YES. Just like conditioning our hair to protect it and keep it looking nice, does social conditioning do the same? We condition in order to protect, so that everything seems nice and shiny on the outside; but is all this social conditioning cunningly deceiving us.
My friend Alex was telling a story about his friends back home and how they have changed since when he lived there permanently. Of course it is fair enough to say young people are bound to change; this is a result of growing up, but how much is this put down to conditioning. We are constantly told to grow up, behave and act your age; I would like to ask who governs age then? Age is just a word said out loud or a number we write down, but why does that hold significance over our behaviour. This all comes down to conditioning; we are conditioned into roles from a very young age, roles that exclude others. My friend Alex enlightened me onto this idea by telling me how his friends back home that didn’t go to university had changed. These friends had all got full time jobs and apprentices as electricians, chippies and bricklayers etc. He found them all to take on a new persona; a persona that was different and not really how he remembered them by. They all were pretty much dressing the same, the typical straight boy look and all became ‘geezers’ overnight. Alex posed the questions who, what, when and why:
Who are you?
What are you all wearing?
When did you talk like that?
Why don’t you shock me?
The last question sums one completely, why didn’t they shock him; it was almost like he was expecting it. They all fell into the stereotype of their job without even realising. What free-will do we have if when we get a job we have to fall into that stereotype? Granted it would be a bit odd to see a polite builder and a sleazy lawyer who wolf whistles at the witness. However being aware that we don’t have to slot into these conditioned roles could open one’s eyes and create more of a collective group rather than loads of separate ones.
I have in the past and also seen people whispering words, like black, disabled and gay to name a few. Why do we feel the need to do this? Well it’s Political Correctness gone mad and people are scared to say anything these days in case they are racist, a bigot or homophobic. Well I say this is due to conditioning. When you are younger in a state of innocence you say these things out loud and it is adult figures that tell the child it is wrong. So growing up the child believes just because they asked is he gay? Or why’s he black? Or why are they in a wheelchair? That these are wrong things to ask therefore are wrong. They associate the word with being wrong and this type of conditioning carries on through adolescence. That is why it is so hard to come out as gay, because we are totally conditioned to thinking it is wrong; rather than different, which can also be conditioned as wrong. The chain goes on. Glee portrayed this very well in their Lady Gaga episode when Fin is calling everything in Kurt’s room ‘faggy’. Kurt’s dad steps in hearing this and says, “Yea I knew what you meant. We meant it the exact way that you meant it, that being gay is wrong, that it’s some kind of punishable offence.” This is down to mislead conditioning, yes gay is different but it’s not wrong and neither is being black, or handicap. This needs to change and it will change eventually if people stop falling into these obvious traps. The new generation of kids is coming slowly and I want to be part of this movement and it should be helped as much as it can. You can’t catch being gay you just are, people have been gay for centuries even through this conditioned system; so there is no excuse why we should not celebrate gay or anything else different. Celebrate and embrace it in the same way patriarchal society is conditioned as normal, and create a neutral society. We need to become a collective group to push forward and evolve otherwise we are stuck, even going backwards.
There shouldn’t have to be another war to create radical change. We can get there by trying to break down these barriers that we are conditioned with; and yes shock people out of their backwards life. A French Philosopher called Auguste Comte saw where this social evolutionism could go: that religious sensibility would lead to a ‘Religion of Humanity’. Whereby working together collectively we shall evolve and learn from one another; that the new religion would be one that encompasses all, and I think this is what the country’s next step should be. Religion should trust in humanity and there is a purpose for us all and ‘God’ will reveal that purpose when the time comes. But to move away from all this small-minded conditioning we need to work alongside one another, understand one another and ‘love thy neighbour.’
