Mind Matters—On Mind Muddling

On Mind Muddling

I wonder – who would have the bigger field day in the U.S. today. Would it be Mark Twain or Charles Dickens? We pride ourselves at having grown past the evils and ills of these writer forebears.

Mark Twain’s sagas supposedly got banned from some school curricula for the impropriety of his use of the “N” word. We consider ourselves beyond prejudices and slavery so perish the need for a twelve year old to read Twain and start thinking critically about what the parallels might be between the 1800s and our times. Perhaps that is the unspoken undercurrent that swirls around Twain’s writing. It is too pertinent to now and not at all irrelevant. Reading Twain might create too much thought – a subversive activity perhaps.

And who needs Charles Dickens’ diatribes? Scrooge learned long ago to be generous and redeem himself of his greed, didn’t he? So what relevance could Dickens possibly be for Wall Street or for any of us dependent upon the stock market for our retirement? And care for the common good? Didn’t have it in Dickens day, don’t need it now, socialism, you know. Never mind Adam Smith either. Turns out that the 19th century author of “The Wealth of Nations” was the capitalist who claimed that wealth needs to be distributed.

Moving along in time, remember “1984” – George Orwell’s not Reagan’s? Big Brother was coming to take over our minds so we could no longer think for ourselves. “Whew,” we say as we express relief. That didn’t happen, we were forewarned and we “didn’t go there.” No one has got us so controlled: Big Brother is not watching us!

No, perhaps Big Brother is not watching us. But – we’re watching Big Brother. And I think mind-muddling works even better this way. This way it’s so easy – no rats in a room need scurry all over us to make us conform. Nah, Big Brother got us good and got us cheap. I think the plan is to dumb us down to the point where we have so little capacity for critical thinking left that we’ll believe anything that incites our fear or numbs us with some addiction or distraction.

I know, I know, all the way back to Socrates, the older generation worries about what is to become of the next generation. However, it is also true that history has its patterns: avaricious eras, empire building eras do have their downfall. So I do, along with Socrates, wonder about our youth. A child’s brain all the way through adolescence is not at all a finished entity. The teenager’s prefrontal cortex, where cognitive skills about deliberation and decision making occur are being formed, so – garbage in, garbage out – might go the refrain. If kids (and adults) pummel their brains constantly with violent actions and verbal abuse where are they headed? And where are our heads when we as parents who are their role models either believe scathing and demeaning talk show hosts or at the very least think they are amusing? What has happened to real discourse? Or real news, for that matter?

I send my sympathies to the Jackson family at the loss of Michael. However, isn’t it interesting how his death has become major news for days, overriding civil unrest in Iran, the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, climate change, starvation and violence in Africa, the healthcare crisis, torture, and on and on. It is so easy for us to project ourselves onto the celebrity that we wish we were (or sometimes it works in the reverse, we project our worst fears about ourselves on the negative “celebrity” we despise) Big Brother knows this, feeds this. If we’re dumbed down enough, we’ll never know what hit us right between the eyes – POW! to that prefrontal cortex.

There is a lot of buzz about how to maintain mental acuity: do Sudoku, crossword puzzles, etc. That’s good but it is not the antidote to media mind muddling. We really do need to role model, for our children, critical thought that questions what we see and hear; we need to question ourselves why we think reality shows are real and why we listen to lies as though they were lullabies.

? Kayta Curzie Gajdos holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and is in private practice in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She welcomes comments at [email protected] or 610-388-2888. Past columns are posted to http://www.DrGajdos.com/Articles.

About Kayta Gajdos

Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.