We live in contradictory times. On one hand, our technological and medical achievements continue to push the boundary of what even one previous generation thought possible. It astounds me to think that within my relatively short lifetime we lived without innovations like the internet, hybrid cars, GPS navigation systems, and countless more that make you realize the exponential rate of human achievement. Yet in the face of these breakthroughs it makes you wonder why is it pretty much universally agreed that we are living amongst the dumbest generation in American history?
Nine year olds may be able to edit and upload their own videos to their Facebook pages yet I don’t think I have a single friend who could explain the technology behind the internet. Or the video camera for that matter. And believe it or not I have some smart friends. Perhaps this is the downside to all of this innovation. A few very smart people have made things so easy for the masses that the masses are at this point incapable of their own innovative thinking.
Recently I have been reading the essay “The Doors of Perception” by Aldous Huxley. Published in 1954, the essay tells the story of the author’s one-time experimentation with the hallucinogenic drug mescaline. I cannot say what sparked the Author’s experiment other than basic curiosity. But I do get the idea that part of his goal was to expand his realm of perception and consciousness and perhaps explore areas of his own brain that had laid dormant for many years. This of course was years before the tune in and drop out culture of the sixties making this pretty revolutionary experimentation.
What I took from his work is this: Despite our own narcissistic beliefs, we are all nothing more than animals. As such our minds have evolved in the same way as all other animals with the one golden rule of survival at all costs. Huxley makes the case that the animal brain is not by function a tool for exploration but a filter. The primary function of the brain is to take the infinite stimulus all animals experience and filter it down to what the animal needs to understand and be aware of for survival. Anything more is a waste of precious energy and is therefore ignored, at least by the conscious mind. Obviously the information necessary for survival varies from animal to animal and species to species but the overall pattern is the same. Essentially, there is an unbelievable amount of things that our mind is intentionally not perceiving due to the lack of relevancy they may have to our attempts to stay alive.
A few pieces of experience Huxley shares: The author writes of seeing colors in a new and different way – reds were not just red – they were varying degrees of red. This is a perfect example. Our mind needs to process colors for various reasons related to survival but it does not need to go any further than basic distinction. Red not blue etc. So the many shades of red – shades that are perceptible to the mind – become filtered down in to a much smaller number forever altering the perception of that color. The author further goes on to share his overwhelming perception of oneness, the idea that all of mankind is connected and that it is merely perception that makes us appear as isolated islands. This may sound like a lot of kumbaya but through the context of his argument it does make sense. Perceiving that connection with fellow humans would cause us to potentially bring our guard down. Not to mention the fact that in no way does feeling connected energetically or spiritually to all other persons contribute to our survival skills.
Ultimately, the author’s thesis is that our brain is a tool of minimization and not maximization; that our biological predisposition is to only process and utilize as much information as we need to ensure survival and continuation of the human species. What does this have to do with the dumbest generation in American history? Well, using the theory of Huxley, now more than ever our brain has the luxury of filtering out more and more information. We as a species abandoned survival skills like hunting, gathering, structure building etc. many years ago in favor of a new set of survival skills – namely how to survive in a complex economic world where often it is brain and not brawn that determines survival. So our minds have now learned to filter out all non-vital stimulus and focus on what information we need to get by. Take the earlier example of the uploading of videos onto the internet. Five years ago or so, many people throughout the country were paid handsomely by companies who needed to upload videos on to the internet. Now, through those individuals own hard work, any person can do their job without any understanding of the technology. In other words, the many thought processes behind uploading video to the internet – something that was once a “survival skill” - are now worthless. Society today is comprised of people who are capable of doing more with understanding far less.
American’s today do not ask foundational questions about whether or not our existing methods are the best. We have filtered that out and are instead fixated on building upon what we all accept as fact. Maybe this is what made the Sixties so special. It was a time of radical change and exploration where variances in everyone’s perceptions allowed them to approach areas of life with different ideas. Music was more creative. Today’s music industry just builds upon whatever was popular last year. Movies are no different. Status quos were challenged.
My point in all this is not that we should all take hallucinogenic drugs and alter our perception to save humanity. (Although many people would likely benefit from this).I am merely hoping to point out that our brains are biologically only interested in but a small percentage of the things that it confronts. So many times, the facts with which we make our conclusions upon are taking in only a small fraction of the information given to us. The more our brain can automatically filter out, the more it will, resulting in a very narrow approach to life. Worse yet, I believe that this narrow approach is one of the greatest contributors to the relative unhappiness out there in the world. The more we allow our brain to filter the more we slip away from the defining aspect of humanity – the free will to explore our world in search of happiness. How ironic is it that the very understandable need for survival may be the thing keeping so many of us from truly living in the first place?
