DIALOGUE AND BLACK BOX THEORY
If a person who is hiding your
treasure is helping you to look for it, you can be sure that you may have an
endless search in vain. Some people think that no one can have access to their
hidden secrets. Hence they may be smiling at you while in the depth of their
minds, they are thinking of how to eliminate you. In Act 1, Scene 4 of William
Shakespeare Macbeth, King Duncan while enquiring about the execution of the
incumbent Thane of Cowdor told Lennox, Malcolm, Donalbain and the attendants that “there’s no art
to find the mind’s construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built
an absolute trust”. As soon as Macbeth entered, Duncan welcomed him with a sincere appreciation and gratitude: “O
worthiest cousin, the sin of my ingratitude even now was heavy on me. Thou art
so far before that swiftest wing of recompense is slow to overtake thee. Would
thou have less deserved, that the proportion both of thanks and payment might
have been mine! Only I have left to say, more is thy due than more than all can
pay”. Ironically, the same Duncan, who just regretted building an absolute
trust on a person, embraced Macbeth with all his heart knowing not that he was
embracing his actual and real agent of death. The content of Macbeth’s black
box was a vaulting ambition for the crown of King Duncan who he would kill
shortly. This confirms the Prophesy of Jeremiah that “cursed is the one who
trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away
from the Lord” (Jeremiah 17, 5).
Isaac Newton (1642-1727), experimenting on physical realities
established that natural phenomena generally follow determinate mathematical
laws of motion. Based on this principle, he produced his 'black box' theory of
science to explain how things should happen. However, he could not prove why
things happen. He could not reach the inner mind of the human agent in the
context of cause and effect. Naturally, a stimulus is expected to produce a
desired response. While a physical input can produce a desired output, a
similar result cannot be reached in dealing with human beings. The density of
the human mind may have led William Gilbert to agree with Newton that science
could not go beyond what can be deduced directly from experience. This assertion
was also affirmed by George Berkeley in his 1721 “De Motu, Newton's black-box physics”
In Psychology, the black box
theory is used to define things according to their functions in relations to exterior appearance and
interior behaviour. The observer sees things happening but does not
know the sincerity of the action. The content of the black box can only be imagined with a set of
different outputs. The Psychologist therefore attempts to use the black box
theory of consciousness to understand the mind. In Psychological therapy,
some psychologists have tried to find out the hidden secrets of the human mind
through mild electric shock and alcohol therapy. It has been discovered that
these methods along with persuasion have made some people unconsciously open
their black box and reveal the long stored secrets. Delilah negatively used this method to achieve her
selfish aim. She made Sampson drink her fake love and shock him with her
“erotic electric”. After Sampson had opened his black box to Delilah, she put him to sleep on her lap and called for
someone to shave off the seven braids of his hair in order to subdue him
(Judges 16, 16-19).
Philosophy has another way of looking at this
theory. Rather than a deliberate attempt to deceive others, a person with this
tendency may not even be aware of the reality of his nature. The Allegory of
the Cave was presented by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work “The
Republic (514a-520a)” to compare "the effect of education and the lack
of it on human nature". Plato's Socrates
explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and
comes to understand that the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all,
as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen
by the prisoners.” Socrates ask Glaucon to imagine a cave inhabited by
prisoners who have been imprisoned since childhood in such a way that their
legs and necks are fixed, such that they cannot move their heads and are
thereby forced to gaze at a wall in front of them (514a-b). The only thing that
is perceived by these prisoners is shadow. In our world today, many people who
claim to be prophets “create God in their own image” to the detriment of the
poor and ignorant followers that have no clue of their hidden agenda.
Enlightenment reveals the truth. Jesus said that the “truth will set you free” (John 8, 32). Jeremy C. Bradley, in “Demand
Media” made a
critical analysis of black box theory in politics to uncover the practices of government leaders and
politicians in national and international governmental policies and practices.
This theory states that the actions of
political parties, lobbyists and other government players such as legislators
and state governors is most effectively studied by looking at the "inputs"
and "outputs" of the political system. Judging from the outputs of politicians, the
theory discovers that the truth inside the box of the politicians is not
perceptible to a person who is not a "political insider". This is
more so because of some “cover-up” of government that show the governed only
the shadows. The true nature of political systems can be known only by opening
or exposing the political box through the enlightenment of the public.
Otherwise it would be difficult for people to have confidence in political
systems.
Some
dialogue initiatives are springing up in Nigeria to proffer solution to the
insecurity that has kept the citizens in a “democratic cave”. While many people
think that the government is responsible for the insecurity, many others think
that the insecurity is one of the contents of the black box of some ethnic,
religious and political leaders who are in opposition to the ruling party. No matter how we want to beam light in the
shadow of our national cave, the major puzzle is the extent we can go in a
society where trust has become expensive and mutual suspicion has become cheap.
We have heard stories of how people have been slaughtered and their heads
paraded on the streets in some part of Nigeria. Some killers happened to have
been those that were once trusted by their victims. Our present National
project of dialogue must therefore be seen to be a sincere search for the truth
that can penetrate our black box and liberate us through sincere dialogue. The
headline of the Guardian of Wednesday November 6, 2013 that, “Nyiam resigns
from dialogue panel” and the immediate naming “of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria
(SAN) Solomon Asemota as a replacement for Nyiam” appears to confirm the
sincerity of Government to give Nigeria the green light to move forward.
Therefore, it is now left for the committee members to prove their credibility
with a dialogue capacity to repair the damaged psyche of the nation. The
committee should involve experts in the different field of humanities to prove
that the primary agenda of the National Dialogue is not a mere political
gymnastics to buy time for 2015. The committee must prove that their interest
for the common good surpasses any financial gain.
Fr. Prof. Cornelius Afebu
Omonokhua is the Director of Mission and Dialogue of the Catholic Secretariat
of Nigeria, Abuja; and Consultor of the Commission for Religious Relations with
Muslims (C.R.R.M), Vatican City
Good write up
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