Feeding My Ignorance

Although I have written many words in this blog (and elsewhere) that express my ideas on assorted subjects it would still be fair to say that my underlying mantra on what it all means is "I don't know" - which perhaps is just as well as it reinforces the purposes of the blog. All of my ideas/thoughts/beliefs are - as far as I am concerned - interim ones which might be superceded tomorrow - or next week - or few years from now - or perhaps even before I finish writing this sentence.

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There is a big difference, in my view, between this state of "only partialy complete" and a state of "uncertainty". I think that life would be very difficult if we refused to acknowledge anything as true. That would lead to absolute absurdity. It may be that my mental models are all wrong, however as of this moment enough of them are sufficiently "right" to allow me to function in the world.

Just because we have the wrong "truth" we don't need to be wracked with uncertainty. Our mental models are not really there to convey the "absolute truth", but rather to spin a convincing and workable narrative that allows our lives to progress without too much trouble. A further benefit of only needing a "workable" set of models is that we can, in fact, choose to make these "beneficial" by allowing ourselves to interpret things in a way that increases our "well-being".

I read somewhere recently that "happiness is a choice" - I''d agree with that - BUT - it isn't always a viable choice!!

Faced with the same situations it isn't hard to imagine how one person can be happy with the situation and another be angry about it - and yet another wonder what all the fuss is about!! Usually (and again I stress that I am not dealing in absolutes here) whether we are happy, angry or couldn't be bothered, (or whatever other emotion goes along with those - bored, indifferent, moved, upset, ecstatic...) the reasons why we feel that emotion are generated by ourselves.

It is very easy to look back in history to pick out "facts" that turned out to be "illusions" - it doesn't make them less right in the context in which they were believed though. When you don't know any better the idea of a "flat earth" is perfectly OK and won't do you any harm. Nowadays everybody (just about) "knows better" on that one. Technology has changed many things from being "impossible" to being "everyday". Through such things as Skype and Facetime we can see and hear people on the other side of the world. Who would have believed that?

Even in my own lifetime there are things which have changed - and this goes further than technology - attitudes have changed - there have been many changes to what is regarded as "acceptable behaviour" for instance. This is partly an over reaction (in my opinion) to the need to be PC (politically correct) which results in us often saying and doing things "because" it is the right way to do it....

Political correctness is an attitude that has been overdone. Much of it is simply being 'diplomatic' and thereby avoiding any misunderstanding about our thoughts and feelings. That - to a point - is a good thing. Unfortunately those who are on the "fringes" of acceptability are often the ones who are most vocl in calling for their "rights" to be upheld.

I did see, the other day, a rather neat graphic (which I cannot remember just at the moment - other than the 'idea' it represented) which depicted this rather well. We can have discrimination - where a particular group find themselves at a disadvantage. This is often 'corrected' by aiming for 'equal rights' - whatever than means - but it is often taken as equal opportunity, or equal pay or equal <anything>. This results, very often, in a need for so-called 'positive discrimination'. Hold on - how is this better than plain old discrimination - isn't it just as bad.

The ideal is actually not "equal" anything - it should not be replacing one form of discrimination with another. Rather - it should be to remove the barriers which are inhibiting fairness. Sometimes the barriers are immovable - and that is fine - there are some things which result in 'differences' between person "A" and person "B" which cannot be removed to make the competition fair.

However - this blog wasn't supposed to be a tirade against overtly PC behaviour!!

The point of the digression is that had the term Politically Correct existed 50 years ago, the things that would have been regarded as "non-PC" would have been quite different to the rules today. These behavioural changes were also examined a bit in a previous blog entry.

Other non-technological ways in which "facts" have changed include our diets; how much time you should spend in the sub; what is an acceptable maximum working week; our favoured holiday destinations; our acceptable standard of living; and so on... the list is pretty much endless. The 'norm' today is much different to what it was even 20 to 30 years ago.

These norms of behaviour are, of course, important in any culture - we always need to know what is acceptable and what is not. However, it is important to realise that, in any group, the norms are simply that - they can change - they will change through time - and we must avoid rooting our thinking in the "we have always done it that way" type of thinking.

There is, currently a case in point.... A number of "men only" golf clubs are finding that they need to examine the rules that bar ladies from belonging to the club. For the long term members - the very idea can be seen as almost sacrilegious. The "modern viewpoint" is that any discimination on the basis of sex is wrong - although I suspect there are a few things that members of each sex would happily defer to the other in.... Thereby hangs the rub - there are differences between the sexes - so we cannot have a rule that says "men and women are equal and must not be discriminated against on the basis of those labels".

Every club is disciminatory against those who 'cannot' be a member of that club. That is the nature of clubs. Some are VERY exclusive, others more widely welcoming, but you can't be a club without rules stating how to become a member.

So - we must always be aware that "things change" - and that can include things that we believe (right now) are fixed and immutable truths. An openness to that possibility - to the possibility that perhaps everything we "know" is wrong - will enable us to cope with the way in which the world is rapidly changing due to technology, scientific discovery, philosophical adventures and more.