Recently I finished re-reading Terry Pratchett's The Science Of Discworld II: The Globe and it brought up a number of interesting concepts. The one I'd like to address today is one of "Mind versus mind". In the following essay, Mind is the concept of a consciousness which is not individual, but a collective thought process which people tap into with their individual minds.
Let us begin with the collective.
"Mind" can be defined as the group consensus reached when two or more people are together, and lean upon each other for influence. As such, there are collective values learned by this Mind, and hence conveyed to those who are part of it. A main technique used to do this is propaganda. For centuries media and politician alike have employed this as a means of Mind control over the population. Especially in politics. For this end, an examination of the current War On Terror seems prudent. Not only in the US is propaganda seen to promote this. Stereotypes used in the media portray terrorists as Middle Eastern in ethnicity, or as having ?Muslim? traits to support the plot line of various stories. Through this, the Mind has been brought to believing that the War is a necessary effort to protect the rights and freedoms of those within it. Additionally, people under this Mind are more likely to accept the invasions of personal freedom and incredibly stringent security put in place. Along with propaganda comes the saturation of particular values which then become integrated into the Mind. While these values may already be present, they are often accentuated and become more taboo. Patriotic advertising is a good demonstration of this. Through adverts which feature either national stereotypes (the Aussie Bloke, for example) a company is able to appeal to the pride that one may hold simply for being in the country they are. This also accentuates that pride, and saturation thereof often forces patriotism to become an expected value for those who are part of the Mind in question. The same style of thing applies to religious values and texts. Religions tend to create Minds of their own, often based around texts or shared values from which a collective reference Mind is made. People integrated into these Minds take up the rituals inherent to that religion to further saturate their lives with the values of the Mind.
And with values, comes enforcement thereof. All Minds find ways to weed out dissent and opposition to the values they hold, lest the errant minds take apart the overall Mind structure at the seams. The ingrained nature of most Mind values means that values which may oppose this become abhorrent, as they go against the very moral fabric of the Mind. If the outlying morals can fit within the Mind, it often happens that the Mind will absorb and appropriate them, as demonstrated with Christianity?s adaptation of the Mother Goddess concept (in the shape of Mary). The other option is to cast out and shun opposing values. This happens when the value in question is not able to be absorbed, or the Mind does not feel it would survive the absorption thereof. In most social situations this is played out as ?acceptable? behaviour. A further division here is between ?cool? and ?uncool? habits and features. The former is when someone either conforms to the social values, or conforms and then extends them to envelope a degree of creativity or nuance which is unforeseen by much of the rest of the Mind, but does not go against its fabric. Those who are ?uncool? or partake of ?unacceptable? behaviour are cast out of the Minds social bounds. If there are enough of these outcasts however, they form their own Minds and the cycle repeats until such time as there is one great overarching Mind which embraces all possible values beneath it.
Within a Mind, there is a degree of mob psychology present at any point in time. This often exists to support those who partake of the Mind should they encounter other Minds and have to defend themselves. This support can also lift the responsibility for a given action from the shoulders of one individual and spread it across the Mind. Terry Pratchett?s Auditor characters are excellent examples of a Mind personified, as they do not make decisions without consulting at least two others, and keep a close watch on each other while in the group of three or more. In this way, the people acting within a Mind draw from the influence of others and from the values installed by the Mind itself. Not only does this happen on the individual level, but it can also influence entire social groups, such as demonstrated by The Crucible, a play by Arthur Miller which parodies McCarthyist America under the guise of dramatising the Salem witch trials. In this play, an entire town is reduced to hysteria regarding the fear of witches in their midst. Due to the religious nature of the town, this causes paranoia and hysteria to rush through it quickly consuming social order and bringing the townspeople under a totalitarian rule of the Mind. Within a mob psychology, just as within any aspect of a Mind there are naturally positive influences. These are used to great effect in situations such as concerts. One I myself experienced was a performance by Icelandic band Sigur Ros. The Mind at this concert was incredible. Each song drew a different emotional response from the collective, or combined the emotions of the minds to make the Mind more powerful than before. It remains the most moving performance I ever attended, to the point of making me laugh in some songs, and sob as though broken in others. Certain things such as this music, or something viewed as a great achievement by the Mind can unite those within it to new heights of creativity, or of binding within the Mind. While the Mind in the case of the Sigur Ros concert was a fleeting thing in unison, the effect of such a Mind remains with those who were a part of it.
Along with Minds come minds, the individual within the mass. Building minds within Minds is a task that takes a lifetime for each mind, and the contribution of various other minds as well. Self-determination can hence be defined as taking particular parts of various Minds and melding them together into an individual consciousness. Demonstrations of this occur in various texts and mediums, but a particularly prominent one can be found in the book and movie Looking For Alibrandi. In this movie the protagonist, Josie finds cause and ability to sort through the various and often conflicting Minds she finds around her and constructs her own mind from the sum of both some values from the Minds, and her own personal experience. A mind therefore, becomes individualise from the Minds it is surrounded by, and can act independently within the bounds of the Minds? values. My own experience of this has combined factors from a range of different Minds. To begin with I was influenced by the Mind of the Catholic Church, as that is the context I was brought up in. A scientific Mind was overlayed upon this, with the values of the Catholic Mind being taught with cross examination from scientific angles. This lead to a crisis of faith, and my separation from the Catholic Mind, however science stayed with me, and since then I have investigated a number of other Minds and taken various values and ideas from different ones. Bound together with experience and various biological factors relating to my brain, they have become my mind.
Minds are terrible things to waste, just as minds are, but they are not without their dangers, each to the other. A Mind based solely around conformity is a detriment to the minds within it, as it can stunt their intellectual and creative growth. Equally, however, a Mind can enhance the capabilities of those within it, promoting self examination and extension. Deviant minds can, naturally, destroy the Minds they are part of when the individual attempts to breach or bend the values around it. This can disrupt the other minds within the Mind, leading to an upset of the delicate balance. In different cases any of the above can apply, and the perception as to whether this is a good or a bad thing depends on the audience?s Mind.
Sources
http://www.globalissues.org/issue/245/war-on-terror
http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/socinf/socinf.html
1984 by George Orwell
I Am Legend (Directed by France Lawrence. Warner Bros., Village Roadshow)
Looking For Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta
The Crucible - Arthur Miller
Discworld Series ? Terry Pratchett
On an end note, I would seriously recommend to anyone that they attend a Sigur Ros concert should the opportunity arise. It is an intense, rewarding experience.
Let us begin with the collective.
"Mind" can be defined as the group consensus reached when two or more people are together, and lean upon each other for influence. As such, there are collective values learned by this Mind, and hence conveyed to those who are part of it. A main technique used to do this is propaganda. For centuries media and politician alike have employed this as a means of Mind control over the population. Especially in politics. For this end, an examination of the current War On Terror seems prudent. Not only in the US is propaganda seen to promote this. Stereotypes used in the media portray terrorists as Middle Eastern in ethnicity, or as having ?Muslim? traits to support the plot line of various stories. Through this, the Mind has been brought to believing that the War is a necessary effort to protect the rights and freedoms of those within it. Additionally, people under this Mind are more likely to accept the invasions of personal freedom and incredibly stringent security put in place. Along with propaganda comes the saturation of particular values which then become integrated into the Mind. While these values may already be present, they are often accentuated and become more taboo. Patriotic advertising is a good demonstration of this. Through adverts which feature either national stereotypes (the Aussie Bloke, for example) a company is able to appeal to the pride that one may hold simply for being in the country they are. This also accentuates that pride, and saturation thereof often forces patriotism to become an expected value for those who are part of the Mind in question. The same style of thing applies to religious values and texts. Religions tend to create Minds of their own, often based around texts or shared values from which a collective reference Mind is made. People integrated into these Minds take up the rituals inherent to that religion to further saturate their lives with the values of the Mind.
And with values, comes enforcement thereof. All Minds find ways to weed out dissent and opposition to the values they hold, lest the errant minds take apart the overall Mind structure at the seams. The ingrained nature of most Mind values means that values which may oppose this become abhorrent, as they go against the very moral fabric of the Mind. If the outlying morals can fit within the Mind, it often happens that the Mind will absorb and appropriate them, as demonstrated with Christianity?s adaptation of the Mother Goddess concept (in the shape of Mary). The other option is to cast out and shun opposing values. This happens when the value in question is not able to be absorbed, or the Mind does not feel it would survive the absorption thereof. In most social situations this is played out as ?acceptable? behaviour. A further division here is between ?cool? and ?uncool? habits and features. The former is when someone either conforms to the social values, or conforms and then extends them to envelope a degree of creativity or nuance which is unforeseen by much of the rest of the Mind, but does not go against its fabric. Those who are ?uncool? or partake of ?unacceptable? behaviour are cast out of the Minds social bounds. If there are enough of these outcasts however, they form their own Minds and the cycle repeats until such time as there is one great overarching Mind which embraces all possible values beneath it.
Within a Mind, there is a degree of mob psychology present at any point in time. This often exists to support those who partake of the Mind should they encounter other Minds and have to defend themselves. This support can also lift the responsibility for a given action from the shoulders of one individual and spread it across the Mind. Terry Pratchett?s Auditor characters are excellent examples of a Mind personified, as they do not make decisions without consulting at least two others, and keep a close watch on each other while in the group of three or more. In this way, the people acting within a Mind draw from the influence of others and from the values installed by the Mind itself. Not only does this happen on the individual level, but it can also influence entire social groups, such as demonstrated by The Crucible, a play by Arthur Miller which parodies McCarthyist America under the guise of dramatising the Salem witch trials. In this play, an entire town is reduced to hysteria regarding the fear of witches in their midst. Due to the religious nature of the town, this causes paranoia and hysteria to rush through it quickly consuming social order and bringing the townspeople under a totalitarian rule of the Mind. Within a mob psychology, just as within any aspect of a Mind there are naturally positive influences. These are used to great effect in situations such as concerts. One I myself experienced was a performance by Icelandic band Sigur Ros. The Mind at this concert was incredible. Each song drew a different emotional response from the collective, or combined the emotions of the minds to make the Mind more powerful than before. It remains the most moving performance I ever attended, to the point of making me laugh in some songs, and sob as though broken in others. Certain things such as this music, or something viewed as a great achievement by the Mind can unite those within it to new heights of creativity, or of binding within the Mind. While the Mind in the case of the Sigur Ros concert was a fleeting thing in unison, the effect of such a Mind remains with those who were a part of it.
Along with Minds come minds, the individual within the mass. Building minds within Minds is a task that takes a lifetime for each mind, and the contribution of various other minds as well. Self-determination can hence be defined as taking particular parts of various Minds and melding them together into an individual consciousness. Demonstrations of this occur in various texts and mediums, but a particularly prominent one can be found in the book and movie Looking For Alibrandi. In this movie the protagonist, Josie finds cause and ability to sort through the various and often conflicting Minds she finds around her and constructs her own mind from the sum of both some values from the Minds, and her own personal experience. A mind therefore, becomes individualise from the Minds it is surrounded by, and can act independently within the bounds of the Minds? values. My own experience of this has combined factors from a range of different Minds. To begin with I was influenced by the Mind of the Catholic Church, as that is the context I was brought up in. A scientific Mind was overlayed upon this, with the values of the Catholic Mind being taught with cross examination from scientific angles. This lead to a crisis of faith, and my separation from the Catholic Mind, however science stayed with me, and since then I have investigated a number of other Minds and taken various values and ideas from different ones. Bound together with experience and various biological factors relating to my brain, they have become my mind.
Minds are terrible things to waste, just as minds are, but they are not without their dangers, each to the other. A Mind based solely around conformity is a detriment to the minds within it, as it can stunt their intellectual and creative growth. Equally, however, a Mind can enhance the capabilities of those within it, promoting self examination and extension. Deviant minds can, naturally, destroy the Minds they are part of when the individual attempts to breach or bend the values around it. This can disrupt the other minds within the Mind, leading to an upset of the delicate balance. In different cases any of the above can apply, and the perception as to whether this is a good or a bad thing depends on the audience?s Mind.
Sources
http://www.globalissues.org/issue/245/war-on-terror
http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/socinf/socinf.html
1984 by George Orwell
I Am Legend (Directed by France Lawrence. Warner Bros., Village Roadshow)
Looking For Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta
The Crucible - Arthur Miller
Discworld Series ? Terry Pratchett
On an end note, I would seriously recommend to anyone that they attend a Sigur Ros concert should the opportunity arise. It is an intense, rewarding experience.
