Are we witnessing the start of an intellectual decline back to dark age thinking?
Question prompted by an article I read today regarding the absence of ideas in contemporary culture. The author mentions she hasn’t heard a really new idea in decades, i.e., evolution, string theory, psychoanalysis.
In the opinion of the author, we have passed from a period of thinking into a period of occasional clever observation we celebrate as thinking. We are also occasionally able to eek out new technologies by extending old ideas.
After dwelling for a few moments upon contemporary arguments we have over global warming, the role of states in individual lives, religious vs. secular education, etc…, I wanted to ask the collective for their reflections.
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56 Answers
I was going to say that I don’t see any evidence to back up this argument, but then I remembered the Tea Party.
It has always been this way. This is just a hypothesis, but I generally think that there’s a small percent of humans that are just a little smarter than the rest of us lol. There is also a small percentage that are extremely not smart as well.
I don’t think that this is actually the case. In general, these great ideas have been spanned fairly far apart. But I think part of the author’s observation that there haven’t been any “really new ideas” for decades also stems from the fact that we as a society are now much more reluctant to make said new ideas known to the public unless we have a substantial amount of proof to back it up. And even then, it has to be “dumbed down,” so to speak, in order for the general public to understand it.
In the past, people who made their theories known were often labeled as crazy and as heretics. While they had support for their ideas, the public could not understand it and therefore wrote it off as insanity. Now, people are not so willing to take that chance. Society is now much more concerned about their view in the eye of the public and the impact that their theories will have on the world, and it therefore takes much longer for the few amazing theories that people do have to reach the general public.
Start? We’re in full swing on strike three my friend.
Ahhhh… but I just watched a History Channel show about the dark ages. Dogma and War Machine combine to crush creative potential. Combine that with Novelty Theory, and one can make an argument that it’s happening all over again, but within a much shorter time span.
The good news is that after the dark ages there flowers a new era of creativity. It is spawned by those who keep their heads cool during the bad times. Reasoned thought still exists, but it will not be heard against the rage of background noise. It may take a bloody mess to quiet everything down to the point of reason being heard again.
I hope not. I don’t think so. Young people are very aware these days.
I am trying to decide how to delicately refute your argument.
I will either try to string together some inciteful observations into a cohesive explaination, or fling poo.
“Young people are very aware these days.”
Young people are very aware of everything pop culture deceives them with. But I fear they are very little aware of themselves, as a whole person unto themselves, and not in relation to the external world.
But this question goes further than just the youth. It also challenges established dogma foisted upon every discipline butchered by the greed and insecurities of those who control them.
My opinion is biased as I have an Aspie husband and have given birth to an aspie. I am surrounded by unconventional thinkers. Each week, we go to therapy where my son is surrounded by a group of unconventional thinking children.
Autism is on the rise. That means that neuro-atypicalness is on the rise. Most of the geniuses that came up with profoundly new ideas are now thought to have been undiagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders or Asperger’s Syndrome.
The list is long and can easily be looked up on the net but here are a few I know off the top of my head:
Jim Henson, Charles Schultz, Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, Isaac Newton
I think the main problem now is that main stream society sees someone that has Forest Gump like tendencies, judges him or her to be a “retard” and de-values them by their appearance without waiting to hear what they have to say or watching them to see what they can do.
@Imadethisupwithnoforethought There are a few kids I’m now following to see where they’ll go see this thread for articles linked.
The media plays to the sheep, not to the thinkers. If you aren’t looking for news on up & coming geniuses, you’re likely to only see the latest news on Kim Kardashian-etc.
That’s right @SpatzieLover. The Truth is earned. Nobody rides for free.
I read about dramatic new discoveries in the medical world every month.
This question also goes beyond discoveries. We’re not questioning the validity of our technology to make new discoveries. We’re questioning the intelligence necessary to make the best use of that technology. Current society can justify anything. But justification is a sad excuse for justice. We need reasoned and logical humans to keep motivations in check to ensure justice is served for all, rather than justification for all causes.
I would also like to add that with the progression of technology, we hear about fantastic discoveries in the news practically daily. Because they are almost commonplace at this point, society has become very acclimated to such occurrences. We might not even notice an amazing, life-altering new discovery if it bit us in the ass.
I do think we’re seeing a disturbing rise in anti-intellectualism here in the US. Maybe the frontiers of the intellect have so exceeded the capacity of the average person to follow (e.g. quantum mechanics), and have led to conclusions that are so wildly counter-intuitive (e.g. string theory and “multiverses”), and the potential for missteps seem so threatening (e.g. genetic modifications) that people long for a simpler, more accessible version of reality. Add to that the unstable political and economic landscape, and I suppose a retreat to a more familiar worldview could be expected.
@thorninmud (et al.), has the enlightenment ended? Are we done?
History teaches that enlightenment rolls in waves.
edit: I meant to say, atop the waves.
@Imadethisupwithnoforethought No, I don’t think so. I think we have hit a bit of a stagnant period. History has shown that we have bouts of enlightenment- There were the first civilizations, and then essentially nothing for years. Then there were the golden ages (Greece, Rome), then came the Dark Ages, which were followed by the Renaissance. I believe that we have hit that temporary wall. With all of the instability in the world right now, I think there are other things that we are concerned about. This is also a large research period; we have been researching the “big” things (cancer, particle physics, etc.) for quite some time now. Until we make some breakthroughs in those areas, we are somewhat “stuck.” But when we finally do make those discoveries, I suspect that they will spark who knows how many other discoveries, and we will have somewhat of a modern-day Renaissance.
We are not far from there. A dark future might be close enough.
Watch Idiocracy
Even if it’s a small possibility it still exists.
There is indeed the recycling of old ideas, and extensions being made like crazy, but I think that’s probably part of technological and societal evolution, to begin with. I’m not a scientist and I don’t work at NASA so I don’t really know. However, I don’t think we’re entering some type of dark age.
What I do notice is a bit disappointing though; the path of our evolution always seems to go towards making money, rather than discovering stuff. But it’s still a path lol. I’m sure there are plenty of exceptions though.
I think the author of this article has a rather narrow world view. New ideas aren’t always in the realm of science/religion. The arts constantly evolve and open new paths in the human experience.
This is one reason I’d love to have a time machine; I’d love to document every time something similar has been said. “Oh, those kids today. We invented the wheel and what are they doing?”
Yes, there has been a definite decrease in intelligence. After all, Obama was elected President. [ smuile ] @nikipedia
No, she’s not, but you could be called one for saying that. : )
@CaptainHarley My favorite was when she bragged about being from the same home town as John Wayne, when it turned out she wasn’t, but was from the same home town as John Wayne Gacy.
I’m trying to remember who said it, but when I was studying the philosophy of science, one of the best principles was along the lines of this: scientific knowledge doesn’t constantly improve in an ever-increasing linear way, but rather consists of dramatic shifts in paradigm between which information gathering occurs along those paradigms. Maybe we’ll see a knew paradigm adopted in scientific thinking soon.
I don’t think so. I really don’t. The thing is, we all have the knowledge that others before us spent their lives attaining, and we just take it for granted. I think we’re building on it exponentially to the point when really amazing ideas and inventions come out it’s common place any more.
I think where we may be, is not recognizing how incredible our world is. We just take all this amazing stuff for granted to the point we don’t even recognize them for the tremendous intellectual feats that they are.
@incendiary_dan aren’t you a really intelligent person who advises others to get involved with re-wilding?
Isn’t that the hallmark of a dark age? When a large portion of intelligent people give up, take their books, and go home?
@filmfann
Oh, you mean kinda like Obama didn’t know how many States there were in the US, or that American Presidents do not kowtow to the Saudi King, or that… shall I go on, and on, and on? [ smile ]
Or how about that time just recently when he wanted to just ignore the other branches of government and manage everything himself? Not exactly what I would call “sane!”
The REAL nutjob is Obama, and he’s going to be OUT on his sorry ass come 2012, or maybe even sooner. One never knows! : )
@CaptainHarley It is best that we don’t go on about which party has the bigger fools.
Between Bush43, Quayle, McDougall, Reagan, and Newt, I have enough ammo to get us both modded.
Boehner!
I’m sorry, did you really think Pelosi was a good comeback when Boehner breaks down and cries at the thought of actually getting something done in the House?
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
—Ecclesiastes 1:9 (NIV)
“There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don’t know.”
—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
I’d be interested in how the author quantifies a “new idea.” Freud gets the credit for psychoanalysis, but it was prefigured—according to Freud himself—by Nietzsche. Darwin gets the credit for evolution, but he was working on the idea at the same time as Alfred Wallace, both of whom were extending an idea of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s, and all of whom were scooped by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. As for string theory, it’s just another extension of the ancient Greek theory of atomism defended by Epicurus, who got it from Democritus, who got it from Leucippus (and the whole idea of a “theory of everything” is an extension of Empedocles’ attempt to reconcile the major pre-Socratic theories regarding matter into a single theory of the “all”).
There is an argument to be made, then, that every supposed new idea is really “merely” an extension of an old idea. Indeed, I have a professor who makes a similar argument all the time while explaining where he thinks he has found some famous idea of modern philosophy or science in the works of the ancient Greeks. Maybe he’s pushing a little too hard, maybe not. Then again, what is so “mere” about a new take on an old idea if it brings us to a new level of understanding? Why must intellectual progress be a series of fits and starts rather than a slowly expanding latticework of interconnected ideas building on one another?
The above Original Idea™ is © 2011, All Rights Re—wait, who? Heraclitus? More than 2000 years ago?! Oh… never mind, then.
This political horsedickery is about to make me have a stroke.
I just came across something Carl Sagan wrote that bears on this:
“I worry that pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. where have we heard it before? whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize over our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us—then habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.”
Was this article in the Sunday Times? If so, I just discovered that my friend’s dad wrote it.
@thorninmud
Good writing. Sounds like it comes from “The Deamon-Haunted World.”
I think with all of the information flowing as fast as it does, reaching into every corner of every societal level, the less intellectual are coming out of the woodwork demanding to be heard. Then they all meet each other and form bands of morons who travel about spewing idiocies and there are so many of them that some start to take them seriously at which point they decide they have to give themselves a name to reinforce the main delusion that they actually have something important to say. They reminded themselves of Alice in Wonderland after she fell down the rabbit hole and started trippin’. They couldn’t decide between “Mad Hatter” or Tea Party”.....
And the rest is history.
Actually, I would trust the common herd before I would trust most so-called “leaders!”
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