BLIND SPOTS DON’T JUST CONCEAL INFORMATION. THEY ALSO HIDE THE FACT THAT INFORMATION IS MISSING, LEAVING US WITH "UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS."
It should be obvious.
But the edges between the obvious, the obscure, the troubling and the invisible is often a matter of perception, expectation, or assumption. We often miss seeing something right in front of us because it doesn’t fit our mental picture of what is possible. Mindsets and assumptions filter and edit most of our perceptions, before they appear in consciousness. This happens without our being aware of the process or of what's left out.
We all have real blind spots in our eyes.
They are in different places in each eye, so each eye "covers" for the other. There are simple exercises that can give you shocking proof of the visual blind spot. You can observe a stunning feature of an unconscious visual process. A small dot or star will literally disappear, when you close one eye and focus with the other eye, on a different dot or star. (You can take this blind spot TEST off site.) Even more amazing, if there’s a color or simple pattern going through the blind spot, your visual “relays” will “fill in” the blind spot with the background it assumes is there, but is not. This mental-perceptual adjustment will even "fill in" a gap in a line, with an apparent line, if the gap falls in the blind spot (not shown in the linked test but searchable).
Mindsets are more complicated.
As infants and young children we go through an extensive process of forming really basic assumptions about how the world works, who we are and what kinds of expectations we can rely on. This enormously complex task is done mostly by slow and gradual pattern recognition, a hugely important skill at many levels of cognition. It includes many complex levels of understanding that we come to take completely for granted by the time we are 4 or 5.
“Peekaboo” has a very important point in an infant's learning. The fact that the game is fun helps her or him learn that when things disappear behind obstacles, even though they have “disappeared,” they still exist and can reappear. Like “the water,” this knowledge is taken for granted so early that we never think about it, except maybe while watching a magician. And it’s not always true that the thing that disappears still exists, just true in principle. Given other unstated, unobserved conditions, it may really be gone.
We are rational beings.
We rely on logic, history and memory and our ability to reason and predict, hundreds of times a day. When we speak to friends and strangers, we assume different bodies of shared knowledge. Bodies of knowledge, assumptions and expectations are critically important background features for all of our thinking and reasoning. And they are usually correct and reliable.
We come to believe that there is a direct correlation between the world and how we think about it. But much of that belief is based on knowledge that we cannot trace back to its source. Most of what we “just know” as self-evident and obvious, exists in our minds as a world view, self image or mindset - a mental construction.
Firm mindsets are often unreliable,
... or just plain wrong. Many of our assumptions and expectations cannot be shaken, even by real-world contradiction. Only shocks in the real world can easily dislodge these “frames” that tell us what we can expect, or should not expect of our experience in the world.
Many things that we “know” turn out to be wrong, because our assumptions are somehow skewed, or because the world has changed, or because our assumptions did not allow for real possibilities that have always been there.
What “everybody knows” is often
... some mix of selective memory, urban myth, wishful thinking, rationalization and tunnel vision. Our rationality, especially in times of turmoil and rapid change, is vastly overrated. We also need and use emotion, intuition, gut reactions and flashes of insight to make some of our most critical decisions. Both “soft” sciences like psychology and sociology and “hard” sciences like neuro-physiology show that our split brains are almost always using a mix of rationality and emotion to make all kinds of decisions. We usually credit the rational side and assume the emotional side has little impact. But that itself is a false mindset.
THE RECKONING ...
... will shift the public conversation with the realization that the global eco-crisis is at a tipping point, but only with a public outcry and courageous leadership. Also that it will take radical, cooperative action to keep it from becoming a catastrophe. That awakening will trigger the next, even more vital conversation, on what the possible remedies will entail.
A problem cannot be solved ...
... until it has been correctly perceived and properly defined. People trained to be "creative problem solvers"often have to point out that the problem has been mis-perceived and misunderstood. The most dangerous aspect of the global environmental crisis is that most of us have yet to notice it. Many who acknowledge it still underestimate its severity.
The scale and momentum of the crisis,
... and the size of our blind spot, can both be traced directly to the organizing principles of the U.S. economy. By accident and by unnatural evolution, unconsciously and by conspiratorial intent, our collective fears and desires have been distorted by a society organized on phony images of power, desire and knowledge. Those same illusions have both driven and hidden our industrial overkill.
CASH FLOW MAKES TRASH FLOW
The mindsets and blind spots include but are not limited to: a materialist illusion that quality of life comes with quantity of acquisitions; a primitive competitive urge that blocks our natural tendency to cooperate, and chronic short-sightedness caused by the accelerating pace of change (the pace is a product of the market's need for rapid "turnover" and quarterly growth). There’s also peer pressure never to question the costs of "progress;" a media machine that both bows to and conceals the objectives of the commercial sponsors, and denial of the fact that we face an unprecedented catastrophe of our own making.
The culture is a mirror.
We make the culture and the culture makes us. We have "bootstrapped" our way into a civilization of sorts by extending individual skills and thinking to the power of the group. For good and for ill. We all procrastinate, rationalize, do things we know we shouldn't, stick to our stories when we suspect they're wrong, and tell little lies, even to ourselves. The culture we have made mirrors these mental habits and often amplifies them.
Several mental skills give us a great sense of security. Our use of language gives us the abiding impression we can describe the world in a logical, rational manner. Our visual understanding of the world convinces us that objects are real, separate from us and each other, and stable. But applying this and other mindsets to an ever-shifting reality can set us up for ugly surprises.
EXAMPLES,
MINDSETS TO EXAMINE AND DUMP:
TV ads for cars in particular express some of the most destructive of our obsolete thought patterns. A "visual ideology" expresses beliefs and attitudes that are completely out of sync with a sustainable mentality. They promote the desire to own a vehicle purely for the feeling of power that it puts at the hands and feet of the driver.
This triggers and feeds the unconscious instincts to fight or flee, in this case chase or escape. The image of an SUV, spiraling across a dry lakebed or through a pristine forest, suggests this is a way to honor and explore the wonders of nature. Images of loving looks, in the eyes of an attractive woman, for the latest model luxury sedan implies that a man can absorb into his own identity the equivalents of desire, status and comfort.
The cultural stage - with its TV ads and peer attitudes, distortions of history and self-censored news - creates and reinforces mythologies that create powerful mindsets: about what is normal, expected, valuable, respected, etc. People who undergo prolonged separation from the normative cultural stage often find that they can't go back to the old ways of thinking.
What kinds of separations? The symptoms of PTSD, now recognized in so many war veterans, make it nearly impossible for some to accept as real or valid the suburban consumer lifestyle they left to defend. Immersions in "primitive" or deeply "non-western" cultures can force us see radically different world views as equally "normal," even more vital and fulfilling than the "middle class dream." Meditation retreats and induced hallucinations can diminish and destroy one's tolerance for a society that is suddenly seen as artificial to the point of nausea.
When we are faced with sudden shocks, like the unexpected death of someone close, like living through hurricanes, earthquakes and tornados, like terrorist attacks, our most reliable mindsets and world views can evaporate. But these sudden, forced shifts in thinking often fade back into the mental habits that they upset. We often think we have changed our minds only to find we’re acting on the old ideas. Peer pressure and the security of "cultural norms" reinforce obsolete mindsets and familiar mental processes, even when experience tells us repeatedly they no longer hold true.
We all have slightly different mental images of nature, the planet, the stability of weather, agriculture, water, resources, and the economy. Some of them are going to change voluntarily in the flood of mounting evidence of the severity of the crisis. Many of the rest will be forced to change in the wake of food shortages, environmental refugees, a much bigger economic crash, and the wrenching collapse of many social systems.
Our choice is how we will meet the inevitable: by conscious choice, in anticipation and preparation, in a rapid scramble to slow the damage; or later, when there is no choice.
When the risks are so great, the situation so complex, moving with such speed and momentum, the rare ability to notice the clues at the edges of perception can be the most vital of survival skills.
