Why I Know
What I Know
Posted on Facebook by Bob Self Photo by Joe Milanese
June 16, 2012
Revised May 24, 2013
A simple indisputable statement
of the truth. That it even needs to be
stated is a testimony of how far our values have degenerated. One generation
ago the truth was oriented by honesty, integrity, The Golden Rule (the basis of
all major religions), and the ability to survive. Under the toxic narcotic-like trance of
television, we have become a nation addicted to instant gratification;
worshipers of youth and celebrity, undisciplined and self destructive. Celebrities that openly abuse themselves are
held up as heroes and heroines, as their pleasure-seeking causes them to need
more and more stimulation to get the addict’s buzz. They use drugs to tolerate the stress, which
weakens them even more resulting in a downward spiral that leads to death. Then ,they are elevated another notch in the
pop culture for successful suicide.
Suicide is the ultimate in non-adaptive behavior. It is an instant defiance to our most basic
instinct: survival. The fact that part
of our culture is embracing this is a dire sign.
This entire transformation
was caused by television in a process that is now understood in detail to the
molecular level. In brief, TV bombards
our nervous system with vast amounts of information that we have evolved no
defense mechanisms to protect ourselves. We thought TV was harmless and the
novelty of it caused the whole culture to watch it daily and routinely, unaware
of the profound way it was changing our nervous systems and affecting our
behavior. Basically to reduce the amount
of excess stimuli we became incapable of paying attention to anything
else. We ignored our schools, our
government, our spouses, children and families.
It opened the door to manipulation; and, sociopaths who care for nothing
but themselves quickly took advantage of the situation. Americans in the 50's had the benefit of an
economy that easily provided all their basic needs. So to make money, the sociopaths made up
products that no one needed; and ,through the hypnotic media of television,
convinced Americans to buy this junk.
Success with small inexpensive items soon led to more outrageous and
expensive items and fast-growing profits for the opportunists. Doesn't everyone need a new Cadillac every
year ? After all, your neighbors a new car every year. Soon this addiction to t.v. and the products
advertised led men to work overtime and women to leave the home to work in
order to pay for the items they didn't need.
With that phase, the opportunists invented credit so people could buy
even more stuff they didn't need.
Simultaneously, satisfaction with life declined along with family life,
because no one had time or attention for the issues that used to be
important. Now, making money and
consuming unneeded stuff was the rule.
People were stuck at jobs they hated in order to be certain they could make the mortgage
payments. Thus, for the last generation
we have been brutally exploited, while becoming mentally ill because of TV and
a toxic life style taught to us by television.
Exercise declined; obesity went up.
Now some of us are waking up from a 30 year dream and asking "How
did everything get so messed up".
The answer is so shockingly unexpected that people have trouble
understanding it or accepting it, much less doing anything about it. The first step is incredibly simple, but
people can't even do that: get the televisions out of the house.
I am an oddball in that I
have not watched TV since I was 20 years old.
I read Marshall McCluhan's prophetic book "The Medium is the
Message" in which he warned of the dangers of television in 1960. His reasoning was exactly as I described
above. I was born an "out of the
box" thinker, and had no trouble taking action on this warning, even
though I know of no another person of my baby-boomer generation who did. So at 64, I have spent the last 40+ years
reading books on any subject that had new breakthroughs in thinking. Meanwhile, my peers were watching TV and
suffering the exact consequences that McCluhan predicted: through “heroin like” addictive quality they fell prey to the Madison Avenue
boys who created junk no one needed and convinced them to buy it. Consumerism was born as the sociopaths
quickly recognized that TV was the ultimate tool to manipulate people into
doing things that added no real value to their lives. McCluhan also predicted that TV watchers would
loose specific mental capabilities: the ability to decide what was important in
life and an erosion of the ability to think critically. In brief, TV, believed to be a harmless source
of entertainment, was the cause of the unraveling of all of America’s valued institutions in
one generation. Everything from
education, to communities, and , most importantly , our political system, which is now totally controlled
by sociopaths at every level of government.
All of McCluhan’s theories had been
proven without any doubt by psychiatrists and neuroscientists by around
2003. The proof was compelling, from the
genetics to the intraneuronal cleft where neurotransmitters do the work of transferring
information from one neuron to the other.
The level of proof and certainty was also applied to the sociopath,
which exists in precisely 0.9 % of every population on the planet. This means
that this radical personality disorder, (people who are born without the brain
machinery necessary to tell right from wrong), has been part of humanity for
millions of years. These people have
been the human source of Evil (in Christian terms) throughout the history of
mankind. Now for the first time in
history we have a way to recognize them and isolate them from the rest of
society. This would mean a peaceful
world without war or humans’ cruelty to other humans is possible for the first
time in the history of our species.
Sociologists have done some excellent studies and estimate that this
<1% of the population is responsible for 99% of the misery for the other 99%
of the population.
The 90's were a blast because
the breakthroughs in biology and neuroscience were coming monthly for several years. It has been called "The Decade of the
Brain" in the scientific community. I was totally prepared for the new insights
into the biology of human behavior. I
had already figured that out, because as a physician, I learned this from
observation and treating mental illness which reinforced the fascinating new information
I was reading. Then the final phase of
my learning about the importance of biology in human behavior came when I
worked at the largest mental hospital in Texas from 2002-2010. Now, it's time to share what I have learned
in a lifetime of having a different point of view uncontaminated by television,
as well as reading a newly published book on any new development in thinking in
any arena every 2 weeks for 25 years.
Thus, my scientific and philosophical knowledge is deep and wide. I have 4000 hardback books in my personal
library, most of them are about breakthroughs in scientific and philosophical
thought (for example the complete works of Ken Wilber---the most accomplished
philosopher of our era). As an undergraduate, I accumulated 192 credit hours,
mostly in science. I changed majors three times. My BS is in Radio-TV-Film, and those studies
led me to reading Marshall McCluhan’s masterwork The Medium Is the Message, and
develop a passion for photography, which I have studied and practice vigorously
ever since 1969. I have developed a very
distinctive style, which is best described as “Impressionistic Street Photography”. You can view my 25,000 images posted on
Flickr since 2008. Flickr ID:
“mcreedonmcvean”
Self Portrait with Window Reflections
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