So Says The Mouse In My Hair

Doublethink

We humans have an amazing capacity to hold two conflicting points of view at the same time and never bat an eye. In my own head it’s been Saturday and Sunday all day long together. I’m a really horrible person and I really like me. Sure I can come to your party and take a test at the same time. God appoints leaders of every country and it’s ok for us to go in and change them. (Of course if we are sucessful that means that God also appointed us to bring the newly God appointed leader into his pre-ordained role, so no harm no foul.)

Orwell of course, called it doublespeak. Our new enemy has always been our enemy and will always be our enemy. But doublespeak would fall flat on its face without the strong backing of doublethink. What I’d like to know is how the human psyche developed this ability.

Perhaps it is an evolutionary trait. A person able to slit his loyalties was better suited to copulate with all partners. As he was capable of spreading his seed father and wider this trait soon found its way into the majority of the gene pool. And now we divide our loyalties and our brains into little compartments, each with its own universe and problems and solutions.

Then again, it could have political origins. Our more conservative right brains wish to advance their own agendas while those tree hugging left brains fly off into their ideals and never come down. When the mind starts acting this partisan, neither is going to pay any attention to the other. Each has an idea about how to spend your time surplus or how to overcome its deficit. And each is pressing its demands upon the public consciousness.

Or might it be a psychological defense mechanism? As it is severely distressing to realize that you hold two opposing points of view at the same time our subconscious works very hard to keep the two apart. Somewhere in our superego we realize that it is faster (simpler?) to hold both ideas than it is to consciously argue out both sides and toss one away or come to a compromise of the two. We don’t always have the time to spend thinking about these things. We need to forage for food and concentrate on procreating and invent wheels. Such things are much more important to existence than sitting down and thinking too much.

It could originate in literary terms. We might love to involve ourselves in irony. Rather a weak argument, I’ll admit. Irony has a nip of the surreal in it, as does the idea that I can think that it’s Monday and Tuesday all at once. But you are right. It’s a weak argument, surreal while a small literary style, is has a much bigger following in the art world, and should probably fall under that fine arts heading instead.

Have I lost you yet? Of course.

But it is odd, don’t you think? What do you attribute it to?

posted by Sarah Eliza @ 1:16 PM