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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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October 23, 2006
Good "Followers," Like Good "Listeners," Likely Serve a Greater Meaningful Purpose by Donald Croft Brickner
We first stumbled across this concept in one of psychic Sylvia Browne's books: that among 44 purported reincarnational "Life Themes," one of them is that of a Follower. A Follower! Think of that -- among the pre-established foundations (regardless of their actual number) seeking primary expression during a physical lifetime is that of serving as a "follower" during one's lifetime … Might it be true? Take a look around. Evaluate, say, that person closest to you at this reading … is he or she one of Them, do you suppose? (…Are you?!) Well, we don't need Sylvia Browne's help to argue for this. We don't even need reincarnation as an operative. Nor is there even a need yet to argue for this from a genetics perspective, either -- because it's a lock no such studies as yet exist. Some proof to support such a thesis has already been prepared countless times over, and demonstrated, always with the same results -- it's in the field of social psychology, a subset of behavioral psychology: namely, that how we insist we'll react to various sets of circumstances ahead of time are consistently incorrect. We don't know ourselves very well individually. We're just consistent failures at predicting our own behaviors. Part of that failure is our likely blindness to our own follow-the-pack inclinations, which always overpower "reason." Nowhere is this more apparent than in our reactions to paid advertising, particularly on TV. Is there a one of us who doesn't believe we're immune to such manipulative, transparent sales efforts? Yet the simple fact is we're all vulnerable to these intrusions in our lives -- our advertisers have pages upon pages of statistics to support that premise (…what do you think they teach our MBAs?) -- and labeling such advertisements "intrusions" is being kind. "Psyche-battering assaults" is more appropriate. And one day into the future, our global societies will ban these attacks, and label them the dangerous phenomena that they are. We've let them twist our world views into pretzels. But that's another topic. To some extent, it might be said we are all followers, to a degree. For how many of us could survive separated from the embrace of our fellow human beings, and for how long? We've heard stories of a rare individual surviving in the wilderness for an extraordinary amount of time, surrounded only by "societies" of wild animals -- but those are still living, breathing creatures. Pure isolation is another matter. This theme was not-so-long-ago explored in Robert Zemeckis' and Tom Hanks' 2000 film, "Cast Away," where Hanks' character's sole "companion" was a soccer ball. You get the idea. We all have a very deep need to belong. Arguably, one of humanity's greatest failings in terms of making some of the wrong turns our global societies have made in the last two decades -- and we can probably "thank" our personal computers for this, in large measure -- is our increasing isolation from one another, despite preposterous advances in electronic communication "togethernesses." How bad does it get? How about families who communicate with one another almost exclusively through cell phones and text messages -- or worse, on those rare occasions, via walkie-talkies? Who hasn't felt outraged at someone rudely dealing with you while they're talking on their cell phone? You just want to snatch the damned thing out of their hands, hurl it into the nearest garbage can, and scream: "Me! Talk to me!" ("People …. People who need people … are the luckiest people, in the world …") As a general manager noted to me earlier this month, hardly anyone gets together any longer after working hours to socialize prior to heading home. Time was, not that long ago, it was a regular occurrence, he astutely (and sadly) noted. But the subject here is not our growing unconscious isolations from each other (exchanging emails don't count: you're "here," the other person is "there"), but rather our tendencies to "follow." Can it be that some of us -- maybe even a large chunk of us -- are inclined in such a fashion? That it's all somehow a human "need?" You know, and I know, this isn't that much of a hard sell. The last presidential election was proof enough for that -- and we're going to get to this leadership issue shortly. But can we change any of those kinds of results? More importantly -- should we? Is it critical -- seriously critical -- that each of us learns to think for ourselves? To date, that has been a given assumption embraced by the "progressives" among us. Yet I'm not so confident it's entirely valid. One thing is for sure: one can jump up and down, shout expletives until he or she is blue -- but if some hard-core individuals are determined to embrace someone else's ill-considered point-of-view, then that's the way it's going to be … at least until something specific happens to these individuals that finally convinces them to change their minds. There is such a line figuratively drawn in the sand in various addictions rehabs, for instance: it's called "hitting bottom." The ongoing War in Iraq issue has been one such example, and we've all seen that change in perspective taking place steadily in U.S. polls. Yet no matter how many polls are taken regarding the current administration -- i.e., asking if its performance is "excellent," "fair," "poor," or "I don't know" -- some of the more dramatic, not to mention latest, polls tend to look something like this:
The first thing that should hit us here (after recognizing that our ongoing military presence in Iraq has become overwhelmingly unpopular) is that "excellent" is sandwiched in-between "poor" and "fair!" How is that possible? How can, say, 15 percent of our population be so blind, you ask, as to believe we're doing great there despite report after report -- from our own generals yet! -- insisting that we are not? The simple answer is this:
They're here. They live among us. Yikes. So let's apply a meaningful standard, given this information, to the means with which we go about selecting (here in the states, by way of general elections) our significant leaders -- who we trust to make the right decisions when it comes to national and global affairs, and in their selecting the right people to carry out various degrees of various political determinations. Some of us -- maybe not a lot of us, but still some -- aren't going to pay the least bit of attention to the facts, or to so-called reason, or to even our own instincts. Some of us put less thought into how we'll vote than what we order for fast food, as we pull up to the drive-in window at Wendy's. What else may be on such neighbors' minds, most likely, are the daily issues that influence their immediate environments: do their jobs suck … or what?; will they have enough money to do fill-in-the-blank?; how might they best raise their kids amid all of this daily doom and gloom?; should tonight's dinner be cook-in, take-out or dine-out -- and/or should a movie win out on the family TV this evening, or instead yet another of those exhausting, been-there/done-that football games? Does this distracted behavior in any way invalidate our general elections, then, and which people we vote into office? It certainly can in a tight race -- recent history has demonstrated that. But I believe in the end, it all balances out -- and we as a culture always learn something in the bargain, and grow from it -- even when our followers drag us off into some inane direction because they, the nincompoops, were the determining votes in a critical national election. And for such folks, which thoughts warranted more energy?: whether the five Wendy's chilis ordered were to be large or small (or something else entirely less watery) -- or whether or not such a family was willing to have a prospective married gay couple living next door to them or not? Well … can't some folks determine both? Apparently not. I believe the energy expended deciding on the chili orders is apt to win out for our "followers" just about every time. What's the point of having followers, then? Well, for starters -- their focus on raising their families carries a lot more weight with them, perhaps, than gray-area "issues." Consequently, that chosen focus (an important one) is not subverted. Sound glib? Well, maybe. But here's the kicker: I believe in reincarnation (there's enough anecdotal evidence to support it to founder an aircraft carrier), and I suspect that a foundational focus for some percentage of our population, in the past, now, or in our collective futures, will prove to be some variation on a theme of "follower." Just like Sylvia Browne suggests. How on Earth would prospective future leader-orators influence the masses, were it not so? A social-changing mechanism must be put into place in any loving, intelligent universe -- such as ours undeniably is. Yes, yes, you might argue -- but do we even need such influential orators, writers, filmmakers, whatever, regardless how they manifest? Wouldn't some plain old clever advertising campaign accomplish the same task? For those of you who (believe you) aren't followers, think about this: This really isn't about manipulation. We've all seen the failure of that this decade. There is only one inspirationally-empowered answer possible -- seriously. And it's probably locked into the depths of our consciousnesses:
We need such leader-orators. We all need inspiration -- sometimes desperately. And those inspirational leaders need followers.
After his military tour, for which he received an honorable discharge, he pursued his lifelong interest in the study of metaphysics/ontology, and finally received his bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Maine-Orono in 1992. He later attended graduate studies at the Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana and in the M.F.A. creative writing program at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has written an unproduced 3-act play, "Revelations at Mount Rushmore," which remains on file at the Laguna Playhouse in Laguna Beach, California. He is also more than halfway through completing his first novel. Visit his MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/donaldcroftbrickner
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Philosophy Resource Center Main Page |
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Donald
Croft Brickner has lived in roughly half of the
states in America, working countless jobs in a
variety of occupations. Prior to serving as an
enlisted journalist in the U.S. Navy during the
Vietnam era, he majored in music theory in college
and later received an associate's degree in music
education.
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