It seems that the narrow-mindedness that plagued previous generations has been born anew in our current era. It no longer manifesting itself in witch burnings but instead through qAnon, cancel culture, capitol riots, the cult of Trump, and in Trump derangement syndrome.
In many ways, we attack outgroup members with the same ferocity as our ancestors, but our fury is applied through different methods. The attacks mostly occur within a social context; however, they just as often boil over into legitimate violence.
Our ingroup lines were once drawn along biologically inborn traits, they are now drawn more along ideological lines. Currently our ability to develop these new types of ingroups can be done with ever-increasing efficiency. Now more than in any other time, individuals of all walks of life have the potential to pursue one unifying and singular way of thinking, en masse—such a development we owe to the advent of the internet and our dwindling education programs.
Many, having padded the channels of their mind through a lopsided education and exposure to vitriolic online groups, are able to slam into and bounce off of different lines of thought without any harm to their paradigm.
Their thought channels’ padded state allows them to stay the course, preventing them from being able to deviate even in the slightest lest they be swept off their feet, abandoning their presumed positions entirely.
In becoming protected from outside thought, many are able to have their minds flattened and mobilized for any deed the group demands. With their insolation, the unilinear thinkers are able to do things like the riots we experienced both in the summer and on capitol hill.
The nature in which many of our minds have been flattened into one mode of thinking seems an odd occurrence as in our age, more than any other, we are exposed to more information and are more likely to hold various jobs in life.
The exposure to information and willingness to switch careers one might think would signify a readily changeable mind.
Unfortunately, we, nevertheless, seem to be able to only think of one thing, hold one ideal, and study, effectively, one discipline. In our becoming so narrow, we have become like characters drawn on paper rather than real actors in life.
Despite all the fancy sketch work that can be accomplished with pen and paper, we are no more than the shallow lines etched on macerated wood.
We have the appearance of occupying three dimensions, but, upon further reflection, we turn out to be mere optical illusions, lacking depth and insights granted only to those who have freed themselves from the lines on the paper.
Our goal should be to emulate those who have lept in the higher life. A life furnished not with fancy line work and shading but rather with solid figures containing agency, sophistication, and an individual personality, capable of engaging with the world as it is and not through the lens of an assumed ingroup.
Shedding your prescribed liner collectivist identity to become a well-rounded self in the sense described above is the highest mode of existence.
There are obvious reasons why such an individualized state is preferable over that of the flattened collectivist, but I would prefer to enumerate one of the more poetic ones.
To unshackle yourself from the group and develop an authentic self allows you to experience existence as it is and not as you have been programmed to wish it to be, which means that you can avoid the immense distress and discomfort of dissonance and disappointment at finding an occurrence in reality that does not coincide with the way you presumed.
In accepting reality in the way you encounter it instead of filtering it through a tribalistic ideological lens, you are afforded the ability to meet each person, point of date, and argument humanely and peaceably.
If you prefer your narrow ideological perception of the world, you will, in many ways, be doing violence to all you perceive. Viewing reality through flattened and narrow frame crops and cuts off vital points leaving you with only a butchered form of its original nature.
Suppose we wish to develop a better society in every sense of the phrase. In that case, we need to foster an environment that pulls people off the page—bringing each of us out of our flattened stupor into the glory of the multidimensional life. A life in which each one of us can both engage and be engaged as individuals.
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Very enjoyable read; reminds me of the style of G.K.Chesterton, which is a high complement. Unfortunately, I cannot share it on social media as I am not on FB, Twitter nor Pinterest, and do not recognize the other icons. These social media platforms are the major culprits in the problems you detail of what I call “silo mentality,” only “Liking” those with whom we agree, and isolating ourselves from other viewpoints. You seem attuned to the Truth, and therefore, can anticipate a difficult life, but the only kind worth living. More power to you, my young friend. 🙂
Thank you for the high honors! Don’t worry about sharing it, you reading it means just as much.
This is rich… and poetically written. Well done! Oddly enough there’s community to be found even when refusing to identify with these prevailing identity groups. A smaller community for sure, but nonetheless there.
Your point about the narrowness of disciplines is interesting. I posed a similar question to a couple deep-thinking friends recently. “If we continue to become more and more specialized are we doomed to reach a point where society inevitably collapses upon itself?” As we have fewer and fewer “jack of all trades” to help these disparate parts to remain connected, I wonder if the end point of our sense of “progress” is fracture and decay.
Thank you, it seems one can find friends wherever he looks.
I am also worried about our being over specialized. There are fewer and fewer people of containing that quality that the renaissance men had, the ability to both think, feel, and create across a broad variety of fields. Those qualities were indispensable in creating the society we have today. Without them I too fear we may regress.