ANOTHER CURIOUS COMMENT -- THIS ON CONSCIENCE
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© December 6, 2020
Determination to help others understand something for their own benefit, without reward is, I suggest, conscience in action. No one talks about conscience for some reason. Hmmm? Now, I have noticed the world is full of people who imagine they know what's best for others, then proceed to impose their will on those people and cause major damage in the process. Books are written on it of course. We are a strange species, eh? =)
I RESPOND
George,
It is okay if readers read themselves into what others write.
Colonel Ted recently wrote something that was quite grownup and insightful.
He said he had been trying to change my thinking about things with his somewhat elaborate dissertations when my thinking disagreed with his.
He finally gave up realizing I wasn't interested in changing my views, as they were my views, hoping only that they might clarify the reader's views, not substitute mine for the reader's.
Ideas are not conveniently reduced to the "either/or" world of Kierkegaard. Ideas are either conventionally or unconventionally "either" in some instances "or" in others.
You are correct. No one speaks about conscience because no one thinks in terms of conscience, leastwise those born after WWII.
This has exasperated theologians and clerics but not to the point of changing. Alas, they continue to preach the same fear, guilt, shame, hell, fire and damnation, the sinfulness of us all, that had worked so well or since the time of Martin Luther, a credulity that people prior to WWII consumed without reflection but with deep affection.
It is an idea that has become a self-fulfilling prophecy that has little valence with the reality of the 21st century. People are not bad; people do good and bad things; but people are not inherently evil.
A writer of ideas is always trying to gain control of this concept by expressing it in terms that might resonate with people of conscience.
A writer of ideas is always trying to gain control of this concept by expressing it in terms that might resonate with people of conscience.
Our society, indeed, our civilization, is often in this same canoe without a paddle, behaving as insanely as young "Dirk" Devlin behaved in South Africa in 1968.
I confess to being remiss in originally applying this canoe metaphor as I failed to note the canoe was meant to symbolize “the affect,” and the canoe lacking a paddle, “a weak affect” with the land symbolizing reality.
The "affect" may be described as the outward display of one's emotional state. One can express feelings verbally, by talking about events with emotional word choices and tone. A person's "affect" also includes nonverbal communication, such as body language and gestures. A "blunted affect" displays a markedly diminished emotional expression or detachment from the reality of experience. It can also indicate symptoms of maladjustment to possibility of mental challenge.
The power of a writer, especially one of ideas, is to guide readers to the safety of the symbolic shore or reality while not dictating that they necessarily embrace that possibility.
Nor is the writer's job to demand that people step out of their canoe with or without a paddle and embrace the safety of dry land (i.e., reality). They may choose to continue to drift as Nature's WINDS dictate.
Our conscience is like the canoe without the paddles when caring is fundamentally "all about me" ("weak affect") and not "all about us" ("healthy affect").
Ideas are not a lifeline but a visual expression in words of a writer's thinking that may find a connection with the reader.
Years ago, when working for Honeywell Avionics in Clearwater, Florida, I would go to the cafeteria in Clearwater, where I liked to write. In a booth nearby, two Honeywellers were talking and the woman was telling the man, obviously not her husband, how much she enjoyed attending "Dr. Fisher's seminars."
The man said, "That has not been my experience." She asked him why. "He never tells me what to do."
I quietly retreated from them without disturbing their coffee break.
But the man did identify what is the nature of my approach to ideas.
It didn't matter to the woman, she just enjoyed the break from work in attending a seminar, but the man wanted something like "Seven Habits of Highly Successful People," which is apparently what most men want, but it is not on my agenda.
My interest is to get people to think. Recently, I removed some people from my e-mail list because they were not interested in thinking but in getting me to think as they think. They would bombard me with all kinds of information to that end, that failing, deprecating the way I think as if changing my thinking would make their world better.
Thank you for sharing,
Jim
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