Beware of the Unconscious!

Beware of the Unconscious!

The real danger lies at the backdrop of the "Mind"!!!

Politics in Ethiopia has always been and still is: Playing with the ultimate instincts

of the actors; instead of recognising the substance to promote its development

in the interest of the mutual existence and progress of the social community.


The following is an interesting relevant research:


http://pantheon.yale.edu/~jab257/BarghMorsella_UBGS_final.pdf

http://www.yale.edu/acmelab/Bargh_Morsella_Unconscious_Mind.pdf

http://www.yale.edu/acmelab/FreeWillIsUnnatural.pdf

Excerpts....

"Hence, despite our intuitions and how much consciousness may

mean to ‘us,’ consciousness is actually an atypical phenomenon and tool

with respect to both the natural world and the majority of human nervous

function. Figuratively speaking, it is as atypical regarding the nuts and bolts of
intelligent behavior as are the computerized, GPS-based navigational

systems in today’s automobiles. These devices, and their ‘reverse engineering,’

fail to reveal the basic principles of mechanized transport, and, as sophisticated as

they may be (interacting with satellites and creating graphical ‘representations’

of one’s current driving environment, including traffic conditions), they
are not responsible for either powering the car nor for conducting it. Just

as automobiles could get from one place to another long before the advent of such

systems, so did creatures express intelligent behavior before the advent of

consciousness. The intelligentia of this ‘unconscious fauna’ is still within us, and,

like the engine and driver of a car, it is working behind the scenes as the prime mover
of our behavioral repertoire, in the form of unconscious behavioral guidance systems."
.....
And the research concludes....

"In contrast, for those who have been focusing on action itself for many years,

and especially those of us who have focused on automatic or unconscious uses of

activated concepts, they are all about the mediation of higher mental processes, including complex action and behavior in social settings. As showcased in the Oxford

Handbook of Human Action (Morsella, Bargh, & Gollwitzer, 2009), these are exciting

times because science is beginning to unravel the basic nuts and bolts of
human action, the majority of which are unconscious. People are generally unaware

of the sources of their behavioral impulses and of how their actions are successfully guided to completion; it is difficult indeed then to understand how conscious awareness can

effectively guide action without massive support by unconscious guidance systems....

"In the rest of the natural sciences, especially evolutionary biology and neuroscience,

complex and highly intelligent design in living things is not assumed to be driven by

conscious, intentional processes on the part of the plant or animal (e.g., Dawkins, 1976). As Dennett (1991, p. 251) put it, “in biology, we have learned to resist the temptation to

explain design in organisms by positing a single great Intelligence that does all the work…

We must build up the same resistance to the temptation to explain action as arising

from the imperatives of an internal action-orderer who does too much of the work.”

Especially, we would add, when there now exist such promising leads to
how human behavior is generated and guided within the domain of unconscious

processes."

Given this or even 50% of It to be the ultimate truth of the "human condition".....

What is the role of political action...in a cultured community.....?

...Given this hard fact....Consciously recognise the imperatives of the

Unconscious of the actors and agents; to come to terms with each other.....

And.......Negotiate and Compromise....according to the conditions and the

terms of the "Rule of Law" etc....

If this is undermined ....by any one of the big actors......any "collective agent" is in

a position to sense and in its way to undermine the goal and objective of the other very easily.

The outcome is a "Zero-sum Game" where all of them will lose in their ultimate product.

This seems the vicious circle of the centuries old underdevelopment of Ethiopia and

similar communities! Or social darwinism....with all the disastorous consequences

witnessed in our or... the human history at large.

Our political class as a whole seems incapable of recognising these instincts....to handle

it wisely...

That is perhaps the main pattern of thought, which helped the "West" or the new "tigers"

to do better than Africa....in this century...or earlier....Always to reflect and maintain the

ultimate "Social Harmony", given all differences and interests of the particular agents...

Needless to say......Enlightenment is the only better alternative!

And perhaps :-) "The Planets" (cf. R.T. "Cosmos and Psyche") would tell us more in the aftermath!!!

But, neither would they change the past
nor would the Human cease to be responsible for the Future!!!

***
Reference of the research:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/bargh.html

Unconscious Behavioral Guidance Systems
John A. Bargh
Department of Psychology, Yale University
Ezequiel Morsella
Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University;
Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco