The ongoing war for your attention and why it's important
In which we share some thoughts about attention and forming a coherent self as discussed in The World Beyond Your Head
Are we so distracted by news, social media, advertising and pop culture that we are turning into ignorant consumers with limited wisdom in the pursuit of personal freedom? And is this creating ripple effects on politics and society which are leading us into dark(er) times?
I’ve been reading a book which may have some bearing on the current state of the world, especially in a time where countries are divided by their politics and things that were known to be good ideas for years, like vaccination and clear air, are facing tremendous skepticism and challenges.
The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming An Individual In An Age of Distraction (2015) takes some effort to read but it has some insights which apply to life in 2022. Clearly what we pay attention to has a strong influence on our lives and we are constantly bombarded with information (good, bad and indifferent) which cannot help but have some influence on what we think and sometimes on what we do. Are we doomed to failure as individuals and as society because of external influences?
Matthew Crawford’s 1 book follows his earlier book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work, which extolled the virtues of skilled physical work in modern society. In The World Beyond Your Head, Crawford makes reference to skilled work as part of a solution to help us manage our attention and navigate through the world. Today we have almost limitless choices for spending our time and attention but we may lack the wisdom and guidance to use those resources wisely, to our collective detriment.
I’m going to summarize the book’s introductory section below as a starting point, with some additional observations in italics:
During the past 100+ years people have been increasingly bombarded with stimuli, messaging and other content which is designed to grab our attention and influence our thoughts and feelings - referred to as an “intensification of nervous stimulation” by Georg Simmel.2 Old and new media have ramped up the intensification and it continues to increase.
Our time and attention is a limited and precious resource which many of us (including myself) often fritter away. We should all have the right to quiet, focused thought but we are losing opportunities for this time and coherence of thought.
Focused attention is not just a limited resource but it requires practice and application to be strong, similar to how a muscle works.
The “liberal”3 view of increasing personal freedom via personal choice has led people to become more susceptible to advertising and message that reinforces this view: not for the benefit of the individual but for the benefit of commerce. And, you could also argue, political and economic power.
The more that people align on these messages, the more that people tend to think alike, whittling away at robust, diverse thinking and personal development.
This thought and behavior shaping is all being abetted by the waning influence of social institutions or other ways to help shape a person’s character, leaving them susceptible to either a) forming unwise and unhealthy attitudes and behavior on their own lacking beneficial guidance or b) being influenced by outside forces to the individual’s detriment.
None of this is probably any surprise to you, dear reader. Keep in mind that Crawford’s book was published before the end of President Obama’s presidency, after which things became very interesting in the US (and the rest of the world, by default), including:
the rise of Trump and his influence over American politics and society (which built upon conservative/Republican values stemming from the Reagan era and arguably amplified their worst parts)
the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection in the US, which is denied or downplayed by certain groups of people
the increase of messaging and influence of people and groups that are opposed to vaccination, a time-trusted technique for protecting public health
the messaging and management of the COVID-19 pandemic (see the previous point as well as controversy about the value of clean air, masking and other protective measures), particularly where it seemed to be at odds with commerce and personal freedom
the seemingly relentless concentration of wealth and power in a small global elite class (again, the Reagan era saw a marked increase in concentration of wealth and it doesn’t seem to have slowed down
the changes in civil rights occurring in the United States and other countries where groups who have only recently affirmed their rights and freedoms are seeing those eroded, including non-Caucasian, non-White people; people who identify as LGBTQIA+ (and variants thereof); and arguably the entire female gender/sex.
the increase of extremism and far right thinking in countries like Canada, where certain parties seem to be increasingly copying what’s happening in the United States
the ongoing political and economic disagreements concerning climate change
the inability to take any constructive action in the United States to make its citizen safer from gun violence, except for the extraordinary notion that school children should be protected by armed teachers
A combination of focus, distraction and diversion of attention has been a key component to changes in public opinion over things that, while they weren’t perfect, made sense from both a logical and emotional point of view. We use vaccination to control many diseases like polio, measles, mumps, etc. but many conspiracy theories arose about the origins and purpose of the vaccines that were distributed to help protect the planet from a potentially lethal disease: COVID-19.
Public health measures, to be sure, have been awkward, fumbling and confusing in many countries since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world several years ago. However, the pushback and rise of counter-movements in the name of preserving personal freedom (at the potential expense of public safety) while reinforcing dominant economic models and facilitating a shift in political sentiments in Western countries have created many counter messages which, if nothing else, exist to sow doubt in the minds of the public. A prime example of this is the Plandemic video which sought to cast doubt on the origins of COVID-19 (and I will not link to that piece of manipulative garbage).
You could argue that 60 years ago there would likely have been must more trust in vaccination, as a simple example, because there would have been more faith in messaging from public institutions to encourage something like vaccination. With fewer distractions and counter messages there would have been less public opposition to a public health measure because it would have clearly made sense given the success of other vaccination programs. Also, mainstream religions and social organizations would most likely have encouraged their members to get vaccinated and even volunteered to help. While these activities and support do continue to exist today, their influence seems to be struggling against counter-messages that are winning over an increasing number of hearts and minds.
You’ll notice an assumption in this post: that the counter messages that I’m talking about are inaccurate and harmful. Can I say that categorically? Not completely, because there are usually seeds of truth and accuracy in misinformation that are twisted, remixed and amplified to change their meaning. There are a lot of problems in liberal or “democratic” governments, companies and organizations. And, to be fair, even altruism can be used for nefarious purposes. But clearly there’s an awful lot of crafting and shaping happening in what we see in mainstream and social media and we should never lose site of that and what the end goals may be.
The World Beyond Your Head rightly suggests to us that our attention is precious and we need to manage it appropriately. It’s also fair to inject some skepticism in what we see and read in today’s media. We also cannot forget that many, many people live in poverty or are just barely scraping by in every country and have a lot of reasons to be angry about their lot in life - quite frankly, most of us are so busy dealing with the ongoing struggles in life that we don’t have time to take in anything but the simplest, most direct messages or to focus on things which may potentially benefit our immediate self-interests while creating different problems in the long term.
There’s a lot to unpack in Crawford’s book and I’m not sure if I agree with all of it. It’s more driven by philosophy than psychology or hard evidence and it definitely seems biased towards skilled work as the salvation to society’s woes. But it will provoke some thought if you give the book a chance and that’s definitely a good thing.
Crawford is a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and holds a Ph.D. in political philosophy.
Georg Simmel was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic.
This is how Crawford categorizes these views, as being “liberal” or permissive in the search of whatever things interest us: anything goes, so to speak.
Great read Mark. I’m on a bit of a digital diet myself. Keep up the great writing.