Thinking bad, rules good! I noticed decades ago that some people were really good at remembering and could learn rule books very well. That makes sense because most of biological life was a matter of remembering and rule learning. Thinking is a late-developing, especially human talent, which is developed to a poor extent in everyone and some much less than others. Chimps are not much good at it and other animals worse.
Thinking is based on knowledge, so the rules and facts are needed. But rules and facts [which is what education systems primarily focus on] are nothing to do with thinking. Google is the world champion on rules, facts, remembering, recall speed, extent of knowledge. But Google still isn't what we'd call a thinker. Not even close!
The dominance hierarchy chieftains do NOT like people thinking. They invent all sorts of ways to avoid people doing it. If people accept living by simple metaphors, rules and rituals, it makes life easy for the priesthood [who of course set the rules, metaphors, rituals, 'donation' levels and get the girls].
Thinking is very hard work and never-ending, so we all operate nearly all the time on a rule-book based on our experiences of what works reasonably well. But we get the new stuff from the arduous thinking process. That's why the freedom-based western world of circular labeling, categorizing, relational stuff and comparative figuring is the rich part of the world and the rule-based dominance hierarchies are not. [Not that the west is free - just relatively].
Mqurice |
