The inability to see what is right in front of you. The inability to speak what you wish to say. Both derive from physical and psychological malfunction. Have you heard of these conditions? How prevalent could they be?
What do we think we see today? What would we see if we were able to look? A rise in awfulness? Is that true? Perhaps it is. But compared to when? Compared to whom? Pick a metric and compare.
You might think that is an attack on efforts to improve the world. Consider the flipside. What is worse now than before? What is the same? By what metrics? Understand this and you gain broad perspective–though broad perspective is currently an unpopular form of leverage. If you are not looking at all that you can, why not? What could you be missing? Are you are as informed and clear-eyed as you think you are?
What makes you uncomfortable? What information do you shy away from gathering? Look at that first; it’s likely to be the most important information you can learn. When’s the last time you thought about understanding what your opponents believe? How they see the world? Oh, did you think I said agree with? Ah. Perhaps we’ve gone so far that even to know your enemy has been lost to sight and sound. But perhaps we can still keep them close.
Our magnifying glasses now extend across the world and we peer feverishly. Do we see more now that more is viewed? We sift our streets, skies, homes, blogs, posts, phones for any possible dopamine or adrenaline that can be extracted or induced. We algorithmically tune its automatic distribution to generate maximum consumption for anyone who might possibly be interested, outraged, horrified, frightened, or addicted by all that was once unviewed. Ignorance of viewing is no longer an inadvisable bliss, it is verboten. But what of ignorance of seeing and listening?
The world is, largely, safer, healthier, fairer, and more just than ever. Yet we talk about and think about safety. fairness, and justice more often. We have more standards. We have more alarms set. We don’t really care or think about that. But we hear more alarms. But if you conclude that is alarming, compared to when? Do you have the information you think you have? Did the lack of alarms mean safety? Bells ringing do not indicate danger–they indicate that bells are ringing. Why were they set? Why have they gone off? Has the collection and collation of all present dangers increased the sum of those dangers?
When we walk up to evil and peer at it up close, all in our view becomes evil. When we choose not to look at evil, it goes unseen. Both are optimal conditions for its flourishing and the devouring of good. It’s not so hard to take a step back. What is it you are seeing? Where does it fit into our world?
When that dopamine button isn’t delivering anymore, how soon before we realize we’ve crawled inside it and will attack anything that would pull us away? How soon before we cannot even see or speak of anything else?