Teachers and Groups

How is it that there even exists, Teachers - that one man apparently HAD something to "teach" and another man agreed to "listen and learn"? If you consider that First guy who stood up and started talking - did he, by his sheer "power of thought and obvious intellect and charisma" attract those "lesser men" such that they "couldn't help but pay attention", so mesmerized by his apparent brilliance were they? Or could something else have happened?

Most people would think that there is only ONE way this "relationship" could have been established - the "greater" man ATTRACTED the "lesser" man, and a teacher-student "relationship" was struck. But what if that's just exactly the opposite of what happened, could have happened, happens still. That is: that this "relationship" is established in exactly the same way as the performer-audience relationship is established. That the "performer" would, apparently, stand-up on some "street-corner" somewhere, and start "performing" his bit, and that a few of the many passers-by, mildly amused, or even mildly interested in the performance, would, as it were, "consent" to the performance, to be a willing audience to that performance - that there was no "magnetic attraction" going on at all, just a simple consenting, as opposed to stoning the guy for boring everyone to death.

If that were actually true, then consider a so-called "Teaching" consisting of a "teacher" and his "followers". Perhaps the "followers" merely agreed to "allow" the "teacher" to "do his thing", in lieu of them individually having to do it ("thank god, we found someone!") - as a proxy, a "temporary stand-in". That they, in fact, are the "greater men" and he the "lesser", and they "allow" him to "appear to be" the "teacher", and furthermore, they "feed him his lines" from beginning to end - they are the masters, and he, the student.

So why mention this? Consider the first group of men to exist on this planet, who could actually think AND speak - what would they be saying to each other? "Pass the salt", "You look nice today, Mary", "Which way to San Jose?". Probably NOT! What was happening way back then (whenever), once Man could actually identify the voices in his head as NOT coming from outside his head (from the sky-gods, or the trees, or the animals)? If a group of them were moderately "socialized" and living together, how is it that one day, one oh-so-frabjous-day, callou-callay, one of them stood UP and proclaimed HE, yes HE (or SHE) knew something the others did NOT. Come on - this simply could not happen. In that day and time, what one knew they ALL knew. In that time, "post total-group-think", ALL were as knowledgeable about life as any ONE - the voices in one's head were in ALL heads. It could not be otherwise. So, what would S/HE - the oh-so brilliant and learned one - say? "You people are asleep, and I'm awake - let me show you the way!"? Come on - this simply could not happen!

If one of them finally had the guts to stand-up and speak to the group at all, HE would be treated as literally INSANE, NUTSO - and it would have to be that way because prior to that moment, those voices-in-the-heads of the group were all the speaking they could possibly know about, and now here's someone trying to dominate THEIR brains with the supposed contents of HIS brain. Not likely. This pack of just-barely-conscious-thought-producing humans were as wolves in a pack, and if one of those wolves attempted to dominate the pack, he would surely have been dealt with harshly - stoned or killed outright.

Unless, at some point, hopefully before all the brave young members were thus stoned or driven out, the group would mutually-consent to allow the Interloper a chance to "do his thing" and they'd willingly, for the time being at least, attend the curious performance.

Now, no one would think or even imagine that the performance contained anything NEW, that is, NEW to them - for it could not. Well, except for this "performance" itself - now THAT was NEW, since no one had ever done it before. Eventually, it would have to dawn on someone, just like it dawned on you in your early youth, that a dominant thought could be "educated" and that "educated-dominator-thought" could direct things in the external world, kind of like a dictatorship, a power-structure, which hopefully had the aims and goals of the group (and you) in mind at all times.

To affect this end-result, the group (of other submissive "I's") would have to temporarily submit to one of their membership, the "performer" and literally teach that performer "to dance", to teach HIM what they all knew so that HE would become the all-knowledgeable-one, and that his "dancing" could support and advantage the whole group.

Now, lest you think this made-up history is wrong/right/inconsequential, consider your own brain, from birth till today, and explain how "you got here". All men are born into a primary, non-verbal world, but their individual, secondary, verbal world does not get cranked up, in any meaningful way, until the man can talk - and not just baby talk, but can carry on conversations with other men, and of course, himself. But until that man is about 4 to 7 years old, his conversations with himself are at such a primitive level, that they could be thought of as just 'voices in the head', much like the voices in early men, occurring in the bicameral mind. As such, modern man undergoes the same intellectual evolution as 'all men' from pre-history to today, just as the growth of the embryo from conception thru birth, undergoes a passage thru all of the forms of lesser animals - from fish, to reptiles, to apes, to man.

And you think YOU have something to TEACH? (c) 1998

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