Comments on: The Final Days http://steelcityskeptics.net/2008/10/31/the-final-days-2/ Drinking Skeptically in Pittsburgh. For Pittsburgh atheists, agnostics, secular freethinkers and all unbelievers. Tue, 22 May 2012 23:25:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: The Skeptical Advocate http://steelcityskeptics.net/2008/10/31/the-final-days-2/#comment-254 Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:30:17 +0000 http://www.steelcityskeptics.net/?p=321#comment-254 Yes. I would elaborate on my statement about acquiring our identity in the marketplace of ideas. We too easily become the masks we assume (or are imposed on us) — whether of the Republican party or free-market economics or bleeding-heart liberal. What seems an easy way to identify ourselves and belong starts to dictate our thought and belief, unless we are careful. This is also what I think Daniel Dennet means when he talks about memes — little ideas and half-ideas that insinuate themselves into our psyche undetected and unexamined.

Also, see an essay in one of my favorite ‘zines, the New Atlantis, for a consideration of the danger from Orwell’s totalitarian state vs. Huxley’s Brave new World of unlimited consumer complacency. The author is Caitrin Nicol.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/brave-new-world-at-75

Thank you.

TSA

]]> By: Andy Was http://steelcityskeptics.net/2008/10/31/the-final-days-2/#comment-253 Sun, 02 Nov 2008 11:43:13 +0000 http://www.steelcityskeptics.net/?p=321#comment-253 I agree that a majority of us are building and buying our own prison of thought and belief. Choosing to seek only the promise of comfort and afraid to question our own notions, particularly in large groups. We are doing it not only with Prozac (individual panacea) but also with entertainment TV, religion, supposed patriotism and other social dogmatisms (large group panacea).

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