Quote from Good1:
So there's different ways of interpreting this scientific research. I'm not sure what the OP is saying exactly. But to me, the lesson seems clear enough:
Minds (monkeys) have been trained (have learned) to think of what's normal, natural and good (the banana) as bad, insomuch as trying to reach it is bad, risky, or uncomfortable. Any mind trying to reach the good is seen as bad for the group. A (mad?) scientist has set this up as an experiment.
Likewise, i'm saying that a kind of mad scientist (imagination) has set up an experiment that trains minds to reject the good and lofty, and to embrace the not good and lowly...even to the point of fighting for it. I interpret the ladder as that which leads from equality (the good) to inequality via a hierarchy. The ladder leads downward because it's not possible to go higher than the good, where equality prevails.
Thus, to be different and/or special, the path must lead ever downwards, so as to ever distinguish oneself from what is higher/better. This is really the path of egotistical self-importance. Through training, minds learn to ascribe the good with the attributes of the bad (ie. egotistical self-importance) as a method of keeping them away from the good. Anyone going for the good (which would otherwise be a natural instinct) is beaten down with rhetoric that contradicts all that is good, and replaces it with a hierarchy of values.
When a theist worships "god", he is most often valuing a hierarchical structure (the ladder), and is not really willing that he or anyone else reach the good at the top of the ladder (where there is equality). An atheist also values a hierarchical structure, preferring to see himself at the higher rungs of a ladder of species, or higher on an inter-specie ladder. Equality is equally as repugnant to the atheist as it is to the theist. Each have ways of beating each other down. Questioning one's psychological fitness is probably first and foremost among the ways of beating down anyone who goes outside the group-think.
The group-think, by now, is generally backwards. What is at the top of the ladder of hierarchy (equality) is humble, but is called every sort of name to make it seem arrogant. When actually, its the other way around. Anyone who values hierarchy is among the arrogant hopefuls. Actually, valuing equality (climbing the ladder) IS bad for the group that values hierarchy, differences, and therefore self-importance (special status). We have stories about those among us who climb ladders (ie the corporate ladder) at the expense of everyone else. Climbing the ladder is seen as bad. But equality requires high self esteem. Hierarchy depends on low self-esteem. As a result, we don't like anybody who climbs the ladder for any reason whatsoever, to get on a higher rung, OR to reach the top (equality).
So there is the catch-22. The minds at the bottom are stuck because of a backwards value system.
