Maybe not nuts, but not completely sane either

You don't have to be a cogent observer to notice that most folks like to hear what suits them and tend to reject things that don't agree with their own prejudices. We tend to hang around with people we agree with more than those we tend to fight or argue with all the time. I think we all know that in the long run this doesn't do a lot for us. Sooner or later, we start missing important facts and information, and the quality of the decisions we make starts deteriorating.

This was reinforced in particular by an article I read on what our brain does wrong (allegedly). We tend to emphasize the negative, see meaning in things where there may not be a lot, we overlook the obvious, we place too much value on what we think others think and our attention is easily captured and distracted. Most of these, according to the author, were valuable traits when we were young as a species wandering aimlessly across the savannah, but now that we live in a highly techonologized complex environment, all these once helpful features of our minds are now just a burden. In other words, we have evolved to be the way we are, but we evolved wrong.

I don't know about you, but this conclusion struck me as absurd. It fit right in with the problem I described last time: we believe in something but act differently, we are unreasonable and inconsistent in our behavior. Yes, we -- our brains -- are susceptible to error ... but here is the crux: there's not a thing we can do about it; it's simply how we evolved. I'm sure the article's author had a more positive intent, but anyone really paying attention quickly sees what a two-edged sword this conclusion is. On the one hand, if we can't help it, we're not responsible; we're off the hook. On the other hand, it casts a healthy shadow of doubt upon the accomplishments, the wisdom of our science.

Now, I don't believe the science is completely wrong. This whole idea about suitable genes surviving does have a certain attractiveness about it, but it ignores the fact that whatever gene we're talking about is part of a pool of genes that all humans have. In other words, it ignores the role of others in evolution and even Darwin was convinced at the end that cooperation was a stronger evolutionary force than competition. Unfortunately, the article's author wasn't capable of making these finer distinctions. Where the author really got off track, though, was in the implicit assumption that these behaviors (listed above) are hardwired into our brains; there's nothing we can do about them. This is simply untrue. What all of those features have in common, if you stop to take a closer look, is lack of awareness. We are not consciously present enough in our own lives. We are on autopilot too often. It's time to get back in the game (of life).

Being on autopilot explains a lot about why we are the way we are and how we got into the particular predicament we humans are in. Our preferred way is, of course, the path of least resistance. We simply can't afford that any longer. Whether we like it or not, it's time to wake up and get with it.