"Let them eat cake" - Thought marionette

Human behavior, when observed through time, display developed patterns. Each movement, statement, thought, choice reinforces certain tendencies and preferences to which man inevitably chains himself. Interactions between individuals falls into a perceivable pattern, reinforcing their interactive matrix, upon which, like actors or marionettes, individuals play-out their roles. Much of our habits and interpersonal relationships proceed without much conscious effort, producing discernible patterns, and displaying our vulnerabilities to anyone vigilant in pattern recognition.

Man easily falls into the roles defined by the matrix of interaction: parent-child, student-teacher, adversary-advocate, master-apprentice, Sith-Jedi, etc. In a sense, the unaware man is trapped in an oracular vision of the interaction established on initial contact with another and perpetuated with his unconscious cooperation.

There is a story, older than the written word, regarding a scorpion and a frog. A scorpion requests a frog to carry him across a river. The frog refuses, reasoning that the scorpion will sting him. The scorpion reassures the frog that if he stings the frog, both will drown. Accepting this logic, the frog carries the scorpion across the river, but is stung in the middle of the river. The scorpion tells the incredulous frog that it is in his nature to sting him, even if it means both will now drown.

Some complain that the story is inaccurate, as they believe that nature can be changed. Others grimly accept that nature can not be changed: scorpions will be scorpions and frogs should never trust them. But the story is more nuanced; as long as the actors are defined as an insidious scorpion and a trusting frog, the interaction will inevitably proceed towards the tragic conclusion. The matrix of the interaction traps both marionettes into the tragic cycle, reinforcing the behaviors, each time the interaction is replayed.

Marriage relationship illustrates pattern repetition, almost akin to religious rituals that preserve traditional information. In many marriages, the actors replay the relational interactions of their parents’ marriage. The dysfunctions of the parents are passed on through their children’s marriage; in many instances, women tend to choose men who possess the characteristics of their fathers. Though the children may inherit their fathers’ names, the marriage dynamic and interpersonal affairs are determined by women, who replay their parents’ marriages in the current context. This repetition-compulsion, a psychodynamic disorder that persistently replays past dysfunctions in new relationships, is a pernicious disease that afflicts human behavior. The probability of a divorce with a wife, whose parents are divorced, remains highly likely.

Our daily interaction with our world is performed subconsciously, which is to our advantage, as being cognizant of every data entering our mind through our senses will cause many to be catatonic. Man depends on the automatic filtering mechanism of his brain to function through life without expending mental energy on decisions of low consequence. The automatic filters function efficiently in most circumstances, as the tendencies of other people and natural occurrences are habitual and semi-repetitive. But life circumstances and peoples’ behaviors do change more frequently than people imagine.

One spectacular instance of automatic filtering state of the public leading to an unexpected historical outcome was Walter Cronkite’s famous, or infamous, editorial of the Tet Offensive on February of 1968. CBS Evening News presented itself as accurate, objective journalism with Walter Cronkite as the face of the program; and CBS Evening News was objective in its programming. The conflict, of course was with the mixing of editorial and the factual during the same program, delivered by the same person. The automatic state of the audience was in factual receptive mode, and even the political elite was said to have been convinced by Cronkite’s opinion of inevitable defeat in Vietnam; an opinion, to this day, taken as factual by many.

It is extremely ironic that Cronkite’s defeatism was voiced in his coverage of the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, a military operation judged even by the North Vietnamese as a massive failure. The entire Viet-Cong network was undermined, the entirety of their operatives killed, one-third of Viet-Cong effective fighting force neutralized, and the lukewarm South Vietnamese public opinion turned to hot hostility towards the Communists. But, American public was lulled into a pattern of passively obtaining factual information from CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite; and one man’s poorly informed opinion achieved for Hanoi what 200,000 dead Viet-Cong and NVA could not.

In the modern era, “Google” is the new CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. Much of our relationship with Google is in the context of passively receiving factual data. Google plays the role of the objective archivist to our impatient consumer. For the most part, the data that we receive are inconsequential in substance, but at times, man begins to inquire matters of consequential substance on Google algorithm prioritization, rather than another human being. Man falls into the trap of allowing his decisions to be based on inanimate archivist and subconscious routine.

Decide derives from Latin de (off) caedere (to cut, or to kill). Each time we decide, we kill-off the other possibility. How many live their lives killing-off possibilities from sheer intransigence of habit? How many progress through life in subconsciously reinforcing dysfunctional patterns? Are the patterns that define them conscious choice, or subconscious reenactment of others’ definition of their identity?

“How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech,” so argues Soren Kierkegaard. Indeed, for many who exist through life as marionettes, without much thought to their habits, what would be the value of the freedom to speak? Andrew is right; we should have consciously chosen a dinner restaurant, rather than blindly being led into a greenhouse.