Can We Look At Bigotry Like A Virus?

Hanuman · 05-18-2010, 03:54 PM

THE BRAIN IS A SERIES OF TUBES.

Ok, let's take the most simple analogy I can think of.

Imagine your brain as a forest, you walk through it every day nonstop.
The more you walk through any one way, a path forms under where you step, if you follow a path for long enough it has trouble growing back and imagine you want to follow a trail more the more it's developed, and that the more you follow the beaten trail, the more you fear straying from it and the more difficult it is you you to even think about trekking back into a less beaten path.

Your "World View", how you see the world, is made up of the shape and location of these trails, some people have trails that dead end into clearings, some people have trails that loop into themselves further carving the beaten path below them, and some people just don't have much of a developed trail because they don't like to entertain any one side of a world view.

Now, imagine bigotry is like a patch of poison oak (you can't kill it with a machete and you can't break it down, you can only avoid it), bigotry is not like a little vending machine in your head thats totally isolated, it's actually a part of an already existing pathway, since we are thinking about it as bad, we are thinking about it like poison oak.

Every time you walk that path, you have to be careful not to touch it, OR you could just stroll right through and not care, but the only way to really stop the problem is A) change the path slightly (very difficult for those with completely barren paths) or B) Choose an entirely new path.

What I was saying, is that things don't just float around in your head like vegetables in a bowl of soup or anything like that, they are carved into you like circuitry or an operating system, it's not a file you can just delete or rename, it's actually coded into you.

More on the tech metaphor, he uses the word "culture" to explain your synapse pathway formation, he also talks about the shamanistic approach to reset the brains programming:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c8an2XZ3MU

05-18-2010, 03:54 PM	#27
Hanuman Love Is Strength Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Vancouver/BC/Canada Posts: 1,135	THE BRAIN IS A SERIES OF TUBES. Ok, let's take the most simple analogy I can think of. Imagine your brain as a forest, you walk through it every day nonstop. The more you walk through any one way, a path forms under where you step, if you follow a path for long enough it has trouble growing back and imagine you want to follow a trail more the more it's developed, and that the more you follow the beaten trail, the more you fear straying from it and the more difficult it is you you to even think about trekking back into a less beaten path. Your "World View", how you see the world, is made up of the shape and location of these trails, some people have trails that dead end into clearings, some people have trails that loop into themselves further carving the beaten path below them, and some people just don't have much of a developed trail because they don't like to entertain any one side of a world view. Now, imagine bigotry is like a patch of poison oak (you can't kill it with a machete and you can't break it down, you can only avoid it), bigotry is not like a little vending machine in your head thats totally isolated, it's actually a part of an already existing pathway, since we are thinking about it as bad, we are thinking about it like poison oak. Every time you walk that path, you have to be careful not to touch it, OR you could just stroll right through and not care, but the only way to really stop the problem is A) change the path slightly (very difficult for those with completely barren paths) or B) Choose an entirely new path. What I was saying, is that things don't just float around in your head like vegetables in a bowl of soup or anything like that, they are carved into you like circuitry or an operating system, it's not a file you can just delete or rename, it's actually coded into you. More on the tech metaphor, he uses the word "culture" to explain your synapse pathway formation, he also talks about the shamanistic approach to reset the brains programming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c8an2XZ3MU __________________ If you want to stay connected send me a PM with your email. Last edited by Hanuman; 05-18-2010 at 03:56 PM.