robert Collier if I'm correct in my attribution
was a great copy writer. He appealed to
people's emotion in ways that perhaps no one
else ever did.
Yet, the damage marketer's do to the human race
is paralyzing in my view.
Even our founding father's wrote about "men
being created equal." I know what they
meant, but most people don't in my view.
People are different.
We are NOT created equal and because we continue
to found our governance, our leadership and our
training on the silly notion that anyone can
learn or do or be anything, we're using up a lot
of energy in the universe that could be applied
to more efficient uses.
I won't go into it here, but we have to wake up
and start dealing with life as it is and not how
we think it is.
Yes, people are created equal in terms of the
rights, but they should not be treated equal in
terms of being, having, doing and becoming
potential.
We should immediately begin to treat people
according to kind. No, I'm not talking
about race, creed, culture, but capacity.
If we keep working with the falsification that
people can be anything, we'll keep putting
people in the wrong places and keep encouraging
people to be things they are not, instead of
helping them find who they are and the right
place to be, have, do and become.
Well, many will say this is eugenics, but it is
not, it is emergenics, which allows a person to
emerge into the glow of their unique gifts,
talents and desire.
It's not about classifying people, although
classification is key. It's about giving
people the opportunity to utilize their gifts in
a way that is rewarding for the individual and
collective.
I won't profess the exact knowledge required, as
there is no exacting science here. Yet, it
becomes clear when we give people the right to
be treated as an individual and not someone to
mould, then we have to change the way we
educate, lead and manage people.
Here's another rant I'll place here as it
contains the same meme:
From Wilber's interview with That Moment of
One-ness Is What Performing Is All About - Eddie
Kowalczyk
I picked this up at about 22 min into the
conversation: Wilber speaking:
"it's not obvious immediately how to do
something like this, but an entire package at
some point is this introductions via altered
states into one's own higher nature and then
states can be converted into traits through
practice, through an actual discipline and then
states get converted into stages, actual
permanent competences...there has got to be some
overall integral package where sort of, you get
an introduction...this is basically a
transmission, the equivalent of instantaneous
direct pointing out of the deeper aspect of
one's nature after the concert is over...look at
types of discipline that can keep that high
going so to speak....
[END Quote]
I'm writing to you about this because I picked
this same type of statement up in Kosmic
Consciousness, Wilber's new audio program from
Sounds True.
What I notice in Wilber's brilliance are these
often counter intelligent remarks as he weaves
systems together, such as the one above, "state
to trait..."
I have a hard time with this because this buys
into the fallacy--in my opinion--that exists
among humanists that we can change our
hard-wired neural pathways. While I won't say
that I believe it is impossible, I do believe it
is improbable and at best should be something
that is discussed among people who are perhaps
deep practitioners, maybe .1% of the
population--if one were truly integral and
understood that people at lesser sophisticated
levels take what more sophisticated levels
literally, without the ability to discern what
is true and what is not true for their reality.
I think it does a disservice--the reason I'm
bringing it up for discussion--to society when
flaws are reproduced like the comment he is
making about using a "state to change a trait"
permanently, or a practice to change a trait, as
if anyone could just learn the mechanics
(probably meditation) and bingo, they become
more or less
Open/Conscientious/Extroverted/Agreeable/Neurotic
(the big five traits).
Maybe I don't see it, and maybe my practice is
at such a low level I can't see it, but this is
at its roots basically flawed and champions the
humanist (GREEN) argument of blank slate, noble
savage that Steven Pinker has all but dismantled
in The BLANK SLATE. Others have also dismantled
this theory and while it is the MOST DANGEROUS
MEME of all--the blank slate is creating havoc
with reality in my view (not that everything
doesn't)<g>.
The meme is dangerous because people "want" to
believe it.
I have at times criticized Thomas Leonard who is
now gone from this life about creating the most
dangerous memes of all--those memes that people
so want to believe, mostly true (so they get by
our defense systems), yet with these very basic
flaws that over time produce huge movements
which are found later to be flawed...such as
Margaret Meade's Noble Savage Myth, that is
embarrassingly invalid.
These memes are almost unsinkable and literally
lead generations of people to develop a reality,
which in my view, harms future generations
because they waste so many resources. You will
hear from GREEN about all the resources in
humanity and physicality that are wasted by war,
big business, bureaucracy, but GREEN doesn't see
itself in the mirror....
This horrendous meme of "you can be anything you
want to be" if you'll just...wastes FAR MORE
RESOURCES than what I've seen wasted in the
names of the other memes and here's why. This
meme, while feeding off human hope and
despair...causes us to spend billions for
training and development designed to do exactly
what Wilber suggests (bet you didn't think I was
going to make it back around, did you!) "states
to traits...then states to stages." [Face it,
some people will NOT make it up there...wherever
up there is...sorry to say. Evidence is
sufficient in my view to stop saying to people,
"you can be anything you want to be, if you'll
just"]
Wilber's comment ignores the roll of nature AND
the dirties of GREEN words: determinism in my
view and postulates that people can change
traits.
In my experience over the past 16 years as a
business coach, working with some of the most
intelligent, motivated and committed clients
I've seen...after more than 20 years working
with some of the best athletes in the
world...playing beside them and competing
against them...I NEVER SAW ONE change a trait.
Now, you could say that I don't know how, or
that all these famous coaches and motivators
(altered state producers) didn't know how. I
would grant you that...but you are not going to
get a non-Gale Sayers to run like a Gale
Sayers...a non-Dante Hall to return punts and
kickoffs like Dante Hall (he returned a punt
about 90 yards yesterday in the KC/Denver Game
and it was just magical)--I don't care HOW MUCH
THEY MEDITATE.
Nor will you change someone's natural OCEAN (the
big five), without GREAT expenditure of
resources and then I doubt you can do it...is
insane in my view to attempt it, as insane as
attacking another country, gassing thousands,
cheating people out of their rights, you name
it...ALL are insane uses of human and non-human
energy. Just because people will believe it and
want it, doesn't mean that it is a good
thing...no matter what color it is!
So, why do people keep perpetuating these memes?
Aren't we big enough to look ourselves in the
mirror and stare into the abyss and say...well
I'm just never going to be a lot less dominant,
so how can I put myself in a position to succeed
with this much dominance? Where do my natural
gifts take me or how can I utilize the unique
combination of traits I have to contribute?
Instead, I take pills, see gurus, go to training
classes, see a therapist, do psychedelics,
listen to rock music, have sex or whatever to
produce an altered state where I am passive...?
Using this part of our neurophysiology in this
way is less than efficient--legal and non-legal
drug use, a horrendous scourge on mankind
doesn't come from lower levels, it comes from
higher levels of sophistication--those led to no
man's land by the meme that says..."you can be
anything" ... so why are you not?
We don't have the neural pathways that exist in
our strength modes in our opposites, why would
we want to become less than we are...for
what...so we can be what OTHER PEOPLE WANT US TO
BE...to be anything we want to be?
There are even cases, where if we truly
understood nature, we could help people who have
gifts which are not in fact gifts to society
(although no one really understands pathology,
autism, etc.) because no...we buy into the
"meme" if we just train them, if we just help
them see where they are going wrong, if we
punish them, if we just unconditionally love
them--they'll come round. Pick whatever
intervention you like, they are all the same,
they are based on the meme...you can be anything
you want to if you try hard enough....
It's time we woke up from the dream and faced
nature, that we are what we are and that are
humanity.
Yes, we need to understand as quickly as
possible what that means and how we can
contribute to the universal nature of mankind
and move from self-centered to compassionate
life-centered or whatever you like there. That
will involve dispelling this constant flow of
humanist propaganda that literally chains people
to false reality and wastes energy that could be
applied to improving the world instead of being
applied to improving improving--including
altered states--where you can escape the
nasty/dysfunctional person you are...which has
become a business for the gurus.
I don't hear anyone--although there are few
people who study the brain and nature--who is
saying...wait a minute...let's take a look at
what people are saying and investigate it for
flaws. Let's not just slurp it up lock stock and
barrel and continue to use it to numb people
away from taking a look at what IS there in the
abyss. After all, are we in need of manipulating
people because they can't manage the truth? Do
we have to keep filling them with feel-good
memes that take their minds off of object
reality...hmmm, sounds like ORANGE/Madison Ave,
or BLUE/government, or RED/sports, or
PURPLE/magic to me.
What I think...?
Just another 1st tier solution fabricated in the
most fascinating manner with great levels of
complexity...and magical rhetoric combined with
"Machiavellian" mastery. If people are so
integral and so smart, what makes them fall
victim to these memes...traits? <VBG>
mike
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Mike, October 2003 |
