Maxims, rules of thumb and other observations on human cognition and sociocultural affectations

This will be added to on an irregular basis...
  • What is said to humans directly is received with skepticism and considered with dubiousness while that which is heard in passing, especially that which most conforms to their mentality or prejudices, is readily believed.
  • Humans have a certain cognitive latency between exposure to new information or experiences and the ability to think dispassionately and intellectually about it.
  • Humans have a certain cognitive spectrum starting with the moment of exposure to new information or experiences and ending with some point at which the thing is effectively "in the past" for them.
  • This cognitive spectrum is linked to the emotional process often referred to as shock, anger, denial and acceptance.
  • The more and faster information or experiences are presented to people and the closer the quarters and the lesser the distance between people, the more their early reactions in the passionate emotional stage are reflected back to them in the manner of responses to those reactions from others in light of those responses.
  • The more outrages which are suffered without sufficient time to allow emotional bleed-off, the farther the bar for subsequent reaction and outrage are pushed, and the more further events must progress before reaction and outrage.
  • It is possible for serious detriments to eventually sit below this threshold for long enough for their damaging effects to build and multiply until their entire society undergoes some reactive convulsion.
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Wednesday, March 19, 2008

How to end the Jerusalem dispute

Here in the United States of America, we are able to separate our capitols from their cities. If you ask someone in CT where the state capitol is, they say, Hartford. If you ask someone in Hartford where the state capitol is, they actually point to a physical location within Hartford and say over there.

Most cities around the world that function as their greater associative organization's HQ siting I would guess are like that. So, we're really not all that different. If you ask someone in London where the capitol of the UK is, they point towards Big Ben simply because it is easy to pick out and attached to the rest of the building in which parliament sits.

However, unlike most other nations if not all of them, our national capitol is not inside any given state. Whereas the area which includes London can boast of the nations HQ being right there, and not nearer to let's say Cardiff or Glasgow, no state or county or whatever can claim that about Washington, D.C. because it is as the final two letters abbreviate a district.

We have fifty states and several other entities plus a district separate from all the rest in which sits our capitol and well, the locals do have issues with the separation. The city is their home, and it for them on a daily basis has nothing to do with the running of the nation.

Despite that, it works pretty well. No state can hold the district hostage. Quite the other way around but that's normal for government, isn't it?

This is in a nutshell the way to let Jerusalem be the siting of the capitols of both Palestine and Israel. Let it be a separate district not controlled or owned by either but a separate place by constitution of both nations and the chosen siting of their government center.

Some will say because I am a ger tzedek that I can't possibly have the raw passionate feel for the desire of Israel and Jerusalem. I don't think there's anything intrinsic to being born Jewish. It's something you learn. And you choose to care or not as so many agnostic non-practicing Jews show. The desire of the Palestinians to hold Jerusalem is almost as strong if not historically tight other than having to sit by while Christendom and the western world in general traipsed through or fought with the eastern world on their doorstep. Since I'm not Muslim or from their land, the Palestinians would doubtless say I can't feel it enough the way they do.

Maybe, but maybe that allows me to step back and see a bigger picture. The Catholic Church is headquartered in its own one-city nation of Vatican City. Italy cannot claim to own it. It is its own place. Polish Catholics have just as much a right as any Italian Catholics to visit.

So to should we Jews and Muslims and Christians all have access to Jerusalem without worrying about any of the others claiming ownership. It's not about ownership. G-d does not command us to own, He commands us to respect and cherish. I respect and cherish my street. I don't own it, the collective whole of our citizenry does but that doesn't stop me from living there. I own my house and property on it.

So too can Israel as an entity own property just as it does anywhere else. The US can own property anywhere that the local government of jurisdiction allows the purchase. If Jerusalem was a separate district, all the parties involved here could have their government facilities there.

What are the chances of such enlightened mutual cooperation for the benefit of all? Very low. It would force into the light the current shadowy truth that the parties involved do not care for the sake of G-d, only their own petty getting their own way. This fight over Jerusalem is about pride and that is going to lose Jerusalem for all of us. How does this profit the nation of Israel and the Jewish people?

We need a District of Jerusalem. We need to get on with our lives.

But first, there's the matter of the Palestinian hornet's nest and the world that keeps poking it and encouraging it to be aggravated for their own ends to the eternal detriment of the Palestinian people and thus the Jews and everyone else as well as secondary casualties.