Sunday, March 16, 2014

Heisenberg

Heisenberg, in addition to being the name of Walter White's alter ego in the television show Breaking Bad, was an actual 20th century scientist that formulated the uncertainty principle. Put simply, and using the uncertainty principle in the social sciences, the principle postulates that when a human being measures or evaluates something, the cognitive experiences of that human being will be reflected in the measurement or evaluation. The measurement or evaluation will be distorted due to that person's life experiences, ethics, values, and cognitive makeup.

In the political arena, when Rick Scott of Florida states that his parents had it rough, and he wants everyone to have the same opportunity he had, he is not lying. So to in the 2012 presidential election, when Mitt Romney stated that his grandparents had it rough, and he stated that he wanted everyone to have the same opportunity that he and his father had, in his mind, he was not lying. For both Scott and Romney, and most on the far right, everyone is the set of white Anglo-Saxon Christian males and their children. The set also includes- and they view this as proof of their newly acquired open-mindedness- the super rich and the race of people known as corporations. Anyone outside this set is irrelevant and expendable, and subject to subjugation by everyone inside the set to create opportunity.