Jack and Me

[A Black Falcon]

Yes, human beings definitely can come to believe in delusions... once something has been conditioned into us, it seems very, very hard to remove. There is no other logical way for me to explain how people perpetuate practices that are detrimental to them and their own group in society just because "it's the way things always have been"... (changing the topic a bit, but it's on the issue of 'how do people convince themselves of the kinds of things they convince themselves of'... and the answer seems to be 'all too easily, and then it sticks'. I'm talking about all kinds of things here -- social class (accepting their lot in life, no matter how bad it is, since that's how it's always been -- if the group in question has a memory of when things were better this can be different, but when the memory is just of 'things always being like this'... you get Russia...), gender (obvious one here), religion, societal organization and practices that are clearly unfair (like the central asian and african practice of bride kidnapping, where a man kidnaps (no consent involved.) the woman he wants to marry, brings her home, and then has his female relatives convince/bully/force her to acceed to the marriage... I watched a show on PBS about it once... because 'that's how its always been done' it sticks around... and people come up with internal excuses for why this is okay, like always.), etc...)

That's the key, I think, coming up with internal excuses for why it is okay...