Posts tagged anthropology
Societies come together slowly, but can fall apart quickly, say researchers who applied the tools of evolutionary biologists to an anthropological debate.
Using archaeological records and linguistic analyses rather than fossils and genes, they created an evolutionary tree of political…
When it gets to the point where hundreds of people reblog “fuck school,” and is a common thing to say, it becomes obvious that we need massive education reform.
Compulsory schooling is a tool the government uses to condition, subordinate, and ultimately control us.
This is no conspiracy theory. It’s very true. Study educational psychology, sociology, and/or anthropology and you’ll see that academics are all aware that the current system is set up this way. Why don’t they change it? Because they’re not the one’s in control. The politicians are, as well as their corporate partners.
To read more on this subject check out the following:
From knowledgeable to knowledge-able: learning in new media environments:
http://www.academiccommons.org/commons/essay/knowledgable-knowledge-able
Google: Michael Wesch, the Kansas State Cultural Anthropologist and read his articles and watch his videos.
Google: RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms
Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (1970)
Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner’s “Teaching as a Subversive Activity” (1969)
Jonathan Kozol’s “Death at an Early Age” (1967)
(via imgfave)
Maybe if we surround ourselves with books a little more than we surround ourselves with tumblr feeds.
Maybe if we grew attached to characters in books a little more than we passively follow unknown personalities on these blogs.
Grow enchanted with story, enamored with an author. Tears flowing as pages turn. Tell me, has the Internet made you cry the same way? Internet is like a callous sandstone, corroding and the mind to any emotion. It shuts off our frontal lobe, desensitized to the feelings of others. Destroys our theory of mind — our ability to empathize, to think about other minds. Turning us into autistic fucks.
(via imgfave)
Living on the farm has been great. I had no computer, so my internet addiction couldn’t physically happen.
So I turned on my iPhone’s internet. It’s practical. It’s helpful. Could it be that bad?
Yes. I was sucked into it. Ugh. So I had a friend password restrict the Safari browser.
I had been tumbling on my iPhone, but it looks like that’s gonna stop too. I want to completely get rid of all my internet addiction cues, and being on an addictive site like tumblr is one of those cues.
Every once in a while, I may go to a library to update my tumblr via computer (like I’m doing now), but for now I’m going on a hiatus again. It may last for several months. May? June? I want my “internet brain” to go away and return to a “non internet” brain. I want my thoughts to stop racing. I want to stop thinking in short 140 character sound bites. I want to stop expecting the ability to close out of every window, so I can think more fully, continuously, without distracting. I want to be able to weed kale without having the desire to send the picture of a kale-fractal to tumblr.
I want to think. I want to stop my habit of thinking “just google it” and instead practice habitual critical thinking to solve problems. I’m sure google has the answers, but google is going to kill me in the long run.
So cya. And if you find away to think critically and use the internet simultaneously, let me know. Thoughts?
quippyambiguity asked: I'm still not familiar with the ways of Tumblr and how to reply to posts that people write. Anywho. You mentioned that you don't entirely feel comfortable joining the Peace Corps if it means increasing globalization. Perhaps the Peace Corps implants some general ideas from our culture into those that they are visiting but the individuals "volunteering" seem to, for the most part, harness the traditions of that group of people. Their interaction doesn't seem harmful. They genuinely wish to help.
:) yeah, I hope that’s the case. But regardless of how helpful the volunteers are, how can the blending of cultures be prevented?
…or I’m not really sure what you’re getting at — or are you not sure what I was getting at?
Yes, for the most part, the volunteers harness the traditions of the culture they’re in, but it’s not as if they’re a clean slate. How can one’s figurative cup be completely empty? Wouldn’t some of what’s in the volunteer’s cup spill onto the culture their in?
So, yes, helping people is good. But dying cultures and dying languages is not (at least for me). How can inter-cultural aid happen without the dissolving of different cultures?
As you may have guessed, I went the whole summer without internet — while in school — and simply took off flying from there and never came back.
I found out someone made a “fyeahsynesthesia” since I stopped using my “fuckyeahsynesthesia”.
But — I don’t care. At all. With no internet, I started reading books. Lots and lots of books. It’s changed the way I think. I no longer think in short bursts of instant gratification but in long durations of complex thought, uninterrupted by the endless sea of distractions that is the internet.
I don’t ever want to come back. It’s nice out here. It’s too crowded online. I don’t like “socializing alone”, it’s so counterintuitive, mind numbing.
But.
I got an iPhone one month ago. Sure, I’ve stopped using a computer, so my internet addiction is physically impossible to manifest, but interestingly it doesn’t manifest on my iPhone. Even so, I rarely use internet on my iPhone. If I do, it’s only for practical purposes like finding the closest restaurant, etc. And I especially rarely ever use it when I’m around other people. It’s simply rude.
Everyone already knows it’s rude to text when you’re with people, but I find it rude to use a phone for any reason (besides emergencies, of course). Why? Because when you’re using your phone, no one knows what you’re doing with it. Sure, maybe you’re reading Kafka on the iBooks application, checking the latest NFL stats, etc, but those things are rude, too! Would you read a book at a party? Check the newspaper to see how your team is doing during dinner? No! Additionally, I find it rude even if you’re just looking up a word on the dictionary. Your attention is diverted from the conversation and you wouldn’t normally have a dictionary on hand. Ultimately, though, no one knows what you’re doing on the phone. The normal assumption is your texting. But then you respond, “Oh! I wasn’t texting I was just looking up the definition for that word you just used.” “Oh, OK, carry on.” Eww!!! I can’t believe people pardon this behavior. Why not try and keep the flow of the conversation? Learn to socialize and find meaning of words through body language and context, keeping your attention focused on your conversation partner. Be a true human and socialize!
Up at school I often climbed a water tower with a friend to star gaze (my school is in the middle of nowhere). Inevitably, we would have philosophical discussions and the like. But we agreed that we wouldn’t use our phones at all. I admit, I had urges a few times to look up something on Wikipedia or Dictionary.com, but all that would do is interrupt the beauty of the conversation between us.
Oh, yes. What I was originally going to say when I said “But I got an iPhone”: I may start using the tumblr application, and upload blogs, pics, ideas, etc on the go. I’ve already started a collection of photos on my iPhone that I would upload here. A good chunk of them are pictures of quotes from books I’ve read, like funny passages, witty sayings, cute fables, tall tales, fun stories, and etc. Sometimes I try to take a picture of the paragraph when it’s in a cool shadow.
But the question is, would this pulverize my new “internetless” brain? Starting to use tumblr again may initiate the “oh, I’ve got to post this!” desire, and ruin my real enjoyment of a setting sun, for example. It may seem like an obvious choice, to not get back online, but I see tumblr as a creative outlet. It’s a way to express my thoughts… Hey. Duh. I’ll just write in my journal in addition to reading. Real writing, with a pen and paper.
I guess this is goodbye?
— oh!
Update: after spending all summer at my college, I finally have completed my AA degree in Liberal Studies. I’m taking a year off as I’m kind of burnt out to “rekindle” my spirit, change, grow, and develop, and keep this “no internet” thing going, so I can fully get an “internetless brain” for when I return to college to get my BS degree (maybe in Physics but we’ll see).
During the year off I’m doing three core things:
1) In 36 hours, I’ll be leaving home to live on a Jewish organic farming community (not a kibbutz, but similar; in the states) through early November. (I need somewhere to live after this though. Give me ideas! Being an RA at a hospital for developmentally challenged people, Americorps, another farm… something!)
2) Group therapy program for young adults at my psychiatrist’s office. Kind of like a learning how to be an adult thing, but with a holistic vibe to it.
3) Porn/internet addiction specialist one-on-one and group sessions with other addicts.
Basically, by living in a new environment, I’ll be purposely giving myself culture shock to deconstruct and then reconstruct my identity, so that I can radically change my behavior and thoughts. If I had kept living at home all year, I would have stayed in the same environment that has been conditioning me for the past 21 years of my life. My parents would have kept expecting the same behavior from me and kept using the same language with me. And since language creates culture, I’m breaking free from home. I’ve realized that I’ve been depressed, anxious, restless, and generally stressed when I live at home. It wasn’t until I went away to college and experienced freedom in a stress free environment, and then came back home, that I realized home was really that bad. It’s not like my parents are evil or anything — they are caring, loving, nurturing parents. But for some reason, I just can’t take it. It’s annoying and irritating to have to live here even in the span of the few weeks I’ve been here waiting between college and the farm.
Thoughts?
As little as possible, anyway. Just giving a brief update on what’s been going on.
I’m a week into my second summer course and on track of things. I had given my computer back to my friend after borrowing it for the weekend in between the courses.
Teachers are admiring my decision, as well as the librarians here. People say their amazed at what I’m doing, astonished at my tenacity, and curious about how it’s going. To be honest, it’s hard to describe how it’s going — actually I haven’t gave it as much thought as I would like to, as I’m fairly busy with school work. But it’s been a huge breath of fresh air. I don’t feel the need to do trivial things like reading the latest psychology article, checking friend’s facebook pages, keeping up to date with the world. I can lay back and relax. I’m engaging in more timeless activities as opposed to timely. I’m reading books instead of online articles. Essentially, I’m reading things that apply to the present but aren’t applied from the present.
With all this free time I used to spend surfing the internet, I’m returning to the social life I used to have, retreating from my hermit cave, so to speak. I’m doing homework outside — I cannot do it in the library when it’s a beautiful day out. Living with no internet makes you realize the outside world is so beautiful — why read inside when you can sit under a tree in the grassy shade, listening to birds sing as a gentle breeze finds waves in the grass, creating a sea of bliss as dandelion pollen swarms like a school of fish in the ocean.
My friends are admirable of my decision, too, but they know more about the real reasons I’m doing this: I’m super addicted to the internet. However, for education in general, it’s a true experiment. How can I rid myself of the internet disease completely??? Everyone uses internet. Communication is practically dependent on it. We’re forced to use the internet. We become addicts because we have to.
“The nothing-to-hide argument (…) is not of recent vintage. One of the characters in Henry James’s 1888 novel, The Reverberator, muses: “If these people had done bad things they ought to be ashamed of themselves and he couldn’t pity them, and if they hadn’t done them there was no need of…
Epic, well written paper. Also, w00t for its Kafka metaphor, and derailing the Orwellian.
To describe the problems created by the collection and use of personal data, many commentators use a metaphor based on George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Orwell depicted a harrowing totalitarian society ruled by a government called Big Brother that watches its citizens obsessively and demands strict discipline. The Orwell metaphor, which focuses on the harms of surveillance (such as inhibition and social control), might be apt to describe government monitoring of citizens. But much of the data gathered in computer databases, such as one’s race, birth date, gender, address, or marital status, isn’t particularly sensitive. Many people don’t care about concealing the hotels they stay at, the cars they own, or the kind of beverages they drink. Frequently, though not always, people wouldn’t be inhibited or embarrassed if others knew this information. … Even if you have nothing to hide, the government can cause you a lot of harm. “But the government doesn’t want to hurt me,” some might argue. In many cases, that’s true, but the government can also harm people inadvertently, due to errors or carelessness. When the nothing-to-hide argument is unpacked, and its underlying assumptions examined and challenged, we can see how it shifts the debate to its terms, then draws power from its unfair advantage. The nothing-to-hide argument speaks to some problems but not to others. It represents a singular and narrow way of conceiving of privacy, and it wins by excluding consideration of the other problems often raised with government security measures. When engaged directly, the nothing-to-hide argument can ensnare, for it forces the debate to focus on its narrow understanding of privacy. But when confronted with the plurality of privacy problems implicated by government data collection and use beyond surveillance and disclosure, the nothing-to-hide argument, in the end, has nothing to say.”
Another metaphor better captures the problems: Franz Kafka’s The Trial. Kafka’s novel centers around a man who is arrested but not informed why. He desperately tries to find out what triggered his arrest and what’s in store for him. He finds out that a mysterious court system has a dossier on him and is investigating him, but he’s unable to learn much more. The Trial depicts a bureaucracy with inscrutable purposes that uses people’s information to make important decisions about them, yet denies the people the ability to participate in how their information is used.
The problems portrayed by the Kafkaesque metaphor are of a different sort than the problems caused by surveillance. They often do not result in inhibition. Instead they are problems of information processing—the storage, use, or analysis of data—rather than of information collection. They affect the power relationships between people and the institutions of the modern state. They not only frustrate the individual by creating a sense of helplessness and powerlessness, but also affect social structure by altering the kind of relationships people have with the institutions that make important decisions about their lives.
Legal and policy solutions focus too much on the problems under the Orwellian metaphor—those of surveillance—and aren’t adequately addressing the Kafkaesque problems—those of information processing. (…)
As the computer-security specialist Schneier aptly notes, the nothing-to-hide argument stems from a faulty “premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong.” Surveillance, for example, can inhibit such lawful activities as free speech, free association, and other First Amendment rights essential for democracy. (…)
The problems are not just Orwellian but Kafkaesque. Government information-gathering programs are problematic even if no information that people want to hide is uncovered. In The Trial, the problem is not inhibited behavior but rather a suffocating powerlessness and vulnerability created by the court system’s use of personal data and its denial to the protagonist of any knowledge of or participation in the process. The harms are bureaucratic ones—indifference, error, abuse, frustration, and lack of transparency and accountability.
One such harm, for example, which I call aggregation, emerges from the fusion of small bits of seemingly innocuous data. When combined, the information becomes much more telling. By joining pieces of information we might not take pains to guard, the government can glean information about us that we might indeed wish to conceal. For example, suppose you bought a book about cancer. This purchase isn’t very revealing on its own, for it indicates just an interest in the disease. Suppose you bought a wig. The purchase of a wig, by itself, could be for a number of reasons. But combine those two pieces of information, and now the inference can be made that you have cancer and are undergoing chemotherapy. That might be a fact you wouldn’t mind sharing, but you’d certainly want to have the choice.
Perhaps the most powerful example of a society that codes every sensory quality with social meaning and transforms every flower, every animal, every artifact ino a multisensory moral emblem and mnemonic device is the Desana of the Amazonian rain forest.
The Desana believe… that sensory…
Perhaps the most powerful example of a society that codes every sensory quality with social meaning and transforms every flower, every animal, every artifact ino a multisensory moral emblem and mnemonic device is the Desana of the Amazonian rain forest. The Desana believe… that sensory properties are not only, or even primarily, manifest in the world, but exist within the human brain. According to the Desana, the brain is made up of compartment which contain a variety of colors, odors, flavors, sounds, textures and other qualities, all of which have related moral concepts and which together produce a state of consciousness. The purpose of the material world, in fact, is thought by the Desana to be to serve as a reminder of these ideal sensory and social values stored within the brain. (Classen, Howes, and Synnott 1994; 122; see further Reichel-Dolmatoff 1981). With the Desana, the whole environment becomes a field of sensory signs. The Desana continuously see, hear, taste, touch, and smell their social and cosmic order all around them.
Three week Summer Session course, Race, Class, and Gender, with no computer use at all. I can do it, there’s no question in that. The question is what will happen, how my thoughts and behavior will change.
The past three weeks I already began not using a computer to some extent while I was taking Modernism. I gave my Mac to a friend, but I still used the library computers intermittently. I wrote papers by hand, but I still used my phone’s internet for reference (my blackberry’s internet is very slow, so I don’t use it obsessively like I do with my Mac). I also still checked my email through my phone.
The next three weeks, however, we’re going all-out. No blackberry internet, only phone calls and texts. Maybe for the five week Adolescent and Adult Psychology in July and early August I’ll stop using technology all together.
Anyway, that’s why I haven’t been posting or reblogging. At the end of the summer and in between courses I’ll check in to write about it.
So far anxiety has been at a record low for the past year. In addition to minimal internet I’m exercising, eating right, sleeping right, and socializing enough — all that normal healthy stuff, ya know?
OK, I have to get back — I still have a paper to write due tomorrow for Modernism (our final exam is tomorrow, as well). Race, Class, and Gender starts Monday, so maybe I’ll blog again this weekend and give a more in depth analysis of what’s going on.
Oh, this also means very minimal use of Facebook and social media. Since my phone has super slow internet, I effectively can’t go on any social media site on it. The lack of social media, particularly Facebook, is part of this experiment as well.
I wrote the following as an end of class reflection:
Since I missed many classes, my Dialogue and Debate (Philosophy-esque) professor invited me to his weekly, Saturday morning moral philosophy discussions. After attending two sessions, observing the first time and practicing the second time, I acclimated to the setting, formed my own arguments, and joined in the dialogue and debate.
In general, both two hour sessions adhered to the rules of argumentation. In the first minute of the first meeting, for example, someone called out Bob for lack of evidence when he claimed that a hotel clerk gave a disheveled Indian man a hard time. When the man went to the bathroom, Bob informed the hotel clerk that the man was Amartya Sen, a Nobel Laureate. Upon returning, Amartya’s customer service was much better. Bob admitted that it, of course, was impossible to tell if there was truly discrimination, but he upheld his claim that it most likely was.
Both two hour sessions also adhered to standard dialectic practices. During periods of dialogue, opposing viewpoints were respected and considered by everyone. In bouts of debate, the participants withheld from using rhetorical fallacies. Arguments were generally good overall, consisting of well-constructed logic and reasoning as well as supporting evidence.
The topics covered in both sessions varied immensely and jumped from topic to topic. On the first day, we even managed to briefly refer to Paris Hilton, Lady Gaga, Adolph Hitler (Complying with Godwin’s Law, “As a discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1), and anal sex, though, not simultaneously, thank God.
One pop-culture reference, however, persevered through much of the first hour of both sessions: The Royal Wedding and its significance. A key issue brought up was the British government’s suppressing of protests, even though the event was for a marriage in the monarchy funded by the taxes paid by the British people. Do they have a right to protest? At any rate, the event was very popular and the protesters would have affected its aesthetic quality.
Additionally, we discussed the symbolic value of the event for the British people. The anthropologist in our group suggested the wedding represented the solidarity of the nation, which can be corroborated by the wedding’s immense popularity. However, there may be negative attributes accompanying the solidarity, such as a conformist culture bound in popular, viral ideas reminiscent of memes.
According to the Oxford American Dictionary, a meme is, “an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by non-genetic means, esp. imitation.” In the developed world’s culture, shrouded by the ever growing cloud of globalization, ideas are persistently shared internationally throughout the media on news websites and between individuals on social media.
A recent YouTube video of a penguin being tickled, for example, spread virally on Facebook and surged in popularity. Though it may seem trivial, there is an important concept worth noting. By mimicking what is popular, the thoughts of the individuals in the upcoming generation will vary less. The whole generation will follow their own ideas like a swarm of bees, buzzing from idea to idea. It’s not a government controlling the people, though; they will be controlled by their own thoughts, repeating whatever fashionable ideas they see.
However, individuals will persist in the delusion that they are unique, tailoring their Facebook profile, for example, “No one is as creative as I am to post something like this on their Facebook profile,” even when millions of Facebookers already shared the same information. For instance, when it rains, it pours — not water, but torrential downpours of Facebook and Twitter status updates exclaiming the current weather condition (Checking peers’ Facebook profiles for what happens beyond the indoors has trumped checking television weathermen for the meteorological conditions). People express their identity by personalizing their profiles. But when addicted to social media, this identity expression becomes a feverish rat race, and people will go to great lengths to post as much as possible on their profile, even if it’s mundane information like the weather.
Additionally, the dispersal of news, information, drama, and celebrity gossip all happens by sharing each other’s posts on Facebook. Yet, we’re sharing the feeling of instant gratification. I shoot up a status, a friend “likes” it, I get a notification that they “liked” it, and then my dopamine soars. I “like” my friend’s status back (which happens to be the same status as mine), and then their dopamine soars. Internet and social media addictions begin like this, as Facebook pummels us with a constant stream of hyperlinks, rendering hedonism and conformism as the popular thing to do. Heck — “instant gratification”, “hedonism”, and “conformism”, “delayed gratification”, “altruism”, and “non-conformism” are what half of what my blog posts are about. I’m turning these terms into trite memes. Everyone who writes about them is propagating these phrases.
Returning to the topic of memes, however, it should be noted that our Facebook profiles, blogs, social media, etc., could be thought of as art galleries. Of course, they’re full of other people’s art, not ours, but the art galleries are our own. What characterizes an art gallery is mutating. The significance of the Smithsonian is shrinking as social media sustains stealing information (Social media is also sustained by stealing). My blog is my personal art gallery. The blogs I follow are art galleries I frequent, which are littered with memes — originality is rare. And because it’s so rare, we enjoy it more. It gets us high more, surging our dopamine. Moreover, our desire to get high increases as our desire for originality increases.
Companies and marketers make note of this and have been doing so for decades. “NEW” products blanket supermarkets. We’re susceptible to shiny, flashy, attention grabbing “NEW” signs. We buy, buy, and buy. Consumerism. It runs our nation — ahem — ruins or nation. It’s ruining and will continue to ruin even more, as our desire for the increasingly rare originality increases.
We want to be original, too, more and more so. We all crave Facebook notifications telling us that someone “liked” something of ours. The originality of Facebook statuses and posts are defined by and reinforced by how many “likes” they receive. The more “likes” one gets, the higher the dopamine surge, so we share ideas on Facebook even more, hoping to get those precious “likes”. This reinforcement, however, is variable ratio schedule of reinforcement, which is the most addictive kind. Variable ratio is a schedule of reinforcement in which responses are reinforced randomly (this is the same reason why gambling is so addictive). Ergo, we increasingly want originality and want to be originality, but we share the same information. We’re deluded sheep with wool of memes.
***
Our culture of conformity also breeds a single-dimension spectrum perspective of intelligence. We identify as being “smart”, “dumb”, or somewhere in between, there’s little for anything else — it’s become single dimensional, whereas it’s actually very multi-dimensional. However, it’s very evident, with a helping hand from Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, that our current notion of intelligence is no good. The conformist culture stifles varying intelligence identities.
Thousands of years ago, notions of intelligence were associated with one’s skill, one’s identity and role within their community. We identified ourselves as whatever “helper” we were in our tribe, and that is how our peers identified us. Blacksmiths, for example, were intelligent/talented in the ways of the blacksmith. We were all smart for our own crafts, which we inherited, culturally, from our ancestors. Identities passed down generation to generation, father to son, farmer to farmer, blacksmith to blacksmith. Intelligence was a totally different concept back then, with different connotations attached to it.
Today, however, most of our children are trained the same way in a vast pool of conformity through the age of about twenty. Children, and the adults they grow into, no longer identify as having a special ability within the community, that their community needs. Everyone has roughly the same abilities, which breeds the “black and white”, single spectrum, view of intelligence.
It seems that “knowledge” traveled across the linguistic landscape from associating with talents and abilities in the past to associating with general knowledge today. In the past, intelligence was one’s identity, and knowledge was the collective identities-intelligences shared by the community. One had a piece of that shared knowledge for their craft. Today, we distinguish between intelligence and talents; they are they not synonymous. I identify as musically talented, for example, but it’s not considered a quality of intelligence by the culture.
The attitude towards knowledge began to change once democracy was born in Greece. People could argue about disputes rather than fight over them. It became of value to learn as much as possible to win an argument. Originally, only property owning Greek male citizens could participate, but, over the millennia, the value of knowledge and learning soon spread to women, non-citizens, and everyone else. This tradition continues today in modern education.
Knowing a lot became valuable, where as knowing a little was not. A spectrum was born. People are now labeled and placed on the spectrum between “smart” and “dumb”. Today, general knowledge is even awarded to people on game shows like “Jeopardy!” and “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” For the first time, a hierarchy of identity-intelligence arose, such that different jobs are associated with stupidity or intelligence. Today, people subjectively rank occupations, condescendingly looking down upon janitors, for example, or looking up to and venerating astrophysicists.
Keep in mind what studies in psychology have shown. By praising students with phrases such as, “You’re so smart!” one is reinforcing a static identity in the student. However, by praising students with phrases such as, “Good job! Keep up the work!” one is reinforcing a behavior – a behavior that leads to more knowledge and a continued desire for learning. The former phrase seems more appropriate for pre-Grecian democracy societies, since it reinforces one’s identity in the community. The latter phrase, however, sounds more suitable for today’s world, in which continued striving for knowledge is of value.
Though this is a lot to conclude from a simple statement that the Royal Wedding represents solidarity in the British people, it can be applied generally to most developed countries’ cultures. The Royal Wedding was simply a jumping off point, an example, from which to illustrate the effects of a conformist culture. However, continuing to study this cultural phenomenon, even if we value knowledge as much as we do, will be challenging since technology, Internet culture, and social media are rapidly advancing.
Why is the reddit community so kind compared to 4chan or YouTube comments?!! Even Facebook comments aren’t often as compassionate as reddit comments.
I admit, though, I’m new to reddit, but the level of community in it is simply incredible.
Citing Michael Wesch, hatred as a public performance in internet dialogue is bred from anonymity, physical distance, and rare and ephemeral dialogue.
Like 4chan and YouTube, it’s anonymous and physically distant from everyone else, it’s a little less ephemeral, but not by much.
Maybe it’s the rankings. By making high ranking comments something desirable, people try to make their posts the best as possible. “Best” means… interesting? engaging? funny? Hmm… even 4chan’s biggest threads aren’t full of hate, but full of originality and passion.
Lately in the current zeitgeist there’s been a shift towards end-of-civilization movies, from the Book of Eli to the Land of the Dead. Whether the origins of this gene-pool-cleansing catastrophe may be nuclear bombs or Zombie invasion, there are few of my friends who don’t think about how cool…
The sheer coincidence of this guy writing the philosophy of the apocalypse and me writing the psychology of the apocalypse within days of each other is astounding. I found his essay in the #anthropology tag, read it right away, enjoyed it thoroughly, and thought he would want to read mine. I wrote it as a research paper for my apocalypse themed English class and shared it on tumblr (the post right under this one): Psychologically, Why do we Believe in Apocalyptic Ideas?
My argument is most closely related to his fourth argument, “It gives us something we all truly, secretly, subconsciously crave more than anything - a goal.” I argue that since we instinctually think life is purposeful, which implies an ultimate destiny, it gives us the ability to believe in apocalyptic ideas.
Note, though, that I got most of my ideas from Jesse Bering’s The God Instinct (UK: God Instinct; US: Belief Instinct. Same book; different title), a very original way to look at the psychology of religion. My paper wasn’t nearly as creative as his is; I’m impressed with his imaginative ideas having not read Bering’s book.
I wrote the following as a research paper for my Apocalypse themed English class.
Psychologically, Why do we Believe in Apocalyptic Ideas?
Throughout humanity’s myriad, disparate religious beliefs across the world and its history, apocalyptic themes are abundant in text and oral traditions (Corfield, 2007). Apocalyptic beliefs, however, are not purely a cultural construct. Each religion tailors an innate system of belief in accordance with socioeconomic and geographic factors, but several evolved cognitive adaptations make apocalyptic ideas possible.
In modern terms, the word apocalypse refers to a “cataclysmic event that results in the devastation or utter destruction of humanity” (Himmelfarb, 1983). Popular culture adopted the idea of the apocalypse from its parent, religion, as seen is the plethora of zombie pandemic, nuclear warfare, impact event, climate change/environmental disaster, and many other apocalypse themed novels and films.
However, the technical use, and origin, of the term is “reserved for a genre of literature found in the biblically based religious traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam)” (Himmelfarb, 1983). According to Dictionary.com, for example, apocalypse is described as “any of a class of Jewish or Christian writings that appeared from about 200 B.C.E. to C.E. 350 and were assumed to make revelations of the ultimate divine purpose.” Bering in mind that the word apocalypse comes from the Greek wordapokálypsis, meaning “lifting of the veil” or “revelation”, it’s important to note that both the etymology and definition refer to someone or something intending to perform an action, in this case, either the “lifting of the veil” or assigning a purpose to our existence. As we will see, the ability to imagine someone or something performing an action is dependent on evolved cognitive adaptations (Bering, 2011).
It’s vital to establish first, however, the prevalence of apocalyptic ideas, which many cultures incorporate into their religions. The origins of the Abrahamic religions’ apocalypse may be found in writings during the time of Jewish Babylonian Exile (587-538 B.C.E.). After the temple in Judah was destroyed and the Judahites were forced into exile, two prophets, Ezekiel and Zechariah, wrote about their visions of God restoring order. As it happened, they returned to their homeland of Judah, in southern modern day Israel, but the writings set the stage for future apocalyptic visions (Himmelfarb, 1983).
Later on, contemporary Christianity and other western religions included the idea of a Judgment Day occurring at the end of time. This apocalypse scenario entails the resurrection of the righteous and sinners for either eternal paradise or damnation, respectively. These beliefs, however, were inspired from Zoroastrianism, in which the Judgment Day is an important theme. At the end of days, in the religion of Zoroaster, there will be a final battle between good and evil, after which everyone will be judged and sent to either heaven or hell. Islam also adopted such apocalypse beliefs, shunning the foretelling of a specific date of the Last Judgment, but disclosing that the event will come as a surprise (Lewis, 1994). Across the ocean, though, the ancient Mayans independently predicted that the world would continually perish and begin again for eternity (many believe the cycle will end in 2012). Spontaneous development of apocalyptic ideas suggests an innate tendency to reason with regard to impending judgment and destruction.
A key psychological mechanism that enables one to believe in supernatural forces like the apocalypse is theory of mind. In layman’s terms, theory of mind is the ability to put oneself into another’s shoes; it is the thinking about what other minds are thinking of. Theory of mind enables us to try to imagine, for example, what the person in front you, in line at the cash register in Wal-Mart, was thinking when they walked out the door dressed in neon-pink spandex jumpsuit. Furthermore, when a someone gives you a suggestive nod of their head to the door during a party, we don’t just see a hair covered oblong sphere tilt to the side on top of an elongated bag of bones and muscle, we interpret their action and understand that he or she wants to leave with you. Simply put, theory of mind endows us with the ability to understand why something happens and not just how (Bering, 2011).
When applying this concept to religion, one uses their theory of mind to imagine their personal deity, whether it is the Christian God, Jewish God, one’s dead ancestors, or the spirit of the wind. We project emotions on to these illusory shadows cast by our theory of mind. God often has intentions or plans for us, for example. God could be happy for us when we get married, sympathetic when our grandparents pass away, or could agree with our political views. When a pastor exclaims that Hurricane Katrina was evidence of God’s wrath, he is imagining an angry God, thinking about the angry thoughts in God’s mind (Bering, 2011).
Our theory of mind isn’t just used to imagine God’s thoughts, but we often overextend this ability to other things as well. For example, who doesn’t yell at their toaster when their toast gets burnt? The toaster doesn’t have a mind, but we instinctually project our theory of mind on to it. Children, too, cast emotions on inanimate objects, like teddy bears, endowing the fuzzy sacks of cotton with emotions. Adults even get attached to their cars in the same way, kicking it when it runs out of gas as if the car conspired to do so (Bering, 2011).
Along with this innate capacity to reason about other minds comes teleological thinking. Teleological thinking is the assigning of purposes to something’s existence, which implies an ultimate destiny (Bering, 2011), such as an apocalypse. The question, “what is the meaning of life?” for example, illustrates our innate thinking to assign a purpose to an existence, in this case our own. Moreover, when asked why a mountain exists, children will often give teleological answers such as, “for people to climb on,” as opposed to causal answers such as, “because of plate tectonics.” Likewise, the popular phrase, “everything happens for a reason,” is due to teleological thought processes. This tendency to apply purposes to things implies that someone or something applied a purpose to it, such as a God or one’s dead ancestors. Since we interpret intention, one must use their theory of mind to be able to portray a god as having the capability to make deliberate actions (Bering, 2011).
It’s important to note that even though atheists, agnostics, or non-believers may claim to have no theological beliefs, they are just as susceptible to teleological responses as the rest of us. If one’s mother suddenly passes away, for example, the sudden inexistence of a mind doesn’t mean anything to our innate tendency to apply purposes to it. Our theory of mind, thus, overextends itself to the afterlife, whether that’s depicting our dead relatives, or our dead future selves (Bering, 2011). To illustrate, if a picture of one’s recently deceased mother falls off a table and breaks, and it was known that she despised that picture, one may initially reason that it was her ghost’s fault. Such emotional first responses may be reflected upon afterwards, thinking to oneself, “How stupid am I to think of such a thing.” Although the real cause may be understood, whether it is the wind blowing or the cat swatting at the beetle crawling next to the picture, the primary teleological response indicates an inherent trait (Bering, 2011).
Given that we are prone to thinking that everything and everyone, including ourselves, has a purpose, an ultimate destiny is implied. Instinctual teleological thinking forms the basis of apocalyptic belief, but the question remains, however, why do humans believe specifically in apocalyptic scenarios as opposed to an alternate ultimate destiny of peace and happiness, beer volcanoes, ice cream snow, and fast metabolisms for everyone?
One possible explanation is the threat that an impending apocalypse provides. It is, essentially, a threat to be good – or else. Be kind and compassionate, form healthy social relations, and you’ll be granted permission to escape the wrath of the apocalypse. Such an evolutionary adaptation could help explain why and how our species is so social compared to other species. If we didn’t have a God to threaten us to be good to one’s neighbor, anti-social behaviors would replace our current pro-social behaviors. Theory of mind, therefore, is an evolutionary adaptation that casts an illusion of a deity whose threats motivate us to inhibit antisocial behavior (Bering, 2011).
Ideas of a threatening impending doom conjure up other psychological concepts, such as reinforcement and punishment theories. The simple concept of behaving well to get into heaven, or else hell awaits, uses our psychological mechanisms to inhibit antisocial behavior. Pro-social behavior is reinforced not only be an illusory God threatening us to behave, but also in events of our lives that we innately assign purposes to. If, for example, a tornado destroyed homes in a village, a common question resulting from the chaos is, “Why would God do such a thing?” Answers to this question often are something along the lines of, “To punish us for our behavior.” It is an innate tendency to reason that God sent a tornado to punish us for our sins (Bering, 2011).
In light of the context, it is of value to signify why theory of mind evolved in our species. A species’ evolution doesn’t have a preordained path, for that would imply an intentional being. Similarly, natural selection doesn’t actually choose which mutations enable a species to survive, even though teachers and professors often use words of intention to describe scientific processes. In truth, random mutations that occurred had resulted in a cognitive capacity to imagine about other minds and overextend this capacity to imagine about other minds to inanimate objects such as toasters or illusory concepts such as ghosts. These random mutations were, evidently, beneficial to the survival of our species. It’s no different than any other adaptation that enables a species to survive, such as echolocation for bats, camouflage-like fur on cheetahs, and a protective shell for turtles.
Our unique capacity to theorize about other minds, however, correlates with our unique capacity for language and the unique sociality of our species. There may be some species that have rudimentary language abilities or a weak theory of mind like dogs, chimpanzees, and dolphins, but it is indisputable that we are the only species to have these abilities to such a great extent. We are certainly unique, for example, in our ability to theorize about other minds to multiple degrees. To illustrate, we think about what God thinks about what we think about. The ability to understand that phrase isn’t even possible until our theory of minds fully develop, which happens at about the age of seven. Prior to that development, children simply do not understand phrases such as, “Jimmy doesn’t know that Kim doesn’t know I stole the jewels” (Bering, 2011).
Language, however, has its drawbacks. After the birth of language in our species, language begot reputations to protect. For the first time in our evolutionary history, language gave our species the ability to gossip. Our anti-social behaviors could now be spoken about to unseen third parties who weren’t there to witness our anti-social behaviors. Theory of mind, however, endows us with the ability to have an all-seeing God watching our behaviors. A potential felon would think to his or her self, “Is God watching me?” or “Is the ghost of my dead mother watching me? Would she want me to do this?” The potential felon could then inhibit their actions, preventing those around him or her from witnessing the repulsive action and spreading rumors to not-present third parties (Bering, 2011).
Even if a distinct apocalyptic scenario is not present in a religion, the instinctual illusion of a God-influenced, pro-social behavior combined with innate teleological thinking imply an instinctual, “Behave well for the ultimate, end of times – or else,” idea. Thus, personal apocalyptic ideas exist, innately however, helping us to inhibit antisocial behavior.
Throughout literature and film, there is an interesting correlation with apocalyptic themes and periods of history with increased tension and anxiety. When a community is experiencing great change or persecution, apocalyptic emotions reflect “the imagination of disaster.” After the World War II atomic bombings, for example, an immense growth of apocalyptic scenarios burgeoned in science fiction, especially stories about a nuclear holocaust (Booker and Thomas, 2009).
Apocalyptic themes in religion also correlate with times of danger and disorder. Such themes, for example, were more common in Shia Islam during the 7th Century. Persecuted by the Sunni majority, Shia Muslims wrote prolifically about prophetic leaders bringing in the Day of Judgment, establishing universal justice (Himmelfarb, 1983). Catastrophic natural disasters may also induce apocalyptic ideas in religion. After the devastating earthquake that annihilated Lisbon in 1755, a popular idea arose the subsequent year in Liverpool, England, that a second earthquake would come unless people repented for their sins as soon as possible (Corfield, 2007). Warfare, as well, is likely to create thoughts of an apocalypse, or, more appropriately, thoughts of imminent Armageddon. When Napoleon encroached on Moscow in 1812, the Russian Orthodox Church responded by identifying him as the Antichrist. The French conqueror then found resistance as the Russian peasants took up arms in both Christian and patriotic responsibility, while denying food and supplies to the foreign devils with a ‘scorched earth’ policy (Corfield, 2007). The Russian Orthodox Church used apocalyptic imagery to effectively use the Russian citizens intrinsic belief in the apocalypse as a political advantage. In times of instability and potential instability all over the world, religious leaders encourage their followers to remain true to their faith as the day will soon come when God will intervene and restore order.
Intriguingly, psychological studies suggest that we associate the appearance of order with intentional agency. A splash of paint that happens to form what looks like an orderly arrangement of letters will elicit the thought that someone intentionally wrote the letters. If the splash of paint had arranged itself in a disorderly smudge, however, one is more inclined to believe inanimate causal forces formed the paint smear. Pious scientists who adhere to a theological explanation for evolution exemplify another case in which order is perceived as the result of intentional agency. Natural theologians explain evolution’s seemingly perfect working order as a result of God’s design. Again, this orderly appearance conjures up ideas of divine intention, “Who directed our evolution this flawlessly?” We have a tendency to use intentional agents to explain the existence of order (Bering, 2011).
Despite the contemporary version of the apocalypse and its association with times of disorder, peril, and destruction, it doesn’t accurately depict the religious definition of the apocalypse. One may associate ideas of an apocalypse with mass hysteria and disorder, but the anticipated doom, e.g., the Day of Judgment, is only for the anti-social, those who disobeyed the illusory God’s commands. Order, e.g., heaven, is granted to those who behaved pro-socially, e.g., His followers. Thus, at its core, the coming illusory apocalypse calls upon human instinct to see intention in the coming to order, distinguishing between good and bad people and sending them to their rightful place.
Although atheism is on the rise, due in part to the increased comfort and safety modern innovations provide, our innate tendencies to reason in a manner likely to produce apocalyptic ideas remains ingrained in our genetics. Without worldwide, compulsory genetic engineering, it may be impossible (not to mention not ethical), inefficient, and not economical to try to rid our minds of an impending apocalypse. Yet, it is not required to cease thinking apocalyptically in order to survive as a species – that would imply that someone intended us to do so. We can, however, take an existentialist route and use our knowledge of innate apocalyptic ideas to choose for ourselves where direct our lives and, ultimately, where we take our evolution.
Bibliography for, “Psychologically, Why do we Believe in Apocalyptic Ideas?”
Corfield, P. (2007). The end is nigh. History Today, 57(3), 37-39.
Himmelfarb, M. (1983). Tours of hell: An apocalyptic form in Jewish and Christian literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
apocalypse. (n.d.). Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved May 09, 2011, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/apocalypse
apocalypse. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved May 09, 2011, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/apocalypse
Bering, J. (2011). The god instinct. UK: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
Lewis, J.R. (1994). Final Judgement (Last Judgement). (1994). Encyclopedia of afterlife beliefs and phenomena. Detroit, United States: Gale Research Inc.
Booker, M.K., & Thomas, A. (2009). The science fiction handbook. UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Our culture of conformity breeds a single-dimension spectrum perspective of intelligence. “Smart”, “dumb”, or somewhere in between, there’s little for anything else — it’s become single dimensional, whereas it’s actually very multi-dimensional. We identify as being smart, dumb, or somewhere in between — nothing else. However, it’s very evident, with a helping hand from Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, that our current notion of intelligence is no good. We distinguish between intelligence and talents: why are they not synonymous? I identify as musically talented, for example. 5,000 years ago, we had no notions of intelligence. We identified ourselves as whatever “helper” we were in our tribe, and that is how our peers identified us. If we were the blacksmith, we were intelligent/talented in the ways of the blacksmith. We were all smart for our own crafts, which we inherited, culturally, from our ancestors. Intelligence was a totally different concept back then, with different connotations attached to it. Today, however, we train most of our children the same way in a vast pool of conformity through the age of about twenty. We no longer identify as having a special ability within our community, that our community needs. We all have roughly the same abilities, but varying strengths within those few abilities, which breeds the “black and white”, single spectrum, view of intelligence.
