You bring up a couple of good points -- same problem most teachers have in school -- teaching people to think and to solve problems with alternatives, and this problem, I found, is a massive one, especially in the medical field with fillies who sit behind a desk all day and do nothing but follow daily procedures, and sometimes, I must admit, I purposely, with malice and foreplanning, upset their apple carts.
Simple example: This week, I went to three different places in order to make preparations for my up-coming cataract surgeries, which I have been postponing far too long. I walk into the offices and inform the young fillies I need to know what my out-of-pocket costs are going to be, what the procedure is, and how fast they can retrieve all my previous medical records that are necessary for the procedures to begin. I simply tell 'em: "I have with me all the previous doctors' names, addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers, and I will sign all medical release forms necessary to obtain these documents. What I do not want is to walk into the office for my first appointment (Aug. 31) and then be told I have to do this before anything can be done with another appointment (at another whopping cost) 2-3 weeks down the road. Nor do I need to get hit with a $25,000 bill for the surgeries for what Medicare won't pay. I am not a relative of Mitt Romney and I need to make financial planning for all of this."
If I were to ask the Pope why he doesn't have sex with his Vatican nuns, I might do a lot better to get some kind of a logical, reasonable response.
What these fillies -- most of whom believe they are direct descendts of Allah, very often manifested by their aggressive, superior attitude toward others -- behind the desk want to do is to simply slap the patient with the bill and have the patient hand 'em a credit/debit card for x-amount of dollars or write a check, and have the patient simply walk out the door. Money obtained. Case closed. Another patient to be forgotten about in the offices' maniacal, assembly-line daily processes. But along comes this young, adamant, aggressive guy from Floral City and they don't know what to do. They have no idea about prices, pre-planning for the patient, and patients who are on Poverty Row. It really throws 'em for a loop and the front-desk fillies have to usually jump out of their seats and run to someone in back to come out to the front and handle this Mr. K. character (who purposely makes startling comments about not being a relative of Mitt Romney). All patients who walk into any medical office are automatically assumed to be wealthy. (When I tell 'em I have Medicare only and no supplemental insurance, they nearly fall off their chairs in shock, and then I drive my point home by stating, "I have no idea who can afford supplemental insurance." They do not like that one bit.)
I have always been morosely fascinated with WW II, the rise of Nazism, the Final Solution, and how the world stood by and did nothing until it was almost too late -- regardless of the numerous reports that were coming in to the European nations (and later, the Allies), from 1938-1945 and what was really going on in the Concentration Camps, which actually started one year after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, 1934.
One Ph.D. historian slammed the nail on its head and it went something like: "Present-day Jews, Gypsies, Christians, etc. do not need to hate the Nazis or S.S. for what they did. What they did was very simple to do, called 'Man's inhumanity to man' -- an imbued characteristic of human nature, which we all have, but which most of us keep under control because we fear the laws and their consequences. There was no thinking on the part of the Nazis. Hitler, as with all politicians in high authority, and his cronies did the thinking. All the Nazis had to do was to follow that thinking -- logical, moral, ethical or not. Nothing has changed. Who makes the decisions in the corporations, banks, political world, etc.? It is not the tellers at the windows or the employees at Mc D's. They are, in fact, not allowed to think. All they have to do is be totally dedicated to the cause and all the values, right or wrong, the company/institution stands for. If not, they are fired on the spot. Hitler effected the same thing with a number of his generals and officers by secretively putting a bullet in their brains. It is the people on top that need to be hated and despised. Everyone under them are nothing but puppets who are to follow the decrees, mandates, procedures, policies, etc. dictated by the people on top who do all the thinking."
The insight was very impacting. I am not sure that people/students want to think at all. They want to be told, "This is it. Follow it." It's the easiest way out. It allows them to remain in their Comfort Zone. Let others do the thinking. "Let's stay inside the box. We're very comfortable that way and if anything goes wrong, or there are questions, complaints, or procedural deviations, we can always play the Blame Game by blaming it on the procedures or institutional 'guidelines' (a disguised, veonomous euphemism for "absolute, non-deviant mandates"), which we, the puppets, have no say about." Consequently, "I will not challenge conglomerates who fail to offer a refund on a defective product, a health insurance company that refuses to pay for an x-y-z procedure, a car dealership that sold me a car 'as is' when the car's engine fell onto the road 2 weeks later, or of the credit bureas that accept any/all negative info on me behind my back. They did the thinking. They wrote the policies of choosing the selected ones -- those who are to be inducted in their slave labor assignments and those who are to be instantly sent to the gas chambers. I will simply remain in my comfort zone and do what I am told. I am nothing but a peon, a simple David who refuses to fight Goliath. Let my deplorable inferiority and insecurity complexes continue to reign. I will continue to relax in my ocean of complacency as I watch the nearby high chimneys with their black, odorous billowing smoke exiting into the skies, and I'll continue to play dumb that I really don't know what's going on."
WJK-July, 2012
