History Blindness as a Form of Hysteria
by Edwin L. Young, PhD
January 19, 2006

The American public has been mesmerized into a state of hysterical ‘history’ blindness, time blindness, and a perpetual state of cognitive receptivity. When news appears that is inconsistent with the daily serving of TV pabulum, it shocks this public, us, into an awareness that provokes, like a painful medical treatment, an avoidance reaction. If a provocative contrarian with first hand news maintains a prolonged presence in the media, awareness can tend to turn into despair and result in turning off the offending ‘truth channel’ indefinitely. Naïve belief in TV’s ‘customary’ enticingly and convincingly spun news about shocking daily human events and national and international crises becomes preferred over the truth. Eschewing such a couch potato mind set and letting in stark, uncomfortable ‘reality’ could, to be sure, result in despair. On the other hand, learning to boldly look at and become aware of raw, painful reality without allowing ourselves to wallow in despair is an essential part of what it means to become emotionally mature.

Since truth is never a goal to be attained but rather a perpetual pursuit that demands perpetually revising one’s perspective, something more than mere cognitive receptivity to TV’s endless parade of intriguing but inane spectacles and tragedies is required. Cognitive receptivity is the least demanding of our minds. It is like the difference between simplistic true-false exams that call for mere recognition, or sometimes minimal recall, and the kind of demands for deeper thinking and cue-less recall that is required by an essay exam. The public’s minds have become passive channel receivers. Habits of inquiry, thought, dialectical discussion, and such have lain fallow for years now. Such disuse leads to loss of these precious skills that our forefathers regarded as necessary of citizens of a democracy. Questioning, thinking, rational debate, investigating, digging deep to uncover facts and discriminate between facts, factoids, spin, and outright fraud and lies, requires discipline, effort, dedication, and dispassionate objectivity rather than blind loyalty to an anchorperson, a party’s political leader, organization spokespersons, announcements from some mission-oriented group with which one identifies, or publicity from ‘left or right wing’ approved or affiliated ideologists and pundits.

Thinking about national issues does not mean knee-jerk buying into the sound bites or blog bytes of the moment. It means recalling history, tracking down original and sound sources, comparing alternatives, and attempting to project trial scenarios for local and global, short and long term consequences. All of the ballyhooing and yeah-ing and boo-ing from opposing sides, like favorite sports’ teams, are a disastrous diversion from these weightier endeavors. These frivolous behaviors may give one a comfortable sense of belonging and approval but, in reality, they represent an abdication of responsible citizenship. The weightier endeavors require the courage-to-be even if it means to be unpopular or mocked. Serious inquiry and debate certainly cannot compare with the fun of joining in a chorus of jeering and cheering crowds of spectator fans at a game. Frolicking and poking fun at the opposing side along with the party-loyals may make one feel secure and superior but in the end may just mean that you are following the piper over the cliffs of doom. We must send chauvinism and jingoism over those cliffs instead.

Having succumbed to the mind-numbing, mesmerizing, daily dose of sound bites, it may be humiliating to admit that one has allowed oneself to be duped and doped into a semi-soporific mind state. Intelligent people are particularly subject to being transfixed in untenable political, religious, philosophical, or even scientific positions by the power of fear of such humiliation. One may find their way out such pits of disgrace by pointing at all of the other duped, un-savvy souls rather than face their own sin of omission. It requires much more strength of character to take up the challenge to dispense with loyalty and begin the rigorous, dispassionate quest for truth, hardcore facts, verifiable contrary information, or taking the perspectives of other sides of the argument. It may require arduous perseverance to pursue such earnest questioning until the captivating spin of both sides disintegrates into a mass of polished but paltry lies. Attempts to humiliate these brave dissenters could, instead, be taken as their badge of honor.

The state of information cacophony today demands that we assume the mantle and magnanimity of the great souls of the past, those iconoclasts who bravely broke an erroneous spell holding their era captive, or the statesmen of old whom we now revere for standing against the feverish momentum roused by demagogues of their day. Our era demands that we cast off hysterical history-blinders and critically examine our history and the histories of our fellow nations.

Our day demands that we take on that challenge and begin to re-instate loyalty to our true heritage as Homo sapiens with the ability to reason. Our day demands that we revitalize our malingering cognitive powers and that we recoup our courage-to-be and strength of heart. Our day demands that we affirm an inclusive sense of community as responsible, rational citizens of our nation and the nations of the world. Our day demands that we learn how to be good stewards of our mother earth who must sustain us all for hundreds and thousands of years to come. Our day demands that we reclaim an intelligent grasp of history and vision of the future.