Reading into Things

I’ll admit it.  I like reading.  In fact, at some level, you could say I’m addicted to information.  Books, magazines, newspapers, electronic publications … even TV and movies (especially documentaries) have their place in the data sieve that is my mind.

Maybe it’s that I find understanding complexity as ordered to be intrinsically gratifying. 

One of the books I’m in the midst of currently is The Age of American Unreason (2008) by Susan Jacoby.  In reading her tracing of reactionary political thinking against the socially constructed demons of secular and liberal thought, I am drawn into reflecting (admittedly in part due to a recent visit to Modern Times - a local second-hand bookstore having to relocate due to a less than fabulous landlord) on a work by Gorz, Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology (1994) where he examines implications for individual freedom, social responsibility and ecological well-being within the constructions of capitalist and socialist thought and practices.

Read through lines of alienation and economic rationality, one message (among many) that comes gleaming out of Gorz’ writing is the necessity for meaningful work.  Rethinking notions of value and worth in terms of the triple bottom line (People, Planet and Profit) we can begin to shift the ways in which we envision ourselves in the world as well as how we are shaping the planet for generations to come.  One of the big challenges comes in confronting reactionary thinking, a tendency which can be found all along the political spectrum.

People tend to read information selectively to buttress their existing beliefs as Chris Mooney points out in The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science (Mother Jones).  The impossibility of ever attaining an absolute objectivity creates the very cracks and crevices by which anti-rational reasoning takes hold and erodes scientific theory with social hypothesis.  Linking this lensing of subjectivity and the inherent fallibility of rationality to notions of self, religion, nation, tradition and our sense of morality, a salient detail here is the blowback effect (found most predominantly on the Conservative Right) where people confronted with information that contradicts their belief structures actually effect a reasoning reinforcing the idea contested, no matter how irrational.

Yes, you read that right: irrational belief structures can be reinforced by being contradicted – or even when they are disproven.  The implications of this are many, but importantly one thing it means is that more often than not the messenger is more important than the message.  Both where (or who) the narrative comes from as well as the ideological foundation upon which it rests heavily inform how it will be read and digested.  Couching our ideas and information in packaging amenable to the reader can make the difference between a reactionary rejection and thoughtful response.

And it is here that we find a unique opportunity.  Can we talk and do business in the language and nature of Capitalism while capturing some, most or even all of the ecological benefits that Gorz links to Socialism?  Is it possible to reform the nature of Western society in order to maximize rights, privileges, freedoms and profits for the benefit of the majority?  How do we think ethics?  How do we enact morals?  What is The Nature and Logic of Capitalism?  And how might it be altered? 

So, even as we are all inundated with so much information that it can become almost a full time job sorting out the good from the mis- and dis- … I hope that you might have found my incomplete analysis to be less than inadequate as I leave you with these questions and hopefully more that I have left unasked.  Our mission (so to speak) – should we choose to accept it.  And in the meantime: Don’t be afraid to ask the difficult questions.  Keep reading, keep thinking and keep dreaming.  Keep asking those questions, keep looking for the answers (and visit your local bookstore as your ally in feeding your mind).