There's no better example of the intrusion of primitive limbic emotions into the political domain than the "debate" about terrorism in the English-speaking world, especially in the United States. A mentally disturbed young man attempted (and failed) to set light to his underpants a year or so ago, and a mass outbreak of psychosis was triggered throughout the world of air travel - passengers traveling with young children were forbidden to go to the bathroom in the last hour of their flights, while the TSA contemplated spending further billions of dollars on even more intrusive body-scanning equipment.Now the equally unsuccessful and laughably amateurish Times Square car bomb has set off a similar wave of knee-jerk paranoia and political grandstanding, such as this comment from Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Republican, of course) of the House "Intelligence" Committee: "We're going to get much more aggressive and perhaps more creative in terms of how we gather intelligence to find the plots and find individuals to stop them". (As if we could ever protect ourselves against isolated mentally disturbed sociopaths; as if labeling them as "terrorists" helped in any way.)
Meanwhile in Louisiana, millions of gallons of oil are bleeding over precious and irreplaceable wetland reserves while fishermen's livelihoods are destroyed, perhaps permanently - and much of the political establishment is trying to play it down and de-dramatize it. The governor of Texas, bless him, even called it an "Act of God".
Evolutionary scientists often argue that we're "programmed" to respond to the dangers we face when physically threatened as individuals (hence the response to "terrorists"), but that we lack the mechanisms to respond to collective and non-imminent threats such as climate change, poverty and overpopulation. This explanation is as fatalistic and mechanistic as the model it proposes: precisely the point is that human evolution is, necessarily, a conscious process.
Only by adopting a witness stance toward reflex and atavistic emotions and embracing a wider and more inclusive vision of who "we" are can we move toward a less dysfunctional world that the one we currently live in - one with far fewer profit opportunities for oil companies and manufacturers of security equipment.
You are certainly right about our often irrational way of reacting the threat, Simon. I think you were in Beijing during the SARS period, no? The mass panic SARS caused was a perfect example of such irrationality. Even at the height of the "epidemic" only a dozen or so people were dying per day. Meanwhile 300 people a day were dying on China's roads in traffic accidents, complete with the insane, fatalistic driving, and complete disregard for even wearing a seat-belt. Let's not even mention the 1 000 000 deaths a year from smoking. At social functions the Chinese pass around cigarettes like they are in a hurry to get to the afterlife!
ReplyDeleteThe mass media has a lot to do with perception. What makes the headlines stays in people's minds. The 5000 people who died coughing up blood and tar from lung cancer don't get a mention in the papers, while a bomb threat is "blasted" across the media like its the end of the world. Personally, if I had a choice, I'd rather go out in a bomb blast than suffering the long, protracted death of the nicotine addict.
Me too. In any case, the mass media are part of the collective web of unconsciousness that keeps us trapped in these least evolved parts of of our psyches. Plus, it suits people like your fellow-countryman Rupie M. to keep people reacting primitively and atavistically, so they won't notice his chums in the oil and finance industries picking their pockets.
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