{"id":1151,"date":"2018-07-04T09:50:12","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T14:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1151"},"modified":"2018-07-04T12:05:51","modified_gmt":"2018-07-04T17:05:51","slug":"gated-communities-of-the-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1151","title":{"rendered":"Gated communities of the mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many years ago, I was walking through New London, Conn. late on a summer day and spotted a dog trotting along the sidewalk, obviously on some doggish errand, and paying no attention to anyone around. I remember him turning a corner very decisively & vanishing from sight.<\/p>\n

The scene struck me as odd, but it took me a second to realize that I never thought of dogs as having self-motivation. I’d lived with dogs my whole life, but they were usually asleep or reacting to some human; going for a walk in the woods with me, eating their supper, chasing a car, or something similar.<\/p>\n

I was recently thinking about my reaction to the dog, and what it said about my human chauvinism. I was 19 and had just realized that the world doesn\u2019t revolve around humans. Thinking about that realization lead me to intuit that a lot of people probably see other humans through a similar filter. For instance, there are doubtlessly guys to whom it never occurs that women have any life outside of reacting to guys. (See: \u2018Bechdel Test<\/a>\u2019 for more on this idea.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an interesting exercise to consider members of a range of other chauvinistic groups where the person barely ascribes personhood to people outside their group.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve no idea if it’s possible to trigger a revelation in those people like mine on that long-ago summer day… but without that breakthrough of seeing others as free & self-motivated humans, not dependent on, nor even concerned with, the viewer, I’m not sure any real progress is possible for those\u00a0shut\u00a0in the gated communities of their minds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many years ago, I was walking through New London, Conn. late on a summer day and spotted a dog trotting along the sidewalk, obviously on some doggish errand, and paying no attention to anyone around. I remember him turning a corner very decisively & vanishing from sight. The scene struck me as odd, but it … Continue reading “Gated communities of the mind”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[59,30,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophizing","category-post","category-social-commentary"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgY3e-iz","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":211,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=211","url_meta":{"origin":1151,"position":0},"title":"Bucky and the Amorous Stranger","author":"Jorah","date":"November 20, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm sorry to post the whole thing here, but I just know it will disappear from the original site someday soon, and I want to preserve it for my own memory of this wonderful moment from nature...Bucky attacked: Deer lawn ornaments traumatized, but survive brutal nighttime ordealThursday, November 17, 2005By\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1225,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1225","url_meta":{"origin":1151,"position":1},"title":"Feeling Overshadowed","author":"Jorah","date":"December 26, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I responded to the question \u201cHow does one stop feeling bad and overshadowed by everyone else?\u201d \u201cIf you are learning something difficult, try not to compare your progress with that of other students. 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