The wimp MP

There are several Wimps in my cerebral parliament. What functions do they serve?

The dictionary suggests that a wimp is a weak and unadventurous person who fails to begin or complete tasks because of fear or lack of confidence.

Wimps reckon that unconditional respect is due to the good and great of society – to the elders and betters. The worthies have their imperfections but they are the glue that holds cultures together. Think of shepherd and sheep, parent and child, teacher and student, employer and employee, entrepreneur and wage slave, leader and the led. Wimps don’t want to rock the boat.

The source of wimpishness lies in nature, nurture and serendipity. It is managed through three modes of education – informal (life), nonformal (apprenticeships), and formal (schooling). Those suggest a 3x3 grid and nine possible points of view.

The informal and formal modes have been around since human beings began. Formal education for well connected males has been around for about 3,500 years and ‘education for all’ became a UNESCO  policy objective in the year 2000.

Parents play a dual role. They are the elders and betters as far as their young children are concerned and they also mirror the standard patterns of deference in the wider society.

Wimps tend towards feelings of low self esteem and hopelessness, and towards submissiveness and shyness. This leads to stress, anxiety, and panic and to rumination and depression. Wimps are concerned to maintain standards and to avoid causing people to think badly of them. (See lyrics to “Why can’t I be?”)

Successful human groups have rules and regulations which guide the behaviour of both the leaders and the led. But the only constant thing is change. In most human groups there are outliers who question the worthiness of the existing patterns of behaviour and belief. They are the ‘creatives’ who go against the grain. They are the source of the variations upon which selection works.  In stable times they are locked away in madhouses. In rapidly changing times they are let loose to act as freelance filosophers. In mildly uncertain times there will be norm cracking and in tougher times There will be paradigm shifting.

My cerebral parliament has several examples of wimps but most of them are ambiguous. I have lived and worked in six countries and this has involved dropping one set of cultural norms and picking up different ones. This is wimpish. If I was a real man I would stay in one culture and figure how to operate in it. It is wimpish to do a runner every few years.

At the end of my Zoology studies I committed to zero population growth. This meant that I did not make babies although I had several girlfriends along the way. And to keep the house tidy I employed a home help rather than marrying one. This is wimpish. If I was a real man …

Between contracts I came back to Portsoy to examine my life until then. This involved several years of renunciation, retreat, study and meditation . This is wimpish. If I was a real man …

I am a creative type to some extent – photos, doodles, tunes, songs, stories on a blog. These come from the unconscious. If I hang around something will turn up. This is wimpish. If I was a real man …

I find it increasingly hard to keep up with technology (esp digital music) and with the cutting edge of topical academic studies (esp evolutionary psychology, and neurology). But this may be due to old age.)

Real men buy into the cultural rules and regs. Wimps, despite themselves, ask awkward questions. OR … maybe I am misconstruing my parliamentarians.

The image of the mind as a parliament comes from David Eagleman “It's a mistake to think of ourselves as individuals Our brains are like a neural parliament: we've got all these competing political parties fighting for control”

My thoughts about wimps is loosely based on the ideas of Susan Cain (2012) Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. There are at least two types of wimp:

• The Weakling Wimp is woeful and worried.
• The Warrior Wimp is wary and wise.

The weakling wimp is the standard one. The notion of the warrior wimp emerged in the process of writing this story. My idea is that some individuals are too selfish and lazy to tie themselves tightly to a particular cultural form. They are not content to be a robot on autopilot. They dare to be different. They delight to be different although they might not let that show.

If I was a real man (robotic, enslaved and lacklustre) I would conform to one of my cultural types. I would be married and live in a little box with a mortgage and 2.5 kids whom I would guide into being robots on autopilot in their turn – faithfully following frivolous fads and fashions.

SO – In my cerebral parliament there is a creative outlier version of a warrior wimp. And I note that there is a lot of stuff left over from childhood that forms mediocre modules of the weakling wimp.