Part 2.7 The problem of the ‘Deaf Effect’ and the anger that analysis of the human condition initially causes
What now needs to be pointed out, and this follows from what has been said about humans’ historic fear of the unbearably depressing subject of the human condition, is that when the explanation of our corrupted human condition is finally found and presented, as it now has been, even though the explanation is redeeming and liberating, trying to read about or listen to discussion of that corrupted condition is initially going to trigger extreme subconscious fear in virtually everyone, and this fear will express itself by their mind not tolerating what is being explained. The blocks they have been employing to protect themselves from confronting the human condition will come into play and their mind won’t allow what is being talked about to be taken in and absorbed. Then, not aware that their mind is blocking out what is being discussed (we can’t block something out and know we’re blocking it out or we wouldn’t be blocking it out), they will blame the quality of the presentation for the difficulty they are having reading or listening to the presentation. And that is what happens: people typically say that what is being presented in my books and other presentations is ‘impenetrably dense’, ‘confusingly worded and long-winded’, ‘unnecessarily repetitive’, ‘desperately needs editing’, and that it is ‘exceedingly boring and tedious’, and even that it is ‘completely lacking in any substance or meaning’. Quite often people even request ‘an executive summary so I have some idea of what it is that you’re trying to say’! This is well-known to us in the WTM as the ‘Deaf Effect’ that a great many people experience; at least initially, because with perseverance reading and listening to presentations about the human condition, the redeeming nature of the explanation of the human condition gradually reassures a person’s mind that it is finally safe to look into the human condition—and from there they become extremely excited to be able to understand the human condition and from there every aspect of human existence!
Drawing by Jeremy Griffith © 1996-2023 Fedmex Pty Ltd
The initial Deaf Effect reaction to description of the human condition
Of course this fear of the unbearably depressing subject of the human condition can also cause some people to try to put the blocks to confronting the human condition back in place by contriving all manner of false arguments against the fully explanatory and accountable and thus true explanations of the human condition that are being put forward. Indeed, what is being presented can cause such an angry response that those supporting the fully accountable, genuinely redeeming and relieving, human-race-saving, biological explanation of the human condition are viciously attacked and persecuted!
Drawing by Jeremy Griffith © 2018 Fedmex Pty Ltd
Angrily attacking the truth about the human condition
Absolutely amazingly, everything that has just been said about how fearful the human race has been of the human condition and about all the defensive responses that the arrival of its explanation initially causes, was fully anticipated by that absolutely astonishingly truthful and thus effective thinking Greek philosopher, Plato. Plato was such a magnificent philosopher (philosophy being the study of ‘the truths underlying all reality’ (Macquarie Dictionary, 3rd edn, 1998)) that Alfred North (A.N.) Whitehead, himself one of the most highly regarded philosophers of the twentieth century, described the history of philosophy as being merely ‘a series of footnotes to Plato’ (Process and Reality [Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Edinburgh During the Session 1927-28], 1979, p.39 of 413). So, way back in the Golden Age of Greece, some 360 years , this is what Plato wrote in The Republic: ‘I want you to go on to picture the enlightenment or ignorance of our human conditions [and this is the earliest use of the term ‘human condition’ that I have seen] somewhat as follows. Imagine an underground chamber, like a cave with an entrance open to the daylight and running a long way underground. In this chamber are men who have been prisoners there’ (tr. H.D.P. Lee, 1955, 514; or you can view all these quotes from The Republic that appear in this and the next two paragraphs highlighted where they actually appear in The Republic at www.wtmsources.com/227). Plato described how the cave’s exit is blocked by a ‘fire’ that ‘corresponds…to the power of the sun’, which the cave prisoners have to hide from because its searing, ‘painful’ ‘light’ would make ‘visible’ the unbearably depressing issue of ‘the imperfections of human life’ (516-517). Fearing such self-confrontation, the cave prisoners have to ‘take refuge’ ‘a long way underground’ in the dark ‘cave’ where there are only some ‘shadows thrown by the fire’ that represent a ‘mere illusion’ of the ‘real’ world outside the cave (515), which are all the human-condition-avoiding, dishonest, so-called ‘explanations’ that Reductionist, Mechanistic scientists have been giving us for our behaviour (see the earlier explanations of Reductionist, Mechanistic science’s human-condition-avoiding strategy in paragraph 36). The allegory makes clear that while ‘the sun…makes the things we see visible’ (509), such that without it we can only ‘see dimly and appear to be almost blind’ (508), having to hide in the ‘cave’ of ‘illusion’ and endure ‘almost blind’ alienation has been infinitely preferable to facing the ‘painful’, depressing issue of ‘our [seemingly imperfect] human condition’.
And, with regard to the problem of the ‘Deaf Effect’ response the ‘cave’ ‘prisoners’ would have to reading or hearing about the human condition, Plato then described what occurs when, as summarised in the Encarta Encyclopedia, someone ‘escapes from the cave into the light of day’ and ‘sees for the first time the real world and returns to the cave’ to help the cave prisoners ‘Escape into the sun-filled setting outside the cave [which] symbolizes the transition to the real world…which is the proper object of knowledge’ (written by Prof. Robert M. Baird, ‘Plato’; see www.wtmsources.com/101). Plato wrote that ‘it would hurt his [the cave’s prisoner’s] eyes and he would turn back and take refuge in the things which he could see [take refuge in all the dishonest, illusionary explanations for human behaviour that we have become accustomed to from human-condition-avoiding, Reductionist, Mechanistic science], which he would think really far clearer than the things being shown him. And if he were forcibly dragged up the steep and rocky ascent [out of the cave of denial] and not let go till he had been dragged out into the sunlight [shown the truthful, real description of our human condition], the process would be a painful one, to which he would much object, and when he emerged into the light his eyes would be so overwhelmed by the brightness of it that he wouldn’t be able to see a single one of the things he was now told were real.’ Significantly, Plato then added, ‘Certainly not at first. Because he would need to grow accustomed to the light before he could see things in the world outside the cave’ (The Republic, 515-516). Yes, reading and listening to discussion of the human condition can ‘at first’ cause an extreme Deaf Effect where you are not ‘able to see a single one of the things…[you are] now told were real’, but that deafness can be overcome by patiently becoming ‘accustomed to the light’, persevering with reading, watching and listening to the explanation of the human condition.
Plato went on to also warn that when understanding of the human condition eventually arrives it will not only cause a ‘Deaf Effect’, it will also cause an extremely defensive and angry response in some—writing that some of the ‘cave’ ‘prisoners’ ‘would say that his [the person who attempts to bring understanding to the human condition] visit to the upper world had ruined his sight [they would treat him as mad, which is how all denial-free, truthful thinkers we have termed ‘prophets’ have been treated throughout history—as it says in the Bible, ‘was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute’ (Acts 7:52)], and that the ascent [out of the cave] was not worth even attempting [which is another comment typically made by psychologically exhausted people who want to project their insecurity onto the world and stop the completion of humanity’s heroic search for knowledge]. And if anyone tried to release them and lead them up, they would kill him if they could lay hands on him’ (ibid. 517)!
Thankfully, we live in more civilised times, but we in the WTM have endured years of this vicious, try-to-‘kill him’-type persecution, which I will describe further on in Part 2.12.
What an absolutely extraordinarily sound and thus truthful and thus effective, denial-free thinker or prophet Plato was!
