Another provocative piece from the down-under provocateur. I like how this just gets my mind racing.
The phenomena of hearing one thing as a child, and observing very different things while growing up...this is something most of us can claim for ourselves. It is also the essence of indoctrination.
When a message is repeatedly drummed into a child’s head, the message subsumes the child’s capacity to understand. The child is in a supra-emotional state of being where learning is all about figuring out who to trust, who is there for him...who loves him. This is reinforced by an instinctive reaching for the mother’s breast, the gentle rocking by a caring adult, the hugging when distressed by a diaper dump, the singing of concern from mommy or someone in charge. The child can’t articulate this, but the child is learning - in very black and white terms - that the caretakers matter, and nobody else does.
So as the child grows and acquires knowledge in a more detached state of mind, a less emotion-centric state of mind, the complexity of reality and life and people begin to push through. But this is still a fragile being who is akin to a book being written.
This is when truths are internalized, and this is where hate can be imposed. It is critical to understand that when a trusted adult tells a child what is “true,” it has nothing to do with validity or accuracy or correctness. This is the stage where religion is so successfully imprinted on the little individual. This is also where emotional damage is commonplace.
When all of the trusted adults, the parents and grandparents and older siblings and the people on the television, when all of them “know” this country is the best if all, that is one powerful message that is reinforced at every opportunity. And ditto when there is a similar consensus on who to fear and hate.
So loving parents understand the power they hold, and don’t exploit the child’s emotional fragility, and don’t fill the child’s head with the crap in their own heads, right? Well that is a goal that is only met by a minority of parents. Because all of us can spend our lives learning that much of what we have been given from caring people is what prevents us from seeing our world, correctly contextualizing our world, and changing our world.
It takes great courage to ignore your indoctrination in favor of what you see, what you hear, and what you know to be true.
Wow! How dead on can you get!? Never thought of it that way. Shall we say the core of the matter? I can immediately picture myself between my mom and dad in the church pew!
Another provocative piece from the down-under provocateur. I like how this just gets my mind racing.
The phenomena of hearing one thing as a child, and observing very different things while growing up...this is something most of us can claim for ourselves. It is also the essence of indoctrination.
When a message is repeatedly drummed into a child’s head, the message subsumes the child’s capacity to understand. The child is in a supra-emotional state of being where learning is all about figuring out who to trust, who is there for him...who loves him. This is reinforced by an instinctive reaching for the mother’s breast, the gentle rocking by a caring adult, the hugging when distressed by a diaper dump, the singing of concern from mommy or someone in charge. The child can’t articulate this, but the child is learning - in very black and white terms - that the caretakers matter, and nobody else does.
So as the child grows and acquires knowledge in a more detached state of mind, a less emotion-centric state of mind, the complexity of reality and life and people begin to push through. But this is still a fragile being who is akin to a book being written.
This is when truths are internalized, and this is where hate can be imposed. It is critical to understand that when a trusted adult tells a child what is “true,” it has nothing to do with validity or accuracy or correctness. This is the stage where religion is so successfully imprinted on the little individual. This is also where emotional damage is commonplace.
When all of the trusted adults, the parents and grandparents and older siblings and the people on the television, when all of them “know” this country is the best if all, that is one powerful message that is reinforced at every opportunity. And ditto when there is a similar consensus on who to fear and hate.
So loving parents understand the power they hold, and don’t exploit the child’s emotional fragility, and don’t fill the child’s head with the crap in their own heads, right? Well that is a goal that is only met by a minority of parents. Because all of us can spend our lives learning that much of what we have been given from caring people is what prevents us from seeing our world, correctly contextualizing our world, and changing our world.
It takes great courage to ignore your indoctrination in favor of what you see, what you hear, and what you know to be true.
Thanks, Caitlin for another loving nudge.
Wow! How dead on can you get!? Never thought of it that way. Shall we say the core of the matter? I can immediately picture myself between my mom and dad in the church pew!