‘Being Programmed’
CAERS Substack Article #77
I have heard it said that aesthetic tastes are very personal; beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and each beholder sees things uniquely and independently. But is that true? Is it possible that to a significant degree we like what we are told to like? And believe what we are told to believe?
Many of us might cringe at such a possibility; we tell ourselves that we are free-thinkers and can make up our own minds. But given our innate insecurity and highly social nature, we are driven to tribalistic behaviour; we are strongly influenced to adopt the aesthetic tastes of our tribe in the same way that we are urged to adopt the moral values of our tribe. It’s hard to resist, and perhaps even harder to admit to it. If you don’t believe me, look at fashion, language or music: if you lived elsewhere in time or space, wouldn’t you be dressing, speaking or dancing differently than you do now?
There is nothing inherently wrong with such adaptive conduct; without living and working together in communities our survival would have been nearly impossible millennia ago. Things have changed for the better in that respect and it is much safer to follow the beat of one’s own drum today. But it can still be scary to do so; the ‘safety in numbers’ mentality is hardwired into us and it is hard to undo that wiring.
In other words, to a surprising degree we are programmed; that is why we can be manipulated so easily at times, though we may deny it. Our behaviours, especially ones residing in the oldest and most primitive parts of our brain that involve fight, flight or fright, are at times so predictable that we can fall prey to the more psychopathic among us. I suspect that many of us would have difficulty recognizing a psychopath; we assume that everyone who looks like us is like us, but a small percentage are not and our inability to identify them can be dangerous.
An effective way to minimize reflex, pre-programmed behaviour is simply to ask questions; science is all about that. Fundamentally the scientific process is about criticizing the present understanding and then conjecturing (guessing) a better explanation. That may sound pretty obvious, but this modest concept was revolutionary five hundred years ago and its acceptance was responsible for what is termed the Scientific Revolution. Without that having occurred we would still be in the ‘Dark Ages’.
Considering things from different perspectives is often stressful but being open-minded to the viewpoints of others can be very helpful, even when those views are not as appealing as we would like. Contrary arguments force us to re-examine our own arguments to see if they make as much sense as we think and are internally consistent. It is said that you really comprehend something well when an eight-year-old is able to understand your explanation. Such well- articulated arguments are usually worth a serious listen even if our immediate reaction is one of discomfort.
For example, we are programmed to seek ‘happy talk’; those wanting to engage in politics learned this many years ago. They try to convince us that they can rescue us from all of our woes because they have all of the answers and we buy into it. If we were at all serious about politics and could break out of the game we have been programmed to play, we would instead ask some very different questions like these:
What skeletons do you have in your closet that will make you vulnerable to being manipulated by sinister forces and engage in corruption?
What corruption have you seen in government and what are you going to do about it?
Do you have any addictions, especially to power, that will increase your likelihood of serving yourself first and your constituents second (if at all)? How do you keep your ego in check?
What rules are you going to enact to minimize future corruption in government?
How transparent will you be so that we can hold you and your party accountable?
These are not the usual kinds of questions we hear during an election campaign. We tend to ask politicians to make predictions and promises about the future that involve highly complex systems. We should have learned that we are asking for the impossible; how often are such pie- in-the-sky promises kept? I think we are programmed to desire concrete goals more than abstract processes, which is why we fall for the happy talk of better times ahead no matter how unrealistic. If we focused more on process the way my questions above do, we might be better off in the long run.
I have become convinced that one of our biggest failures as a species is that we do not learn from our mistakes; deleting old programs is very difficult, even when they function poorly. This is particularly true from generation to generation; it seems that each cohort must start almost from scratch rather than build on the hard-earned wisdom of those who have gone before. It’s almost as though we have to feel the pain of our own mistakes before we are sufficiently motivated to change. Perhaps we need those powerful brainstem neurochemicals to fire before we have the courage to alter our trajectory and exchange programs. Even if we do, all too often we limit ourselves to reflex binary brainstem reacting rather than utilizing higher level spectral thinking to find the best replacement program available.
It can be helpful to reflect occasionally on the nature of your beliefs: have you carefully thought them through for yourself or have you unconsciously and uncritically accepted them from external sources? We probably don’t have the time nor capacity to examine all of our beliefs in detail, but perhaps from time to time we should do so for those that are most important. In retrospect, are there any programs you utilized during the pandemic that might be worth a serious re-consideration? Did you buy into beliefs that led you astray? Is that happening now with respect to other social issues? Would you prefer to make up your own mind rather than clinging to the deeply flawed programs you have been fed?
We should not denigrate the existence or value of all of our programming or all of our beliefs. They do have their place when managed with a conscious effort that includes a willingness to be critical of them and modify them accordingly. History has shown us, however, that blindly following them with unrestrained emotion can take us places that would be best avoided.
J. Barry Engelhardt MD (retired) MHSc (bioethics)
CAERS Health Intake Facilitator