The Naked Jumper – Pt. 1

“Hey Sheeple, you’re in a stew”

Beware of wolves in bad jumpers…

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A “Jumper” is a sheeple who pulls the wool over their own eyes and tells you “you should” and “you ought” to do the same … plus  they’re also better than you because they have the ability to tell you that. There are lots of different varieties of Jumpers but they have one overwhelming trait in common, an internal blind spot to one thing,  themselves. They have lost the ability to define themselves and cannot tell anymore what is them and their thoughts and what is not; they have a nasty habit of internalising values that go under their “me” radar and these values end up as them. It’s not like they think or  make a choice or decision about it; they just let it happen and that is their choice/decision. Consequently, they become a blurry arbitrary amalgam which they are guaranteed to enthusiastically defend tooth and nail.

Unfortunately, we substitute a self-defined, ever-evolving sense of being, for an obstinately defended blind spot of social conformity. It seems we are hard wired to be social. However, “social” is no bad thing but it has been hijacked and deformed into a mental straitjacket that we are pseudo-oblivious to. It is very much like a hypothetical situation of being tied up in a straitjacket and someone pointing this out to us; our reaction is to insist that we both like our straitjacket and that this situation is of our own choosing. When asked about the restrictive nature of our apparel we will sing the praises of confinement and restriction as if they were virtues. If the subject is pursued we’ll make justifications that “sound” rational and logical about our restricted state, talking freely about the straitjacket; making out there is nothing amiss or disturbing about our situation. We’ll be strangely unashamed of what’s supposed to be the “elephant in the room” i.e. the straitjacket but the real “elephant” is the humiliating fact that the straitjacket confirms we are out of control i.e. likely to cause harm to ourselves and others. The real reason we are so keen on our straitjacket is that if we direct focus on the “object”  that we are actually hiding  (our inability to control ourselves) remains hidden. Thus, we  hide our discomfort and everyone else who also sports a straitjacket will be encouraged  and will do the same. What was something to be ashamed of has become a source of pride. Unfortunately the people that don’t require confinement of this kind are shunned and humiliated for their abysmal lack of “respect for themselves” because they are “unable to control themselves” (i.e. their lack of a straitjacket demonstrates this fact).

Jumpers also, very skillfully “put the crime on an island“; divorce their unsavoury action from themselves, attach it to another entity and add distance. This is the “bad workman blames his tools” syndrome; it’s the table’s fault for stubbing your toe (whereas it’s your fault for not looking where you where going), it’s the corporations fault for that disaster (it’s the fault of the employees and the shareholders for acting badly), it’s the “relationship” that doesn’t work (it’s the people in the relationship that cause the difficulties), it’s the “nasty person” that made me do it (it’s your choice to act). The fact is, if we can get away with it or feel we can avoid being responsible the default is to be dishonest, first and foremost, with ourselves. Worse still, we are much, much more likely to do the wrong thing particularly if  we have a partner in crime but better still, is  to have a whole crowd pointing to an island far off in the distance.

It is rare that anyone questions the parameters of their social conformity, everyone’s too busy conforming. The problem is that even when we know something’s not right we’ll still continue merrily on our way. We are very good at rationalising and inventing reasons and we’ll do it until the cows come home but that doesn’t help us. We come up with criteria that supposedly indicates our “moral responsibility” but there is one thing wrong with that; we can just lie both to ourselves and to everybody else. Often re-framing the problem in the various disciplines of “knowledge-speak” just distracts from the issue, we just call it by a different name and give different rational excuses for our actions. We simply give ourselves varying degrees of culpability and simultaneously grant ourselves a new list of items to illustrate our “innocence” and defend our actions with. We rarely hesitate or pause to really consider our options if there is a “social value” answer readily available to us; if it is socially acceptable, everyone else must be doing it. Thus, it must be already proven to be right and is right.

How civil would you really be to your fellow human being if consequences of your actions weren’t in any way tied to you? Everybody likes to think that they don’t have it in them to be cruelly inhumane but the problem is that we assume it of ourselves. Daily we ignore the boundaries of  our morals, a little bit here and a little bit there. We just make it easier for ourselves to “turn a blind eye” and  behave badly more often with  increasing intensity. We give surprisingly very little thought to what we are doing and instead, employ socially acceptable answers and recite by rote the socially acceptable “reasoning” (i.e. excuses). These values are then socialised making any questioning of our sheeple-jumper values unacceptable. Thus, we become beyond reproach and never question ourselves.  The boundaries of our inner world need to be reinstated and respected. We need to know where social values stop and our own begin. Our penchant for not thinking and not thinking for ourselves is a crime against humanity, our humanity.

dmojo
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©Dmojo, 2008-2009.