An Introduction to human cluelessness

A description of the mass perceptual disturbance that plagues our society

PART ONE: HUMAN CLUELESSNESS Chapter I. INTRODUCTION What is the origin of the universal yearning for personal happiness, why is it so difficult to attain, and why is its meaning different for everyone? Why are some human beings capable of extraordinary accomplishments and others are able to commit the most unspeakable horrors? At this time we can answer this question only partially. We have no idea how a Bach, a Rembrandt or a Beethoven come to be. But we do know how psychopathic killers and mass murderers like Hitler, Stalin and today’s Islamic terrorists become capable of disrupting, destroying, and enslaving the lives of millions of innocent people. Before we can know why these tendencies for human unhappiness and destructiveness exist, we must first recognize, be clued in, that human cluelessness itself is a critical reality of primary importance. Only when this state of being is widely recognized will it be possible to address these questions in an effective, constructive way. My first two books, The Emotional Plague: The Root of Human Evil and Neither Left Nor Right: Preventing America’s Decline Into Socialism, dealt with the innumerable social manifestations of human cluelessness. Clueless deals head on with this sometimes overt and inescapable, sometimes underlying and certainly universal state of humanity. People are clueless about the nature of happiness and evil because of the ways that they think. They generally fall into two perspectives. On the political right, people have an intuitive sense of happiness and evil but are unable to understand their origin. Happiness and evil are viewed morally as something either good or bad. For them, evil is seen as a given in human nature that cannot be changed but must be suppressed by human laws for a civilized society to exist and thrive. People on the political left believe in happiness but are essentially oblivious to the existence of evil. Today, they are mired in the “anything goes, different strokes for different folks” relative morality of political 2 correctness believing that what is understood as happiness and evil are merely superficial constructs, abstract ideas rather than physical, real world realities. For them, rules of conduct apply more to certain people, those they are opposed to, but less to others whom they favor. Happiness can be achieved and iniquity can be eliminated by human intervention, so-called “social engineering” through the wisdom and political action of enlightened human beings—the chosen few. These diametrically opposed moralities and perspectives are both, at least in part, somehow correct but are irreconcilable because people are stuck in their rigid ways of thinking. Their differing, often polarized thinking gives rise to the bane of partisan politics, a prime example of the universality and significance of people’s cluelessness. Moreover, most people have no idea of the extent to which they are clueless. They are clueless about their cluelessness. This book will elucidate why people generally prefer to be and remain in this state. The answer to what evil is lies in a new way of viewing the world. Its existence and the related problem of human social destructiveness documented throughout human history must be addressed from a deeper biological perspective using functional thinking.

Clueless: The Great Human Disconnect by Charles Konia, M.D.