All White with No Criminals in Site

There is a street in Austin, Texas named Gun Fight Lane. It is near Shotgun Ln., down the street from Ammunition Dr. and just off of Gatling Gun Ln. I guess this works in Texas. I bet there's not a Gun Fight Lane in East St. Louis, Illinois or Detroit, Michigan.

I'll bet this well-to-do white neighborhood was built prior to Columbine.

Speaking of Columbine, was it ever clear from Michael Moore's documentary that American's are not just so much in love with guns as that they are just basically paranoid? - it's the combination of the two that sparks danger.

Even a more interesting point from Moore's movie is the fact that all Americans lock their doors - a symptom of their general paranoia. (By definition - an unjustifiable fear that "someone out there" is "out to get me")

Most of my life I've hardly ever locked my doors. I consciously do not lock my doors unless I see a good reason to do so.

I mean why does it take a movie to point out that you can open your door and look around on the street and bascially see that there are not criminals running around looking for unlocked doors? Isn't it obvious?

But our media tells us otherwise.

And we listen to the media and form a world-view in our minds (a map) which is not congruent with the world that we can see and sense all around us (the territory.) Isn't this the very definition for insanity?

Korzybski thought that it was this incongruity between the mental "map" of the world and the objective "out there" of the world - the actual territory - that defines insanity.

I think Americans exemplify this incongruity best with their fear of "the bad guys" by the simple execution of always locking their doors. Cars or houses. We always lock 'em up and usually set an alarm, too.

I spent a couple of nights at a good friend of mine last week. I couldn't leave his house to go to my car or even step outside for a few moments without always unlocking the doors. They live in an quiet neighborhood with mostly old people.

I bet if you walk up and down Gun Fight Lane in Austin, Texas and check the doors - every one will be locked. The homes are on average $180,000 to $200,000 homes. All white with no criminals in site.

I wonder if in the days before air conditioning, when everybody sat out on the porch and walked and talked to the neighbors, if they locked their doors everytime they stepped in and out?

[Remember in "Bowling for Columbine" Michael Moore did the same test in Canada, by walking up to houses to check if the doors were locked and they were all unlocked - in contrast to the American homes tested]

Hmmmm, what is it we have lost here? Something important, but I'm not sure what. Maybe we should go over seas and kill all the "bad guys" before they get a chance to come over here and kill us. Am I sounding paranoid now? I better turn on the news and check.

[Full text of Korzybski's "Science and Sanity" here. But you should read some of the reviews here - very interesting.]