[Neurons] 2020 Neurons #51 THE UNTHINKING MOB

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall   

2020 Neurons #51

September 26, 2020

Reflections on Politics #7

 

THE UNTHINKING MOB

 

A mind that does not think for itself is a mind which is actually betraying
itself.  Yet that is what most people do.  School teaches us to do this.
Sit still, don't question your teacher, receive the lesson, play it back on
the test and you will be approved, get good grades, and move on.  Those who
learn this well will be doing this decades later.  They sit still when they
watch the news on television or on the internet, they hear the political
talking points a dozen or five dozen times, and that's what they repeat.
Uncritical credulity.  And now with the pat answers, people can feel
comfortable that they understand.  Case closed.  Now, what movie do you want
to watch?

 

If there's any example of extreme unthinkingness- it is a mob.  In a way
we're fortunate this year because we don't have to theorize about mobs- we
have been watching mobs in many of the major cities.  We hear them screaming
and shouting media's talking points.  The mob in Louisville Kentucky and
other cities this week is a classical example.  Instead of actually thinking
and asking relevant questions- all they focus on is the end results.  They
didn't get what they thought was right, so they protest.  But what are they
protesting?  The judicial system worked-a jury of peers looked at the
evidence and drew their conclusions from the facts of the case.

Facts included "Breonna Taylor's boyfriend fired first" and the police
returned fire in self-defense.  They knocked on the door and announced
"Police" which was confirmed by other people living in the apartment
building, it was not a "no-knock" warrant. 

 

Now an active and effective mind considers the facts, weighs the evidence,
and reasons to a logical conclusion.  Even the person who delivered the
final verdict, Daniel Cameron, the General Attorney of Kentucky, and a black
man said that "justice by riots" is not justice, "that is revenge."  If we
ask who is actually responsible for Breonna's death, it is her boyfriend who
initiated the gun fight.  If he had not done that ... she would not have
died.

 


Those from the Democratic left have been calling for people to rise up, call
for justice, demand protests until they get justice.  Yet all of that is
non-sense to thinking people.  That's just the taking points of BLM and the
media who endlessly present today's "Lesson" for all the immature minds to
mindlessly repeat.  Some so much do not like the facts, they try to change
the facts.  The most ridiculous are those who say that Daniel Cameron is not
really black!

 

A mature mind confronts problems to be solved, searches for relevant
evidence, weigh the evidence against context, the rule of law, values,
ethics, etc., come to a reasoned conclusion, test it with others, etc.
That's executive thinking and it requires calm objectivity.  The emotional
thinking that we see in the mobs is mobilized by lots of cognitive
distortions- exaggerations, over-generalizations, personalizations,
awfulizing, identification, etc.  You can hear it in their illogical chants:

"No black man is safe in America."  None?  No where in America?   

"Police are committing genocide against African Americans."  Of course, that
goes against the fact that 96% of all black men are killed by other black
men.

 

The problem with the unthinking is that sound reasoning doesn't compute for
them.  Nor do facts.  Emotional reactivity is what leads them to scream,
chant slogans, throw things, threaten to burn things down, etc. and become
violent mobs.  It undermines democracy, humanity, and morality.  Screaming
"No justice, no peace" in the shouts of a mob is actually a threat.  It is
threatening, "My way or highway of destruction."  

 

That undermines the democratic agreement which every democracy is built
upon.  We establish processes of justice and we keep updating and refreshing
them so that we become "a more perfect" union.  Yet it is always human-
always fallible.  Recognizing that every justice process can be improved-
that's where reasonable men and women put their focus, not rioting in the
streets.

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 




 

 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Neuro-Semantics

P.O. Box 8

Clifton CO. 81520 USA

www.neurosemantics.com 

 

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Humor is a meta-perspective about incongruity, exaggeration, playfulness,
and even absurdity.

For a touch of humor --- see the new book --- HUMOROUS THINKING  (2020)

 

 



 

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