h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The ability to hold two opposing view points in my mind at the same time would be easier if my eyes were on the side of my head.

I was watching a detective program Saturday night that had a criminal character propounding the almost completely discredited theory that
limbic lesions lead to violent behavior.

As one character pointed out, the fact that some violent criminals have it doesn't mean that every one who has one is a violent criminal.

This points out, whether the scriptwriter or the producers cared to, the relatively modern version of the 'deformed baby caused by the mommy being scared during prenancy' theory.

You observe the result and back-postulate the cause.

This is a fun thing to do until you realise that it has been the root of many pogroms and social programs over the years.

The Governmental wish to play Big Brother and form the big version of the Village that Takes a Child leads to an educational mentality that says that Social Ills can be cured by pin-pointing the ailments common to those peoples that we really don't want around any more.
So, the necessity becomes one of finding something that the, um, poor, uneducated, criminal, and unfashionably ugly have in common that the rich, educated, law-abiding and fashionably pretty do not share.

Can't do it. Not on a medical or a genetic level.

You can't solve crime, poverty and ignorance on the genetic level.

That would wipe out the progeny of the remaining members of the gentry.

So, it becomes a form of class warfare, because no duly-elected or appointed weinie wants to admit that crime, poverty and ignorance are actually part of his or her bread and butter.

Back to the suits, again. But I won't elaborate.

People who truly want to learn will find a way.
Those who don't care will either fight the system or coast along, parroting, until they emerge neither fish nor fowl, creatures of fashion and whim, cliqueing with others of their ilk, doing their best to add to the various ministries statistics without actually trying to do something about them.

There is a phrase that has been batted around a lot recently:
"All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

Isn't that kind of like the guy with the glass house and the rock collection?

If they are men and they are doing nothing, then how can they be good?
If evil can be defeated or encouraged by action or inaction, then how truly evil can it be?

The true evil is stupidity. Stuporessness. A willing separation from reality.

Even criminals have feelings.

And the thirst for knowledge must not be impeded by the brakes of tradition. Those are usually applied by the institutionally stupid of the previous generation. Never be too praising of the success of someone who has never crawled out of the abyss of failure.

In some tests, just the willingness to take them is more important than the score.

YAY! Standing Ovation YAY!


fluffy

Its a paradox, isn't it. Sort of reminds me that when we watch a film, we have a tendency to 'suspend belief'. As we grow up, we try out different opinions and beliefs for size.

In some ways, having a very open and questioning mind can be a big strength. I think I prefer my kind of openness to having a closed and (possibly) bigotted mind, one that brooks no opposition.

The kind of thinking you're describing is often called 'short-cut thinking' and is a type we often use because we don't have the time or the inclination to do the thinking for ourselves. In some cirumstances that's OK. In others, we would be better off doing our own thinking.

Interesting what you said about the deformed baby being caused by mommy being scared during pregnancy. Experiments have shown that babies born to mothers who lived in neighbourhoods with loud noises (arguments, harsh 'pop' type music, sudden bangs (eg gunshot or squealing tyres), grew up with more delinquent tendencies. They were either more fearful or more aggressive. The optimum for balanced and happy babies was to hear soothing music (best Mozart or Baroque), who heard melodious voices and whose mothers lived in a calm and quiet neighbourhood. So the atmosphere around the unborn baby can't be discounted. I think the research on this was done by one of the Japanese tycoons for his workers. Sadly, the work with mothers ceased after he died.

You'd be amazed at the number of delinquents who grow up with a bucolic lifestyle...
the farmer's kids apparently sometimes just get cabin fever and have to do something stupid.

Delinquency is a an interesting word. It describes a lack, as if one were retarded or crippled. Many of the grown-up miscreants turn out to have something added. And some of them have higher IQs and more education than the authorities who are dealing with them. Of course, as somebody once pointed out, if they were that b***dy smart, then they wouldn't have gotten caught. Which ignores the point that for some, if no one knows you did it, then it wasn't worth it.

One hesitates to ask what the Japanese would call a delinquent.

It would help if someone showed them they cared, and was trying to understand them.

ChiKi

True.