Some cultures used to, and maybe still do, have a solution to the hostile telepaths problem you didn’t list: perform rituals even if you don’t mean them.
If a child breaks their mom’s glasses, the mom doesn’t care if they are really sorry or not. All she cares about is if they perform the sorry-I-broke-your-glasses ritual, whatever that looks like. That’s all that’s required.
The idea is that the meaning comes later. We have some non-central instances of this in Western culture. For example, most US school children recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day (or at least they used to). I can remember not fully understanding what the words meant until I was in middle school, but I just went along with it. And wouldn’t you know it, it worked! I do have an allegiance to the United States as a concept.
The world used to be more full of these rituals and strategies for appeasing hostile telepaths, who just chose not to use their telepathy because everyone agreed it didn’t matter so long as the rituals were performed. But the spread of Christianity and Islam has brought a demand for internalized control of behaviors to much of the world, and with it we get problems like shame and guilt.
Now I’m not saying that performing rituals even if you don’t mean them is a good solution. There are a lot of tradeoffs to consider, and guilt and shame offer some societal benefits that enable higher trust between strangers. But it is an alternative solution, and one that, as my Pledge of Allegiance example suggests, does sometimes work.
For example, most US school children recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day (or at least they used to). I can remember not fully understanding what the words meant until I was in middle school, but I just went along with it. And wouldn’t you know it, it worked! I do have an allegiance to the United States as a concept.
Can you explain how it caused that, and maybe what it feels like?
(I find it alarming that being forced to recite a pledge as a child can actually have that effect—I knew humans were culturally programmable, but not that {forcing someone to say “I endorse x!” when they don’t know what it means nor want to say it} every day would actually cause them to endorse x later on. Actually, I notice I’m skeptical that that was the real cause in your case; what’s your reason for believing it was the cause?)
(No pressure to answer my questions of course—interpret them as statements of curiosity rather than requests in the human/social sense)
I’m sure my allegiance to these United States was not created just by reciting the Pledge thousands of times. In fact, I resented the Pledge for a lot of my life, especially once I learned more about its history.
But if I’m honest with myself, I do feel something like strong support for the ideals of the United States, much stronger than would make sense if someone had convinced me as an adult that its founding principals were a good idea. The United States isn’t just my home. I yearn for it to be great, to embody its values, and to persist, even as I disagree with many of the details of how we’re implementing the dream of the founders today.
Why do I think the Pledge mattered? It helped me get the feeling right. Once I had positive feelings about the US, of course I wanted to actually like the US. I latched onto the part of it that resonates with me: the founding principals. Someone else might be attracted to something else, or maybe would even find they don’t like the United States, but stay loyal to it because they have to.
I’m also drawing on my experience with other fake-it-until-you-make-it rituals. For example, I and many people really have come to feel more grateful for the things we have in life by explicitly acknowledge that gratitude. At the start it’s fake: you’re just saying words. But eventually those words start to carry meaning, and before long it’s not fake. You find the gratitude that was already inside you and learn how to express it.
In the opening example, I bet something similar could work for getting kids to appologize. No need to check if they are really sorry, just make them say sorry. Eventually the sadness at having caused harm will become real and flow into the expression of it. It’s like a kind of reverse training, where you create handles for latent behaviors to crystalize around, and by creating the right conditions when the ritual is performed, you stand a better-than-chance possibility of getting the desired association.
Some cultures used to, and maybe still do, have a solution to the hostile telepaths problem you didn’t list: perform rituals even if you don’t mean them.
If a child breaks their mom’s glasses, the mom doesn’t care if they are really sorry or not. All she cares about is if they perform the sorry-I-broke-your-glasses ritual, whatever that looks like. That’s all that’s required.
The idea is that the meaning comes later. We have some non-central instances of this in Western culture. For example, most US school children recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day (or at least they used to). I can remember not fully understanding what the words meant until I was in middle school, but I just went along with it. And wouldn’t you know it, it worked! I do have an allegiance to the United States as a concept.
The world used to be more full of these rituals and strategies for appeasing hostile telepaths, who just chose not to use their telepathy because everyone agreed it didn’t matter so long as the rituals were performed. But the spread of Christianity and Islam has brought a demand for internalized control of behaviors to much of the world, and with it we get problems like shame and guilt.
Now I’m not saying that performing rituals even if you don’t mean them is a good solution. There are a lot of tradeoffs to consider, and guilt and shame offer some societal benefits that enable higher trust between strangers. But it is an alternative solution, and one that, as my Pledge of Allegiance example suggests, does sometimes work.
Can you explain how it caused that, and maybe what it feels like?
(I find it alarming that being forced to recite a pledge as a child can actually have that effect—I knew humans were culturally programmable, but not that {forcing someone to say “I endorse x!” when they don’t know what it means nor want to say it} every day would actually cause them to endorse x later on. Actually, I notice I’m skeptical that that was the real cause in your case; what’s your reason for believing it was the cause?)
(No pressure to answer my questions of course—interpret them as statements of curiosity rather than requests in the human/social sense)
I’m sure my allegiance to these United States was not created just by reciting the Pledge thousands of times. In fact, I resented the Pledge for a lot of my life, especially once I learned more about its history.
But if I’m honest with myself, I do feel something like strong support for the ideals of the United States, much stronger than would make sense if someone had convinced me as an adult that its founding principals were a good idea. The United States isn’t just my home. I yearn for it to be great, to embody its values, and to persist, even as I disagree with many of the details of how we’re implementing the dream of the founders today.
Why do I think the Pledge mattered? It helped me get the feeling right. Once I had positive feelings about the US, of course I wanted to actually like the US. I latched onto the part of it that resonates with me: the founding principals. Someone else might be attracted to something else, or maybe would even find they don’t like the United States, but stay loyal to it because they have to.
I’m also drawing on my experience with other fake-it-until-you-make-it rituals. For example, I and many people really have come to feel more grateful for the things we have in life by explicitly acknowledge that gratitude. At the start it’s fake: you’re just saying words. But eventually those words start to carry meaning, and before long it’s not fake. You find the gratitude that was already inside you and learn how to express it.
In the opening example, I bet something similar could work for getting kids to appologize. No need to check if they are really sorry, just make them say sorry. Eventually the sadness at having caused harm will become real and flow into the expression of it. It’s like a kind of reverse training, where you create handles for latent behaviors to crystalize around, and by creating the right conditions when the ritual is performed, you stand a better-than-chance possibility of getting the desired association.