What road are you travelling?
You'll find both questions and answers on Interstate 60. Or, you can make up your own.
What was the question?
Where do you go to get your answers? For that matter, where do you go to get your questions? Chances are, you have opinions about today’s issues; abortion, marriage, vaccines, etc. Why? Why are these your questions? Did you think of them, or have they been thrust upon you? If left to yourself, for you to choose, what would YOUR questions be? It can’t be coincidence that we are all considering the same questions. We are considering these same questions, because they aren’t our questions. They are questions that are being curated for us by our trainers.
What about the answers? With 330 million people in this country, how can there be only two answers: For, or Against? We have been programmed, folks. We are arguing over somebody else’s questions, and we are being told what our choice of answers is. Two. Two stinking answers. For, or Against.
I’ve just watched the movie, “Interstate 60” again. I recommend watching it. “Interstate 60” contemplates the questions. It offers that the answers are different for different people. For that matter, the QUESTIONS are different for different people. Like a lot of people, I saw a fork in the road when I was a young adult; follow the traditional path or make my own way. The traditional path is easy and predictable. Making your own path is, well, your own path. Unpredictable, often difficult, but generally far more rewarding. No, not everyone should take the unpredictable fork in the road. Many take the traditional path, and if it suits them, fine. But in a free society there is no obligation to follow along with others.
I have, since my earliest years, contemplated why people believe the things they do. It’s not so much the what but the why that confounds me. Unfortunately, many people believe what they have been trained to believe. It doesn’t come from their own heart; not even from their own mind. They have been trained.
My dog, Toby, has been trained. He sits when we say “sit”. He doesn’t’ wonder why, he does it because he’s gotten treats for doing it enough times that he makes the association that, if he sits, he gets a reward. So, he sits because we told him to, not because he wants to sit. Same for any of the other commands we give him. Yes, he has a mind of his own. When we don’t give him any command, he just does what he wants. But even at that, he doesn’t chew on anything except his toys, because that’s the way we’ve trained him.
Toby’s a great dog. Fun guy. But he’s a dog. He’s a pet. Should you obey commands? Do you think you don’t? Who is doing the commanding?
Stimulus, response. Behaviorism. You may be familiar with those terms in the context of psychology. If not, you should study them. Because we all respond to stimulus. We respond in whatever way we’ve been trained. Unless, of course, you ask your own questions and seek your own answers. In that case, other people’s answers to other people’s questions seem superficial. How they want you to behave, what they want you to believe, is irrelevant. Knowing all the ‘right’ answers is only relevant if you are going down the same road as everyone else. Kind of like a secret handshake, but with words. “What is the correct opinion about abortion?” “The correct answer about abortion is….” Stimulus. Response. Answer the question the way you have been trained to answer it, and you get a treat. You get a “Good boy” accolade. But give a well-considered answer that doesn’t dovetail with expectations, and you are shunned.
“Interstate 60” allegorically is a road in which people behave in accordance with expectations. In each town, following the crowd has gone to extremes, to the point of absurdity. Neal, a college student, drives the road, contemplating these places. Through it all, he is facing the life choice of either following in his father’s well-trod footsteps or making his own way as an artist. He visits a town where nearly everyone is a drug addicted partier. He visits another one where almost everyone is a lawyer. He visits a museum of artistic fakes which really contains the original masterpieces. People, thinking they are fakes, deride them as inferior reproductions. Neal considers these locales, and his father’s pressure to follow in his footsteps, all in an effort to decide what he should do.
There’s more than just that to the movie, but you get the idea. What if your deepest wishes come effortlessly to fruition? Will you really appreciate them, or come to regret them? What about honoring a commitment, even after you wish you hadn’t made it? And should we trust to fate to find our direction for us, or should take full charge of our own lives, even when it means ‘zagging’ when everyone else is ‘zigging’?.
“Interstate 60” isn’t needlessly deep. Its points are obvious. What’s sad is that the questions it asks, the answers that it considers, should be on everyone’s minds. But they aren’t. Our questions, our answers, aren’t really our own. They are programmed into us by our trainers. Sit when they say sit. Hate when they say hate. Like who they say to like. Be for what they say to be for, and against what they say to be against. The truth is whatever they say it is, even when a person can plainly see that it’s a lie.
Truth. What is it? It’s not the same as fact, or we would have no need for the word ‘truth’. Facts are based on physical reality. Truth exists only in our minds. Is the truth in your mind the same as the truth in my mind? Should it be? To the extent that there’s a mismatch, which one of us is right? Should we put it to a vote? Should the truth of the majority be considered right, and anybody else’s truth is illegal?
Democracy is not freedom; it is the antithesis of freedom. Democracy does not protect rights, it obliterates them.
Totalitarianism demands conformity. It demands ostracization of those who speak against it. It demands that we all travel the same road and give the same preprogrammed response to the proper stimulus.
Just like Toby. Don’t worry, Jan and I are benevolent dictators. Toby has a nice life and is well cared for. But make no mistake, Toby is our pet. He eats what and when we decide he eats. His healthcare is whatever we are willing to provide. He goes out when we let him out, and comes in when we call him in. He sits when we say “sit”. How about you?
Comments?
Well done, Rad! Articulate, as always.