So, What are "The Basics"?

In this blog, I want to ruminate, again, around, "The Basics," or, more specifically, "your Basics." Unfortunately, at least in my opinion, relatively few individuals give any thought to, what, I would call, essentially, their personal Philosophy of Life. The reason for this, as I have written about previously, is that, from one's earliest years, one is Programmed/indoctrinated with a set of Beliefs held by those around them. Any questioning of them, particularly on the part of the youngest members, was rarely tolerated.

The indoctrination process was and is so subtle, in actuality, that most of us are unaware of having any beliefs at all; what they have, if anyone except relatively rare individuals, were to give it any thought, are what they would probably consider the "Basic Facts of life." Until the middle of the last Century, it was relatively easy to remain immersed unquestioningly within the cocoon provided by those Basic Facts of Life.

Children brought up in multicultural communities, tend to start questioning, if only to themselves, these, "Facts" sooner than those brought up in closed, cultural/religious systems. The unfortunate reality is that, what one experiences in growing up as a child become, "the facts/realities of Life," thereafter, which you go against to your sorrow. As an example: the "white" child/teen, who has a, "black" friend, will soon learn that he/she has caused a problem, at least for some individuals, if not his/her family.

Similarly, a boy who prefers to read books, over playing sports, can also cause much consternation in a family which has a strong Belief in the Cultural Basics in the parents' proper world order of life.

Fortunately, many of the previous Beliefs held by the Culture of the Western World regarding what is properly male, and what properly female, have been forced to be abandoned by many of its members. Unfortunately, many remnants of those rigid Beliefs in the assigned social and sexual roles and behaviors for males and females in Western Society still remain in force. Rarely, does a week go by that one does not read about the price some man, or some woman, has had to pay for trying to go outside of previously assigned roles and behaviors.

Many of the areas of this World have been dominated by strong Cultural/Religious "Laws" for as long as anyone living in them remembers. (This fact has fed the erroneous Western Belief, that we in the United States live in a, "free" society.) Many of these other areas, have recently been, or are currently in, turmoil, because many members of those communities, of formerly-shared Beliefs, have begun to question the Cultural/political restrictions which they have lived under.

This Country, which is a Society made up of many Cultures, also includes many smaller, outlier, closed, Cultural/Religious Communities, which are in many respects similar to those aforementioned foreign Cultures dominated by strong Cultural/Religions "Laws." The news stories over-the-years that have brought some of these smaller, closed Cultural/Religious Communities to the attention of the community-at-large. These revelations frequently cause shock and outrage in many individuals whose upbringing has been of the dominant groups. Not infrequently, they have brought down the, "virtuous" wrath of the Government authorities, as well. This is not a new phenomenon.

A prominent example of such a Cultural subgroup, in the West, is the Church of Later Day Saints, or what is commonly called, "Mormonism." Few of us understand that what this is about are Basic Beliefs, believed to be, "Facts," and in some cases, Beliefs to Die For! (Or, perhaps, to vote for, or against.)

This group has been, once again, brought to our attention due to the fact that the current Republican nominee for the Presidency happens to be a prominent member of this Church, and questions have been raised as to how important that is to the rest of us. In the middle of the last Century, one of its prominent Beliefs, that of male members having multiple wives, was determined by the U.S. Government to be not-legal (not allowable) by it, and the Church was required to, officially, give up the practice, despite various holdouts to this day.

In actuality, if one were to think about and examine the underlying customs of these other, foreign, Cultures, as well as the outlier groups within this Country, one might actually come to the realization that those customs are Beliefs. Such a realization might, also, prompt one to come to an understanding that what one personally clings to as, "basic facts of life" held as a member of one of the dominant groups, are also Beliefs, which can be examined.

With that, I end this blog entry,

Shirley Gallup