The Danger of Thoughtlessness
“This inability to think created the possibility for many ordinary men to commit evil deeds on a gigantic scale, the like of which had never been seen before. The manifestation of the wind of thought is not knowledge but the ability to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly. And I hope that thinking gives people the strength to prevent catastrophes in these rare moments when the chips are down.” — from the closing monologue in the film Hannah Arendt
via +Anne Mette Agerholm
https://plus.google.com/u/0/107769210599269225458/posts/GuvChiuetHt
(This post is worth your time to click through and read it.)
In a discussion elsewhere on the May 2013 Google+ redesign +dawn ahukanna asked, “How is it, with all this advanced super-duper tech, all the focus seems to be on what attracts our residual “thousands of years old” lizard brain remnant?”
I, too, wonder why we are embroiled in this constant emphasis on appealing to the visceral and emotional. We humans are that. But we are so much more than that. I don’t mind starting with basics but I want to build on that foundation. This toadying to our instinctive natures seems to be a kind of technological fundamentalism.
GPlus Discussion
Ludwig TS
Now you just have to proove that you are no baffoon 😛
Jun 9, 2013
Peter Strempel +4
… not knowledge but the ability to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly.
That thought ought to be stapled to the foreheads of the techno-morons who think they not only can change the world, but see it as their duty to impose their amoral and ugly ideas on the rest of us.
Jun 9, 2013
M Sinclair Stevens
+Ludwig Tertius Semper Aren’t you afraid I will dispense with evidence and proofs and just fall back on the instincts of my lizard brain to determine that I should try to rip out the throats of any dissenters? That would satisfy +Bradley Horowitz criterion for a visceral reaction to sharing. Talk about a connection!
I say this in reference an interview he gave last year on his vision for Google+ “I feel photos are the lifeblood of our service,” said Horowitz. “They are the way we can most immediately and viscerally connect as human beings.”
Jun 9, 2013
Ludwig TS
There is a reason why we still have the lizard brain… so use that one too…
Jun 9, 2013
Peter Strempel
Where’s my staple gun! Come here Mr Horowitz, I have a present for you ….
Jun 9, 2013
M Sinclair Stevens +2
+Ludwig Tertius Semper I’m not saying ignore the lizard brain. I’m saying don’t stop there. Don’t be a fundamentalist. Progress. Use all your human potential. Push the boundaries.
Jun 9, 2013
Ludwig TS +1
I am totally with you…
Jun 9, 2013
M Sinclair Stevens
+Peter Strempel called me on the quote, which I copied from another post which was a film review by Roger Berkowitz in the Paris Review about the biopic Hannah Arendt .
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/05/30/lonely-thinking-hannah-arendt-on-film/#.UaxQ9gBwVxs.twitter
The quote is actually from the film’s closing monologue. So how much the screenplay merely distilled her ideas and writing to create that dramatic moment, I don’t know. I will edit the attribution above.
Some of the dramatic liberties are discussed by Mr. Berkowitz in the review.
Jun 9, 2013
Joe Scuderi +1
+M Sinclair Stevens I don’t know much about lizards or their brains, although I am aware of the origins of the reference. To be honest, I find the Paris Review essay to be fuzzy in the extreme. I suppose I require a more detailed definition of the word “thinking” than the article offers. I’d like to add my own two cents, or rather the two cents I learned from studying the works of Carl Jung, who I believe needs no introduction. What he called mass-mindedness, as well as its antidote, was a major, recurring them of his, and he devoted much “thought’ to the question of how a civilized nation such as Germany had been capable of following the lead of a demon such as Adolph Hitler. His conclusion was that humans acting in a group do not possess individual qualities which exceed by any real margin the qualities herd animals possess, and are consequently easily manipulated. No problem getting them to stampede. Jung used the word “differentiate” to describe the remedy. Better yet, he spoke of the “process of differentiation.” A process which he saw as a true labor of Hercules, requiring game-changing efforts from the entire human being, always at great cost to one’s self, hardly the sort of duty one would “volunteer” for. So rare an achievement, in fact, that it was often likened to the quest for the Philosopher’s Gold. I don’t “think” that the word “thinking” quite sums up what Jung was talking about. His point being that all of us, at any time, are quite capable of being herded into terrible actions en masse unless we attempt to achieve the real individuality which is created when a single person sets forth, voluntarily, on the path of differentiation.
#socialpresence
Jun 13, 2013
Ludwig TS
lizard brains are mainly about reflexes in response to dangers to to physical movement no more no less
Jun 9, 2013
Ludwig TS +1
Birds have dinosaur lizard brains… and they do not go ranting and picking eyes out of every other animal… they are actually pretty social creatures
Jun 9, 2013
M Sinclair Stevens +3
+Ludwig Tertius Semper Have you never kept hens! There’s a reason we have a term called “pecking order”.
But this is really tangental. My point is this: embrace potential. Embrace complexity. Do not always revert to the most basic urges or simplest forms. The wonder of our lives, our humanity, and this universe is in its seemingly boundless complexity.
Think!
Jun 9, 2013
Peter Strempel +2
… she insisted that obedience involves responsibility. She was shocked that her critics assumed that thoughtful people would act as Eichmann had. She worried experiments like Milgram’s would normalize moral weakness. Indeed, she saw the angry reaction to her book—her critics’ insistence on seeing Eichmann as a monster—as proof that they feared that they too lacked the moral independence and the ability to think that would allow them to resist authority. – Paris Review.
Yes, YES, YES!!! Making excuses for being inhuman makes inhumanity a reality. Deference to techno-bullshit about algorithms being valid replacements for discernment, and neuro-babble about which pieces of the brain ‘control’ what actions and reactions are aspirational excuses for not exercising judgement, ethics, and humanity.
Jun 9, 2013
William Johnston
I can show you a place where they congregate in a small eastern city 365 of them at last count
Jun 9, 2013
dawn ahukanna
+1
The main reason for that question and what bugs me is why does most current tech seemed to be used for deriving the Lowest Common Denominator (LCD) appeal factor only.
Why does there have to be only one type of perfect picture? Derived from an unscientific, biased set of empirical photos that does not represent tastes of all people and all cultures?
That kind of lazy thinking drives me nuts!
Jun 9, 2013
Peter Strempel +1
The thinking Arendt demands requires pride, a feeling of difference between oneself and others—even a kind of arrogance, an arrogance that von Trotta seizes on screen. The film honestly addresses this characteristic of Arendt and of thinking itself, and does not shirk from Arendt’s belief that a confidence in one’s own distinctiveness is necessary for character. Like Emerson’s, Arendt’s writing celebrates self-reliance. For her, our democratic desire for equality—to be the same as others and to not judge them—compounds the problem of thoughtlessness.
This is why self-censorship is so much easier than wearing the abuse of ‘arrogant prick’, ‘just who do you think you are’, and all its variants. It is the Millsian resistance to the tyranny of the majority. It is exactly as Arendt proposed it: it is humanity rather than its abnegation to a barbarian kind of cretinism.
It is the self-confidence of Nietzsche’s Űbermensch, alluded to in Jung (as pointed out by Joe above), and perhaps also the risk of being trampled to death by the herd. We are taught such heroism by a woman. In the 1960s. For shame. Worse. We have forgotten.
Jun 9, 2013
Joe Scuderi
+Peter Strempel Peter, as I’m sure you know, Nietzsche was one of Jung’s chief mentors, along with Goethe, and I hope you’ll forgive me if I say something as vague as “I’m a little worried” by the tone of your reference to the great Friedrich. The issue of pride is easily a two-edged sword, Milton’s Lucifer being a great example, whose story Jung as well as the outrageous Miss Blavatsky often cited. Meaning that L.’s pride precipitated not only his Fall but his Return as well… the human ego asserting its independence with the consequence of separation from its source, but this being only the first half of the drama, the second half being the return to its source, with humility being the necessary technique in this stage of the process. But to simplify… Jung was known for saying, “How can I be at war with others when I am already so at war with myself?” Which is one of the greatest calls for peace I’ve ever heard.
Jun 9, 2013
Peter Strempel
+1
No need to worry, +Joe Scuderi, I don’t possess any tank divisions, nor even the ambition to use them. Not even in video games.
Your concerns about pride being separated from source appear to presuppose a foundation in some higher power than the human, if only to ordain that pride is sinful, or inherently separable from any other human quality.
Since I am consciously opposed to superstitions, I don’t share your apprehension about pride, or arrogance, as an intellectual artefact.
If we are talking purely about a capacity to act with horrendous consequences on others, I concede that the stereotype of arrogance is repugnant, but usually because it is anti-intellectual rather than thoughtful.
In my experience the brutish arrogance of fictions is usually far outstripped by the capacity of very ordinary, boring people to wreak havoc in life.
To wit, it’s the ordinary, boring folk who facilitate and commit atrocities. The intellectually arrogant ones usually get shot, burnt, or hanged before they come close to any power to do anything, albeit sometimes by other arrogant intellectuals.
Jun 9, 2013
Joe Scuderi
+Peter Strempel Can’t say I understand why my argument presupposes any belief in a higher power. As far as I know, I don’t have that belief, though I’ll grant you it may be a belief I’m unaware of.
Jun 9, 2013
Peter Strempel
Isn’t the parable of Faust entirely about pride as a sin? I thought that was what you were getting at. Did I misread you?
Jun 9, 2013
Joe Scuderi
No, it’s a great example, and certainly you could make a case for Mephistopheles as the Devil here on Earth, though then I guess you’d be correct when you say you’re sniffing out Deistic tendencies, and it’s true the much heralded end of Part 2 has a scene in Heaven, so to say… but I stand by the assertion that one could read Milton and Goethe and certainly Jung to great profit without an ounce of Deism in one’s blood, and though I’m willing to stand corrected if need be, still… well, you get where I’m coming from…
Jun 9, 2013
Peter Strempel +1
Without being too presumptuous about your time or interest, I need to compose my answer somewhere other than this wretched interface. Back in a jiffy.
Jun 9, 2013
Joe Scuderi
+Peter Strempel Lol squared
Jun 9, 2013
Gabriel Fitzpatrick
Sociopaths never struck me as the sort to ‘pant’ all that much, I have to say…
Jun 9, 2013
Peter Strempel +1
+Joe Scuderi Taking a detour via Althusser, in reading Goethe’s Faust I see a tour de force of rationalising an interpellation – accepting one’s subject status in the context of prevailing economic, political, and social circumstances. Being subject to a pre-ordained and largely monolithic order. In that context pride and arrogance become unseemly as an aspiration to transcend the subject status without any divine or otherwise authoritative permission.
You can replace deism with ideology or mass-anything (like popularity, majority vote, etc). All such authority rests on a caste of high priests to interpret it, and the nominal police to enforce it. Standing against such authority and enforcement is always cast as arrogant, or prideful, or even criminal and sociopathic. What sort of arrogant fool would dare to defy such odds?
The answer, it seems to me, is the Nietzschean Übermensch, or someone who feels and creates the Arendtian wind of thought.
When you seemed concerned about my endorsement of pride as not a double edged sword, I assumed you meant that I had no place for moderating influences, like a divine or ideological authority. In the context of my Goethe-via-Althusser departure, if there is grounds for concern, it ought to be that I regard arrogance and its absence as not only double edged, but multi-faceted razor blades that people shouldn’t play with lightly, but not for reasons as simple-minded as sinfulness or any of the Christian restraints against humans acting as masters of the universe.
My concerns are that we might well be the masters of the universe, and we treat that responsibility with a stunning lack of thoughtfulness.
[Sorry, I took so long. but I was looking for a quote in my Goethe, which I couldn’t find, which is probably just as well, because I only have my German copy after last year’s flood here, and my translating skills would have Johann Wolfgang turn in his grave.]
Jun 9, 2013
Joe Scuderi +1
+Peter Strempel I think my concern for your endorsement of pride was that it did not seem to equally endorse humility. And I defined humility as necessary for the return or ascent of what had fallen, in this case the Luciferian ego. I’ve never found the “happy” endings satisfying whether they be the endings created by Dante or Milton or Faust.
They only seem to work in Dickens. But what they teach us in martial arts, or at least in the advanced martial arts, is that any position of strength will have a corresponding position of weakness, which is what makes what is strong in fact weak. So the advanced solution to this problem is to have no position of strength. In other words, occupy the center, the neutral position, and abandon the circumference to those who believe they are in fact occupying the center. The problem with this solution is that it’s nearly possible to achieve. But you don’t really think that’s a problem, do you? As far as my personal belief system (because what I just stated above regarding occupying the center is not a belief but an experiential fact which my teacher can dramatically ring home upon my skull), I still maintain that “humility,” though true enough its contextual meaning has been tainted by the politics of theologic bureaucrats down through the ages… despite all that… is a necessary component to the process of the differentiation of the individual and that no citations to higher powers supernatural or otherwise are necessary. It works.
Jun 9, 2013
M Sinclair Stevens
+Joe Scuderi Just an aside to say that I’m glad you stopped by and joined in our conversation. It’s nice to hear some new voices in my discussion threads especially because one reason I write about user experience design is my concern over how it affects (encourages or discourages) specific human behaviors.
The fact that I’m still meeting new people who are passionately engaged in the exchange of ideas gives me a glimmer of hope.
Jun 9, 2013
Peter Strempel
+Joe Scuderi Try as I might, I can’t quite penetrate your logic. I suspect that we are actually talking about similar things, but are divided by the semantics inherent in the use of the word ‘pride’, which has such deeply sinful connotations because of our Judaeo-Christian culture, with similar semantics applying to ‘humility’, which is seen as separate from and opposite to pride, even though there is no reason why they cannot coexist frictionlessly.
It is late here, or early, if you will (04:00), and though today is a public holiday for me, I must attempt to sleep at some stage. I will try to think on this a little more. If you can think of another way of putting your point you might help me out a little.
Good night for now.
Jun 9, 2013
Joe Scuderi
+Peter Strempel Good night, Peter. I think you hit on it precisely when you say “there is no reason why they cannot coexist frictionlessly.” I believe that’s the sum total of my logic 🙂
Jun 9, 2013
David “MrMonsoon from Terrordome” Gary
The problem with these discussions is they’re discussions and nothing more.
This is one of the reasons why the average man will never obtain their true potential.
Another is there is no teacher(God) involved other than one’s self.
But continue in your endless debates while the true enlightened ones ascend beyond the “third dimensional” mindframe.
You’ll arrive there someday one would hope.
Jun 9, 2013
Joe Scuderi +1
+M Sinclair Stevens I hope that your hope, M Sinclair, is more than a glimmer. Matter of fact, I suspect it is. I’ve written a post called “When Does My Mind Begin To Mirror Yours?,” and my argument is that conversation can become truly meaningful if we make an effort which I believe amounts to a moral effort… and that effort is the responsibility to engage others at an empathetic level, with all the attendant consequences. This is sort of an abstract formulation, I mean the way in which I’m now speaking. Which is why I think stories can be so effective. In my post I tell a story about a friend of ours who’s battling schizophrenia and how it isolates him exactly because he’s unable, for whatever reasons, to engage in conversation, and instead has only monologues to offer.
Jun 9, 2013
M Sinclair Stevens +1
+David Gary I’m going to have to side with +Joe Scuderi here about the importance of conversation as human activity. But if you are content with distracting yourself with cat gifs, don’t let our conviviality disturb your wanking.
Jun 9, 2013
M Sinclair Stevens
+Joe Scuderi Just a little background about my “glimmer of hope” remark. Over the two years of using Google+, I’ve found specific changes in the design have made it more and more difficult to find people who are interesting to read, have made reading itself much harder than it was in the beginning, have created barriers to engaging in and following a discussion (by having to fiddle with Read more links and scroll bars), have made it next to impossible to use the tool to compose long posts or comments, and have put me in a filter bubble of the people with whom I most frequently interact instead of showing me all the content I subscribe to.
That you even found your way into my discussion is what surprises me. And that you did and chose to join the discussion is what gives me hope…especially after these last few weeks when some of my favorite people on Google+ have decided to abandon it.
In short, it’s nice to see some new faces. I look forward to exploring what you’ve written.
Jun 9, 2013
Joe Scuderi
+M Sinclair Stevens Well that’s certainly well said. And I thank you for the compliment. I think I’ll be able to learn a thing or two from you. Which is certainly worth the price of admission :). Cheers!
Jun 9, 2013
Angelica Porro +1
wait which crime exactly? Im losing track
Jun 9, 2013
Rick Nimo
Unintended consequences can bite you in the end.