“Am I,” I ask in all sincerity, “a mindless member of a crude crew, a group that some find an easy mark for their pandering? Am I simply looking for panderers when I read the news, just looking for gratifying statements? I’m beginning to think that when a headline in the news or title of an editorial catches my eye, I am just looking for psychological security in confirmation and promise. Am I not, for example, like some inexperienced youth listening to promises of utopian politicians?”
You say, “But aren’t all of us like that, even the panderers, the con artists, the conspirators? If there isn’t anything new under the sun, then those who manipulate were at some time also manipulated. None of us was reared in a vacuum. At the beginning, we’re all mindless and crude, pliable and impressionable, and definitely ignorant as a block of wood. Don’t we initially feel more than think; guess more than reason, and accept rather than experiment?”
“True,” I return, “but I’m concerned that having passed through that early stage and having gained a little knowledge, I’m still a relatively mindless crudity of sorts; only now I seek out what previously I had not sought because I’ve been whittled into shape, made into someone or some group’s puppet, to seek whatever and however I was told to seek. It’s as though and at times I am a puppet asking the puppet maker to further refine my form. And the carving tools are the headlines and editorials I read.
“What is imposed upon the infant, the infant cannot judge. But reaching an age of judgement after babyhood, I probably gravitate toward that which makes me feel secure, that which I have framed in understandable terms and emotions because of some group’s influence. The raw block of wood I was as a baby the grownups around me chiseled me into a basic shape, and in doing so, shaped my initial understanding of humanity, that is, my understanding of human affairs.”
“If I understand you correctly, I surmise you want to be an independent thinker. Noble goal, but think of the difficulty of difficult thinking,” you suggest. “Any attempt by any of us to strike out on our own intellectually requires a paradigm shift, and that means breaking from long-standing traditions, even personal traditions. Paradigm shifts are changes that are truly hard to effect. So, maybe you are a bit mindless and crude because you find comfort in panderers, and in finding such comfort, you are no different from most people. Panderers know how to get to you on some basic level, a level of weakness. Panderers, for example, will say, ‘If you’re in debt, we can alleviate the problem.’ They tell you what you want to hear, which, by the way, is what you were told you wanted to hear.
“Trying to understand the workings of a complex being like a human, even the one you call Yourself, doesn’t lend itself to some beautiful simplicity. So, since human things are complex, you prefer the simplicity at your fingertips, the guidance of those who can manipulate you by playing to your desires and to the beliefs that conform to those desires.
“I have to ask why you brought this up in the first place.”
I reply, “I was watching the pandering pundits attempt to explain the mass shootings of August, 2019, when I questioned what I was with respect to those who confirm views that simplify not just with respect to atrocities, but also with respect to any behavior or intellectual position. The ‘larger’ issue for me became in a moment one of asking whether or not I could ever achieve a paradigm shift or whether or not I might remain a crude puppet of my times. Right now, I believe psychological inertia keeps me crude.”
Then a thought strikes me, “You might not be old enough to remember the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen (born Berggren) and his top-hatted puppet Charlie McCarthy. You can probably find videos of Bergen’s performances on YouTube, but suffice it for me to say that during the performance, the audience couldn’t wait to hear what Charlie had to say, to hear his clever splinters of thought. Bergen also chiseled another piece of wood into the puppet Mortimer Snerd. Mortimer was essentially a mindless crudity. I sometimes ask if I am Charlie or Mortimer, both puppets that some Bergen gives voice to and controls.
“Even when I’m clever like Charlie, I remain shy of that intellectual paradigm shift that seems so elusive because, in truth, I speak the words of the cultural ventriloquists who hold me in their lap. Maybe appearing to be Charlie McCarthy rather than Mortimer Snerd is my only consolation: Being a seemingly clever puppet rather than an obviously dumb one appears to be the best I can do since I have not realized some paradigm shift that sets me apart from the masses.”
“You’re being hard on yourself,” you offer. “It is true that people keep arguing the age-old problems and philosophies, and it is also true that others have offered what they believed to be new paradigms regarding human interactions only to find later that they have merely voiced the words of ventriloquists past.
“None of us might ever get past the puppet stage in matters human. But we can look at others as a lesson for ourselves. We can look to see whether or not those who figure so prominently in our society are sitting on another’s lap when they write or speak. We can look for the whittler in the wood. We can see the worker in the work. And when we recognize a puppet in the making or in the acting, we can look to see who plays the ventriloquist behind the voice. Understanding how others might be puppets won't change them or the generational process that produces puppets. With regard to that 'paradigm shift' you seek, you might consider asking whether you have not done a little whittling yourself. Maybe your paradigm shift lies in the puppets you have sculpted in part or in whole. Maybe someone else has a moving mandible through which you project your voice.”
You say, “But aren’t all of us like that, even the panderers, the con artists, the conspirators? If there isn’t anything new under the sun, then those who manipulate were at some time also manipulated. None of us was reared in a vacuum. At the beginning, we’re all mindless and crude, pliable and impressionable, and definitely ignorant as a block of wood. Don’t we initially feel more than think; guess more than reason, and accept rather than experiment?”
“True,” I return, “but I’m concerned that having passed through that early stage and having gained a little knowledge, I’m still a relatively mindless crudity of sorts; only now I seek out what previously I had not sought because I’ve been whittled into shape, made into someone or some group’s puppet, to seek whatever and however I was told to seek. It’s as though and at times I am a puppet asking the puppet maker to further refine my form. And the carving tools are the headlines and editorials I read.
“What is imposed upon the infant, the infant cannot judge. But reaching an age of judgement after babyhood, I probably gravitate toward that which makes me feel secure, that which I have framed in understandable terms and emotions because of some group’s influence. The raw block of wood I was as a baby the grownups around me chiseled me into a basic shape, and in doing so, shaped my initial understanding of humanity, that is, my understanding of human affairs.”
“If I understand you correctly, I surmise you want to be an independent thinker. Noble goal, but think of the difficulty of difficult thinking,” you suggest. “Any attempt by any of us to strike out on our own intellectually requires a paradigm shift, and that means breaking from long-standing traditions, even personal traditions. Paradigm shifts are changes that are truly hard to effect. So, maybe you are a bit mindless and crude because you find comfort in panderers, and in finding such comfort, you are no different from most people. Panderers know how to get to you on some basic level, a level of weakness. Panderers, for example, will say, ‘If you’re in debt, we can alleviate the problem.’ They tell you what you want to hear, which, by the way, is what you were told you wanted to hear.
“Trying to understand the workings of a complex being like a human, even the one you call Yourself, doesn’t lend itself to some beautiful simplicity. So, since human things are complex, you prefer the simplicity at your fingertips, the guidance of those who can manipulate you by playing to your desires and to the beliefs that conform to those desires.
“I have to ask why you brought this up in the first place.”
I reply, “I was watching the pandering pundits attempt to explain the mass shootings of August, 2019, when I questioned what I was with respect to those who confirm views that simplify not just with respect to atrocities, but also with respect to any behavior or intellectual position. The ‘larger’ issue for me became in a moment one of asking whether or not I could ever achieve a paradigm shift or whether or not I might remain a crude puppet of my times. Right now, I believe psychological inertia keeps me crude.”
Then a thought strikes me, “You might not be old enough to remember the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen (born Berggren) and his top-hatted puppet Charlie McCarthy. You can probably find videos of Bergen’s performances on YouTube, but suffice it for me to say that during the performance, the audience couldn’t wait to hear what Charlie had to say, to hear his clever splinters of thought. Bergen also chiseled another piece of wood into the puppet Mortimer Snerd. Mortimer was essentially a mindless crudity. I sometimes ask if I am Charlie or Mortimer, both puppets that some Bergen gives voice to and controls.
“Even when I’m clever like Charlie, I remain shy of that intellectual paradigm shift that seems so elusive because, in truth, I speak the words of the cultural ventriloquists who hold me in their lap. Maybe appearing to be Charlie McCarthy rather than Mortimer Snerd is my only consolation: Being a seemingly clever puppet rather than an obviously dumb one appears to be the best I can do since I have not realized some paradigm shift that sets me apart from the masses.”
“You’re being hard on yourself,” you offer. “It is true that people keep arguing the age-old problems and philosophies, and it is also true that others have offered what they believed to be new paradigms regarding human interactions only to find later that they have merely voiced the words of ventriloquists past.
“None of us might ever get past the puppet stage in matters human. But we can look at others as a lesson for ourselves. We can look to see whether or not those who figure so prominently in our society are sitting on another’s lap when they write or speak. We can look for the whittler in the wood. We can see the worker in the work. And when we recognize a puppet in the making or in the acting, we can look to see who plays the ventriloquist behind the voice. Understanding how others might be puppets won't change them or the generational process that produces puppets. With regard to that 'paradigm shift' you seek, you might consider asking whether you have not done a little whittling yourself. Maybe your paradigm shift lies in the puppets you have sculpted in part or in whole. Maybe someone else has a moving mandible through which you project your voice.”
RSS Feed