Last week something extraordinary happened.
Distant relatives whose existence I never suspected came to light: photographs
of my parents and brother, from 1930 -1942, provided rare emotional moments.
Genealogy wasn't my hobby, but on this occasion, I have to admit it is exciting.
I won't bring convoluted stories as to how this occurred but today I worked out there
must have been a chain of at least 8 persons from Kenya, England, Germany, the US
and Israel who were involved before the personal link appeared, out of the blue, on
my computer.
" The world is small!" Alon said. I said:
" I think it's not so much that the world is small, but that people are now able to
communicate over very long distances."
Including telephone and television; electronic postage;
camera; moving pictures; moving pictures with sound;
videos and tape recorders; and fax machines;
And BOOKS! The printing press! Newspapers!
Someone may want to make a chronological chart showing how the technologies
have evolved over the ages and spread over oceans and continents on our planet.
All that has fascinating implications with respect to verbal behavior.
Still, it is face-to-face short-distance dialogue which started all this. *
And these conversations continue today - begging for further functional analysis of
the types known as reflex and operant conditioning.
Just with unrestrained animals, free to go from place to place, deciding whether to
go on with a meal or move to another key for a drink.
Teaching techniques that Pavlov began and Skinner and others extended to children
at home, and in classrooms, need further expansion within and beyond a laboratory.
There is far too much fear and suffering - mutual hatred and violence - in the world.
Seeing when and where subjects move, permits researchers to study normalisation.
Governments and nations need information on general deceleration:
less coercion - no undue intimidation. And the same could be said for mobilisation:
we need more data on attractive stimulus control with correction and reinforcement.
More knowledge is needed to preserve flora and fauna within viable environments.
Negative vs positive objectives are basically matters of relative frequencies:
the number of rules and regulations that limit actions and force locomotion, compared
with spontaneous rest for leisure or pleasure and additional ways of appreciation. **
In other words, we need socialisation with Do's and Don'ts in healthier combinations:
voluntary and good-natured cooperation among individuals for common humane aims.
I trust readers weigh such matters and commence much-needed discourse:
the welfare of our offspring and of future generations hangs in the balance.
___________________________
* Edward R. Murrow
Just because the microphone in front of you amplifies your voice around the world, is no reason to
think we have any more wisdom than we had when our voices could reach only from one end of the
bar to the other.
** Then - with a sigh of relief - we might say with Will Rogers:
Thank goodness we don't get all the government we pay for.
13 March, 2012
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