NP: New Soul - Yael Naim
Hey! Hope your 2020 has so far been bearable?
This month, I want to talk about societal conditioning…
The reality of societal conditioning dawned on me the minute my brother was born. I had fallen in love with him and was immediately anxious that he might grow up conflicted as I was at the time. The moment I met him, I vowed to do all I could to make sure he wouldn't struggle to find himself when the time comes. I was going to make him a feminist. He wasn't going to be a fanatic. He, sure as shit, wasn't going to be a "product of societal conditioning".
My aversion for conditioning isn't alien. A lot of us woke individuals refer to the idea with disgust and only highlight the word in negative contexts.
Now, here's how conditioning works...
A neutral object is made to interact with a potential object in a way that subsequently gives the neutral object the power to elicit the same response that the potential object normally would. "Made to interact" because the response is usually orchestrated by whoever is experimenting.
With societal conditioning, neutral ideologies, beliefs, systems and situations are twisted in a way that, upon interaction, humans respond in an ordained manner. And that, for me, is one problem with the world. That many of us are only responding in a fashion that is inorganic.
With my brother, I have always been afraid to not have my biases projected through him. For example, his questions on Christianity are always met with short ambivalent responses. I do not want him conditioned by society but I also do not want him conditioned by me. After eight years of watching my little sunshine rise, I can confidently say that conditioning is unavoidable. Here's why...
Conditioning is the only method we have to help us transition from newborns to entities mature enough to navigate life on their own.
I think it is quite unfortunate that we aren't born with a basic understanding of life embedded in our brains. This ‘glitch’ leaves our foundation of reasoning at the mercy of whoever is to assume responsibility for our being. And because as babies, we aren't equipped with the range to assess information and arrive at informed conclusions, we absorb everything offered. We grow as extensions of our caregivers. We can't blame them though. It is impossible to not condition someone when they are so intellectually dependent. The only way to bring them up is to guide them through insight.
But the problem with this is that insight of any form is more often than not riddled with perspective and perspective can sometimes be selfish. This explains why societies often echo the sentiments of their founders.
So, the enemy isn't societal conditioning. It is the ill-informed tenets that have us humans reacting in a way that is impartial and harmful to us or others.
Conditioning is only a tool to sync individuals to certain paradigms. It wouldn't be so bad to condition a child into societal ideologies that are wholesome.
We callout witless opinions, we protest harmful laws, we engage in arguments and go on rants, all in a bid to recondition antagonists into accepting our "sane" beliefs.
This is why I always advocate for embracing dissent because, without them, ideologies cannot be tested, and if our beliefs are not tested, we cannot rationalise what we believe to be true. If conditioned ideologies aren’t questioned, we can’t check, rationalise and improve them.
Some day, we will find ourselves in situations where we will have to impact on impressionable beings. We owe it ourselves and, you know, the collective good of the society to have the right wisdom on hand.
Ciao.
Another Lesson: There is no shame in sharing your insecurities.
This is a beautiful piece
so interesting...