Thursday, June 07, 2007

The Comment Not Given

Loyalty to a petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul.
-Goethe


I read this over at Changing Places the other day. Donna wrote about a conversation between Bill O'Reilly and presidential candidate John McCain on O'Reilly's show The O'Reilly Factor. They were discussing immigration. At one point O'Reilly said this:

But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have.


As Donna points out, this is O'Reilly's losing power and becoming irrelevant fear speaking loudly and clearly. She also quotes another blogger to explain what is sitting at the base of this fear- insecurity:

And the people who are falling back on “But I’m male” and “But I’m white” and “But I’m credentialed” and “But I’m supposed to be in charge, the plaque on my desk says so” right now are doing so because deep down they know their authority and control are no longer good enough in and of themselves. They’re staggered by the idea that privilege might have to be earned, instead of bestowed on them as a birthright, and it contradicts the entire story that they tell themselves in their heads, about how they have what they have not because they’re any better than anybody else at any one thing but because they freaking deserve it. Butting up against somebody’s internal hero cycle is always a jolting experience.


Now, as I read this I realized Norman Doidge's book, The Brain That Heals Itself, offers another reason for this fear and I decided to leave a comment but as it so often happens in Blogland my comment disappeared into that other dimension where all missing socks and comments go. I re-wrote and reentered my comment but again it vanished. This is not Donna's fault but I got so frustrated at this point I quit trying.

Since I found both observations interesting and because the comment that I made ties into this I decided to write about it on my own blog and quote my own missing comments:

"Another reason for this behavior can be found in Norman Doidge's book, The Brain That Heals Itself. Doidge's book is about the neuroplasticity (malleability) of the brain and how this plasticity declines as we age:

As we age and plasticity declines, it becomes increasingly difficult for us to change in response to the world, even if we want to. We find familiar types of stimulation pleasurable: we seek out like-minded individuals to associate with, and research shows we tend to ignore or forget, or attempt to discredit, information that does not match our beliefs, or perception of the world, because it is very distressing and difficult to think and perceive in unfamiliar ways. Increasingly, the aging individual acts to preserve the structures within, and when there is a mismatch between his internal neurocognitive structures and the world, he seeks to change the world. In small ways he begins to micromanage his environment, to control it and make it familiar. But this process, writ large, often leads whole cultural groups to try to impose their view of the world on other cultures, and they often become violent, especially in the modern world, where globalization has brought different cultures closer together, exacerbating the problem.


Sounds like Bush, Cheney, the Vatican, religious fundamentalist of all sects, and all those other middle-aged and old men in charge. I am sure this decline in plasticity is more prevalent in men. There seem to be more grumpy old men than grumpy old women in the world. Maybe this is one of the reasons why woman outlive men."

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