Tag: philosophy

What Makes a Leader?

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

The MILGRAM EXPERIMENT revealed some profound truths about all of us…

Shortly after WW2, Stanley Milgram, a Yale professor did what has come to be known as an ‘obedience’ experiment. (Trailer of docudrama:)

According to Milgram, while self-interest is part of our nature,  most of us are fundamentally FOLLOWERS. His famous study revealed it is common human behavior to listen without question to people who appear smart, successful, or seem like true believers. We follow our parents, friends, society at large. Influencers, like actors, podcasters, musicians; and authority figures like doctors, therapists, even politicians draw FOLLOWERS. We accept, even participate in bad medicine, injustice, inequity, intolerance, racism, sexism, sometimes murder and even slaughter of millions following the status quo.

Milgram was a Jew. He wanted to find out what motivated Germans to turn on neighbors. Why would 90% of German citizens allow the slaughter of children on the same soccer team as their kids? Or passively watch the displacement and murder of Jews they once shared meals, holidays, and birthday celebrations? Why would Germans agree, and even support genocide, rape, disembowelment while conscious, torture beyond any sense of sanity? Milgram wanted to know.

The MILGRAM EXPERIMENT, as it’s now called, revealed some striking and profound truths about all of us.

It PROVED that most humans are FOLLOWERS, highly obedient to authority figures and willing to harm others without reason besides being told to do so.

Humans are social creatures. We follow the flock, the crowd, influencers, salesmen, priests.

We FOLLOW because it’s easier than THINKING.

We blindly follow our parents’ beliefs in fantasies like God, or Jesus, with no proof either exist, or evidence that Christ was ever born. None whatsoever, though tax rolls have been found at Christ’s (ostensible) time, without mention of Mary, Joseph, or Jesus at all.

We adopt behavior that we don’t like — that’s not the best of us — with justifications like “everyone does it!” Engaged with your cellphone while driving today? Most who do don’t THINK they’re really increasing their odds of killing themselves or someone else by upwards of 25%.

Intoxicants, from drink to weed will not cure cancer. Alcohol is toxic for the body. Smoking weed is carcinogenic — cancer causing. And mental ‘health’ pharms are addictive and eat the crap out of your liver, among a host of other side effects. Hey, but everyone does them, right?

What Makes a Leader?

While Milgram’s experiment revealed most humans are FOLLOWERS, following a herd, whether family, friends, priests, or govts, SOME PEOPLE, a few outliers, do not. In fact, they lead the human flock.

Hitler did. Trump does. Oligarchs, like Musk, are LEADERS to many who live vicariously through them, or are delusional enough to believe they too can become a trillionaire. On the other side, Susan B. Anthony, FDR, MLK all moved this nation towards a more equitable country.

What does this diverse cast have in common? They became LEADERS because they offered identity, an enemy, reduced complexity to clarity, inspired and empowered at moments when people felt lost. They gave directionto the populas of FOLLOWERS when their govt and institutions failed them. And each of the aforementioned LEADERS reached the masses by mastering marketing through the dominant media of their era, from newsprint, to radio, to TV, to today’s digital communications.

Are you a FOLLOWER or LEADER? If you’re thinking: I’M A LEADER, you’re likely lying to yourself. Humans lie to ourselves (and others) a lot! Like following, lying is part of our nature.

WATCH the Milgram experiment. The odds are you’d be one of the 65% who tortured an unseen man with electric shocks to death, simply because someone politely asked you to do so. Not threatening, not aggressive. Just “Please continue,” was what the white-coated admin in the study told them. And the 65% claimed they were just ‘following directions’ that allowed them to deliver shocks to someone they didn’t know, that became more and more painful until they were lethal.

Milgram’s study proves most people would rather follow—listen, even to bad advice, than lead—THINK for themselves. We’re looking for guidance, direction, belief outside ourselves. And while this fact of our nature may seem a death sentence, there are still 35% of the participants in the study that walked away when the admin dressed as a doctor said, “Please continue,” to torture an unseen person in the room next door with electric shocks. In fact, many told the guy, as the admin was always a man, to fuck off when he demanded they “Please continue, per your agreement,” as they were leaving.

The Milgram Experiment gives us a window into our own psyche by proving humans are generally FOLLOWERS. Armed with this knowledge, we can THINK, examine, recognize when we’re blindly going along with the flock. And we can choose not to.

We Are Born Racists

by jcafesin, posted in parenting, psychology, racism, raising kids, sexism

We are ALL racists. Every human being on the planet is BORN a racist.

NO! you’re screaming at me. BULLSHIT, you whacked-out bitch. I am not a racist!

Racism is taught, not inherent to our nature is the common wisdom. And while it’s true racism, hate, fear can be taught by parents, community, schools, religious leaders, and conservative media, we are all born, to varying degrees, racists.

Mammals, the genome to which Humans belong, are born with an innate FEAR of THE OTHER — anything outside what is familiar to us. And this fear manifests as RACISM, and SEXISM, and NATIONALISM.

“FEAR of THE OTHER” should be the universal definition of racism. And humans manifest our fear in a variety of ways. Some, their fear is so overwhelming, their ignorance so great, it aligns with HATE, and they are violent against THE OTHER.

But sometimes, when our fear is acknowledged, and then examined, it motivates us to learn about THE OTHER. Only then, do we discover that regardless of color, or even gender, we are not so different. We all FEEL the same feelings.

BULLSHIT, you calling me out again. You don’t know how it FEELS to be Black.

You’re right. I’m White. But I know what it FEELS like to be dissed. I grew up overweight in chic L.A. I was the butt of fat jokes through elementary and middle school. I never got asked out on a date until I dropped the weight in my senior year of high school. And while I am now in “good shape,” I will go to my grave feeling fat. I will never fit in to the world where thin is the only way to be “in.” And I know what it FEELS like living forever on the outside wishing to be in.

So what if you were fat, you say. You lost the weight. Skinny or fat, I can’t stop being Asian, or gay.

And I am a woman. I know what it FEELS like being judged as lesser than because I am not a man. I know how it FEELS to be making two-thirds the salary of the guy next to me doing the exact same job. My first job out of college as an art director for a major jewelry manufacturer, the CEO of the company came into my first big meeting and grabbed my breast instead of my outstretched hand. He squeezed my tit like it was an orange and said, “Nice!” I know how it FEELS to be objectified for my body alone.

Being disrespected makes me FEEL valueless, ashamed, awkward, angry, mystified, enraged, scared, small, sad. And all these negative feelings manifest inside each of us when we are dissed. The fact is, Black, White, Fat or not, we’ve all experienced each of these feelings independently, or simultaneously, regardless if we are consciously aware of them. Each of us may react to our feelings differently, but most all of us are intimate with feeling dissed.

Most of us are also intimate with feeling happy, engaged [in a pleasing activity], safe, content in moments. Our reasons for feeling these things may vary, though not as much as you think. The love of a parent, guardian or friend, the comfort of a home, full bellies from tasty food makes most of us FEEL good. The intensity of our feelings varies wildly from person to person. Some enjoy positive feelings far more often than others born with internal angst, or into external misfortune. But the feelings of HAPPY and SAD, GOOD and BAD, PROUD and ASHAMED, EMPOWERED and DISSED are common to all of us.

Being alive means FEELING. The enormous, complex range of feelings we get to experience, both body and mind, is exclusively Human. The capacity of our brain power is what separates us from every other living creature on this planet. And while we all have different experiences, feeling the same things provides a natural bridge to unite us, a window for empathy, even camaraderie through our shared feelings.

We are all born racists. You, me, all humans are born with an innate fear of THE OTHER. Once again, we are standing on the precipice of change, Racism and Sexism the topics de jour. Perhaps this time, we will get off the politically correct train, admit we are all racists and choose to fight our innate fear of THE OTHER. We’ll acknowledge the benefits of integration and globalization as an opportunity to learn from the best of each other. We’ll not only believe in, but practice equal rights.

Stand up, or take a knee, but SPEAK OUT against hate, and educate the ignorant that there really are no substantive differences between us — not color, not culture, not gender, not religious or sexual preference, because most all humans being FEEL the same things.

The Yin/Yang of Love

by jcafesin, posted in atheism, atheists, Kids, moms, parenting, parents, raising kids, Uncategorized

Got the call at 7:50 this morning and knew something was wrong. No one calls when I’m getting the kids ready for school unless it’s bad news. And there was no possible way my 14 yr old son could have made it to school on his bike so fast.

Could hardly hear the woman over the sound of traffic digitally amplified through her cell, informing me my son had been in a bike accident. I finally got that he was pretty badly battered, but conscious. He was bleeding, she said, quite a bit, but seemed in tact. The moment she said where they were, and before she finished speaking, I put the phone on the kitchen table, called for my 7 yr old daughter to come with me and we got in my car and went to my son a few blocks away.

He was sitting on the curb when I pulled up behind the car I later found out belonged to the good folks who stopped to help my kid. They were in traffic and saw him on the side of the road crying and bleeding, his bike crumpled in front of him. I managed to get out of my car without faltering, and my son managed to stand so we could hug, feel each other, body to body, soul to soul.

“I don’t know what happened,” my newly taller than me kid cried into my shoulder. “I didn’t see the trash can. They’re usually out tomorrow. I wasn’t expecting them today. I didn’t see it.”

His face was a bloody mess, bleeding across his chin, his upper lip, his shoulder, scrapes on his arm. He couldn’t move his left hand. I didn’t cry. He needed me to be strong. God, if he only knew how fragile and afraid I felt right then. The idea of him leaning on me was on par with absurd in my head. But I didn’t cry. I thanked the woman and the man she was with probably fifty times in the space of five minutes. The man graciously put my son’s bike in my car as I helped my kid in, and we went home.

My son walked away from the bike accident with a fractured wrist, abrasions, a loose front tooth that the dentist thinks will be fine down the line. In fact, in time, he should heal just fine. He will. I won’t.

Went out to my office once my son was squared away and cried my eyes out. If I could have prayed, I would have right then, and did thank dumb luck all day, and even still as I write this, and forever forward, my kid wasn’t killed, or injured beyond repair for life. He was careless, and the laws of physics that say we can’t move through solid objects came into play. I know this law to be true, I believe in this law because I’ve spent a lifetime witnessing it. I’ve never seen anyone walk through walls, or pass a hand through glass, except magicians, which we all know is an illusion, a trick of eye, not physically possible.

There have been many times, like this bike accident with my son, I’ve wished I could believe in something, anything to justify events other than just entropy, but I’ve always been an empiricist—show me, don’t tell me because I won’t believe you. On the outside of our religious world, at times lonely to the extreme, I went searching in my early twenties for an ideology to be a part of, and that’s when I discovered Taoism.

I am not a Taoist. I am an atheist, and do not believe in any ‘supreme ultimate.’ And though I’ve read the Tao Te Ching through, many times, I understand little of the poems of Laozi. It was through Taoism, however, I first heard of the concept of yin/yang. 陰陽

The Taijitu ☯, the commonly known yin/yang symbol from 14th century China, represents a philosophy first seen in the Tao Te Ching in the 4th century BC, though many believe the concept of opposites in harmony define balance existed many millennium before the writings. Black/white, day/night, male/female, dull/bright—in yin/yang ideology, with everything there is an equal opposite occupying the same space, intertwining, even mixing, actualizing each other’s existence, and keeping the natural balance of the whole, that which is all.

Heady, to be sure, but not when you break it down to what we experience daily. We can’t really know happy never having felt sad. Can’t have a bottom without a top. There is no such thing as right with no wrong (or left..;  ). These are abstracted, philosophical truths. Just like physics, yin/yang’s empirical proofs play out in every aspect of living, which can never be fully appreciated without death.

While I believe the yin/yang philosophy to be truth, a basic physical and metaphysical law, and understand the balance interconnected opposites provide, I can’t help resent this fundamental aspect of natures structure in times like this morning when my child’s life is put on the line. The cruelest, sickest, most twisted opposites of all is the spectacular, magnificent, breath-taking, electric-connection we get to feel for our kids, and the choking, terrifying, heart-stopping fear of losing them— the yin/yang of love and loss.