Great article by David Brooks in The New Yorker

Thread:                           Context

Previous related entry:     1/5/2011 "We are always in a context"

The January 17, 2011 issue of The New Yorker magazine contains an article by David Brooks: “Social Animal: How the new sciences of human nature can help make sense of life.” It combines compelling storytelling and the current findings of social science. In one section, Brooks describes the unconsciously held contexts at play as a young man and woman first meet and go on to form a primary relationship. In another, he writes of how we acquire the contexts out of which we live and make meaning:

“…I believe we inherit a great river of knowledge, a flow of patterns coming from many sources. The information that comes from deep in the evolutionary past we call genetics. The information passed along from hundreds of years ago we call culture. The information passed along from decades ago we call family, and the information offered months ago we call education. But it is all information that flows through us. The brain is adapted to the river of knowledge and exists only as a creature in that river. Our thoughts are profoundly molded by this long historic flow, and none of us exists, self-made, in isolation from it.”

And about the unconscious mind:

“After all, the conscious mind chooses what we buy, but the unconscious mind chooses what we like.”

Other quotes from this article will appear in subsequent posts about context.
 
Click here for the entire article by David Brooks