People think collectively. I thunk this a while back. Oddly, now I am beginning to hear people talking about it. In my childhood, absolutely alone and on my own, and without a word for it, I came, in my own mind, to what is now called feminism. Around the mid 1960s, when I began to hear women speaking as feminists, I sighed: right, but it is not possible, they don’t realize that people will never go for this. I was sure of that, because of the absolute negation I had encountered as a kid. Fortunately I was wrong.
From the tree I am squatting in, the way the human minds change—it looks like a collective process… Or, does it only seem that way, do most people think independently and hide it unless others agree? I do suspect that there is more inward dissent and individual thought than there seems to be. Of course, some of us do, of our own initiative, think stuff, and as we communicate we inspire each other to think stuff. However, the wider process looks different, from here.
To what extent do people think collectively? Can people, as a group, become smarter by knowing they think collectively, and—aware of it—do it better?
Hey, are there any normal people reading this? (Assuming, of course, that even those who are normal are not normal.) This is a challenge or suggestion or appeal to normal people: please observe, in the process of thinking collectively, what part of the process is intelligent and kind. How is it that society can learn to emphasize that part?
Of course people don’t all think together. I see countless WE groups, thinking together within the group, interacting, overlapping, influencing each other (sometimes negatively, inducing a dissenting dis‐cooperating process).
Unfamiliar ideas may tend to be unthinkable. So, there may be some merit to persistence in reintroducing an idea until it is not new. However, familiarity is surely not the only factor in the decision, “Is this thinkable?” It looks from here as if the particular person or persons who are promoting an idea is a crucial factor… crucial in determining whether an idea is
accepted, ignored, disputed, accepted after consideration, or accepted even if it is stupid or mean.
Yes, leaders exist. People with power exist. These are very much in a position to direct (or try to direct) the collective flow of thought. However: These leaders and power people are PEOPLE. As such, they are part of, and shaped by, the general human fields of thought.
From Molten Wood and Feral Ideas chasens.ca/book