Seeing is believing???

Maybe believing determines what you see.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Rorschach test, in which a person is shown random ink blots on paper, and asked what they see. There is nothing there but an ink blot, so what a person sees describes not the ink blot but the person. It’s not that the person is incapable of recognizing that he is looking at a mere ink blot; the person is encouraged to use their imagination, and in that imagining, the psychologist can recognize basic personality traits and/or perspectives of the test subject.

The Daniel Penny case is like a Rorschach test. There is no dispute of the facts of the case. There are multiple eyewitnesses who saw exactly the same thing. The question is, did they see a murder? Did they see negligent homicide? Did they see justifiable self-defense? They all witnessed exactly the same thing, but they all saw something different.

That’s human reality. That’s why the story of The Blind Men and the Elephant has existed for as long as anyone remembers. That’s the point of “Rashomon”, the Japaenese movie of 1947 and its many remakes, including the USA’s “Outrage”. It does not just occasionally happen that different people witness precisely the same event, yet see entirely different things and draw entirely different conclusions. It is commonplace.

People have recognized this for as long as anybody knows. Until recently. Today we largely have people insisting that they are correct concerning, not just the facts, but their interpretation of the facts. And since they are right, then anyone who disagrees with them must be wrong.

We have been dumbed down. We are encouraged to pick a side, and to consider nothing. Argue, but do not reason. Forget about nuance.

We are encouraged to believe that if a jury finds someone guilty, then they are, for a fact, guilty. And a not guilty verdict means they are definitely not guilty. A worthwhile life is not either/or. A worthwhile life considers possibilities and contradictions without feeling immediately compelled to choose a side and defend it.

We watch TV shows and movies in which, by the end of the show, the bad guy has been revealed and been caught. He is brought to justice. And we all feel good and self-satisfied. Ain’t movies grand? We watch TV ‘talk’ shows that are deliberately calculated to manipulate people into taking a side, the station owner’s side. That’s bad enough, but millions of people participate in this, and don’t even recognize that they’re being manipulated. The desire for pat, intelligence free answers, trumps rationality and consideration.

Daniel Penny. There is no question as to the facts. Everyone saw and heard exactly the same thing. The conclusions are quite different. Who is right? What is the truth? My truth is that the ‘truth’ is malleable, subject to campaigning, marketing and consensus building. We are fed a steady diet of it to the point that it seems that wherever we look, whatever we see, someone is trying to convince us of something. I’m trying to convince you of something right now. Don’t jump to conclusions. Do NOT believe anything simply because that’s what your favorite media have been pumping into you.

Daniel Penny. He is a Rorschach test. You are the test subject. Who is administering that test, and why? Did you think that all such cases result in arrest and trial? And that they all get national publicity? Think again. Every day, people face similar cases of ‘was it self-defense or murder’? Every day. The people in charge of deciding such things decided that they wanted this case to be prosecuted. And they wanted it publicized. Why? Why do we hear so much about this case, and not the others??

I suggest that we all stop accepting what we are presented with, and examine the people who decide what we will see, and what we won’t see. They have expectations of us. Their intent is to manipulate our thinking. They have motives. What are they? For that matter, WHO are they? Perhaps you’ve never thought such thoughts. Perhaps it’s time you did.

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