Saturday, December 3, 2016

Insults to Intelligence in The Crown, Netflix TV Series

I have watched the first season of The Crown, a TV series on Netflix. Excellent. It is set mostly in the early years of the reign of Elizabeth II, the current Queen of England, in the 1950s. In ten episodes we see how members of this royal family are required to suppress their individuality. They are required to fulfill traditional expectations, to act in ways that show no imagination or spontaneity. A few of the family members break under these demands, bringing on crushing disapproval, while Elizabeth herself grows into the stifling role.

Why would life do that to us? Why would life, which gave each of us intelligence and imagination, then drop many of us into roles where our individuality can only get us into trouble? An answer can be found in the Resource-Patterns Model of Life, the subject of this blog. Sometimes the work that an individual may contribute to the success of the larger community requires, sadly, few of that individual's capacities. In a given environmental setting, the work-roles which will enable an extended community of us humans to thrive are laid down by that environmental setting. One of these environmentally-determined work roles may require almost continual repetition of only one or two of an individual's abilities, leaving most of the individual's abilities unused and unappreciated.

I believe that point is made clear in the model of tabletop critters. See for instance the last point (number 2) in this post from 2014, and the same point made again amid a longer development in 2015.  It is:
2. The perhaps-surprising fact that millions of critters can live successfully by following only a few simple rules derives from the simplicity of the environmental feature. The rules are simple because the feature (a distance separates the two essential resources) is simple.
But I may be mistaken. While the point seems profound and clear to me, as far as I know no one else has appreciated it. What is lacking in my explanation?


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