Zahir
Ebrahim | Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
Sunday
February 03, 2013, 3:15 PM PST
Scholarly
people often ask me why I critique both consent chiefs (empire is
good crowd of thinkers) and dissent chiefs (empire is bad crowd of
thinkers), and could I succinctly state what is it that I presume to
know which is different at Project
Humanbeingsfirst.org.
Well,
Edward Bernays straightforwardly explained to David Letterman on his
show
when asked what is calling you “doctor” all about:
“people will believe me more if you call me doctor”.
Not
being a “doctor” of commonsense, it is therefore a tad
hard to sell commonsense to the brilliant minds who are already
“doctors”, never mind to the public mind that only looks
for “doctors” before believing them.
With
this perception management built-into all of us by the very nature of
our organic makeup, of seeking “authority figures” in
every domain of our lives to follow, and furthermore, as Bertrand
Russell had beautifully captured the public mind:
“What
a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index to his
desires – desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If
a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts [or
worldview], he will scrutinize it closely, and unless [and at times
even when] the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe
it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a
reason for acting in accordance with his instincts [or worldview], he
will accept it even on the slenderest evidence.” --- Bertrand
Russell, Proposed Roads to Freedom, 1919, pg. 147
there
is therefore not much leverage available for exponents of ordinary
commonsense. No university offers a doctorate degree in that
discipline, never mind any kind of course-work or area-studies
program to inculcate commonsense.
Nevertheless,
in response to the question that often gets me quoted back the
following repartee from even close friends: “what is you
qualification for this opinion”, and me getting tired
of answering “absolutely none”, I dug out
the following three reports from my archives to show why even just
ordinary commonsense can trump all the Nobel laureates in the
sciences and humanities, all the PhDs in physics and chemistry, not
to forget mathematics and philosophy, and all the distinguished
experts, journalists, commentators, and ayatollahs in the world who
are marketed first by the elegant characterization made by Edward
Bernays rather than by their facility of commonsense – a
commodity evidently rarer than its name might lead one to believe:
What
is the fundamental problem you are addressing: Read
this
What
is the fundamental problem with 9/11 Truth aficionados: Read
this
What
is the problem of war veterans suffering PTSD: Read
this
I
am sharing this with act of humble goodwill, the fostering of
commonsense among a learned people, with a great deal of caution and
circumspection. It can be akin to calling the mirror blind and
fraught with existential hazards.
With
best regards
from a common man – one who does not have a doctorate in commonsense
(but evidently appears to exercise a great monopoly upon its use --- baarrff, splutterrr, coughcough!!)
from a common man – one who does not have a doctorate in commonsense
(but evidently appears to exercise a great monopoly upon its use --- baarrff, splutterrr, coughcough!!)
Zahir
Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
California, United States of America,
en route to a habitat suffering from an acute drought of commonsense, Pakistan
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
California, United States of America,
en route to a habitat suffering from an acute drought of commonsense, Pakistan
Source
URL:
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2013/02/problem-articulation-and-solution-space.html
Problem
articulation and Solution space By Zahir Ebrahim | Project
Humanbeingsfirst.org
