The crave for stagnant cognition

There is something most deeply disturbing about the way humans behave themselves around the objects they worship. I speak not exclusively of extreme zealotry, though the cognitive dissonance with which we envelop our feeble, empty minds is entirely identical — altogether indistinguishable. We flip a switch, turn the lights off, and stagnate all cognition. And, worse yet, it is as if at times we crave nothing more.

It occurs in the big and it occurs in the small. It brandishes its bloody fangs in our most minute, fun rituals and it too singlehandedly launches nations to wage war against one another. Every football game we witness it, in every violent religious uprising it is echoed, in every false narrative it spreads.

Why, of course, I speak of that which lies within our monkey brains. This is not to disrespect our simian brethren but to rightfully shatter this illusion of ours that we are all particularly clever in matters of the soul. What a laughable proposition that is.

We love to consider ourselves to possess the most brilliant of minds, to transcend the weaknesses of our forefathers. We are overwhelmed by hubris, believing ourselves to be the exception. We swear upon all that we believe when basic facts are displayed before us, we will elect logic posthaste. We promise to ourselves that we possess the capacity with which to recollect history, to make the most informed decisions, to know better. But, most tragically clear, that was never the case, was it? If that were so, this country would never have reelected Donald Trump.

That sentence alone brings forth a magnitude of obnoxious, nonsensical bloviating. I care not for politics, for engaging in hollow, futile banter that has no objective but to scream at one another, to have the slickest phrasing or howl the loudest. There is naught but shame to be attained upon winning a fool’s contest. 

Self-evidently, ignorance and hatred have won: there is no deeper reading nor shall one need to entertain the notion that there is discussion to be had. Trump has vowed to erase social progress, violate essential women’s rights, cripple educative and medical systems, separate immigrant families, push for an idiotic economic vision with no basis in reality, sully our international relations and bow to dictators, who he indubitably feels a kinship with. Though not the first rapist, racist or pedophile in the White House by any measure, rarely has their vileness been such a relevant element of their platform, nor has it been so cheered by their bases. In good conscience, in wise cognition, in the world where we possess the brains we so dearly claim to have, this would have never come to be. 

Yet, it did. That says not merely something about any one group, or party — after all, this is not an isolated incident. That is, I wish not to alone reflect on Donald Trump, on the genocidal regime of Israel, on the Third Reich or on any other failures of democratic experiments. These are symptoms of something much greater about who we are. I wish to reflect on our failure as humanity — on our willing blindness to its bare exhibits in all that we do.

Though it is hard to discern why, there is pride to be found in willful ignorance. After all, it is seen as a valiant service to our objects of worship to rescind our cognitive abilities and succumb to primal desires. I cannot help but ponder from whence it emerged; nevertheless, it is undeniable: we have a lust for naïveté, we have fetishized nescience. 

Merely take a cursory glance at the sickeningly fanatical veneration of the modern American military. Beyond the apparent issues surrounding cheering for an oppressive lethal force, this is not a respect being paid towards someone who provides a service, or even who has made a great sacrifice, as firemen or doctors do — it is a cult. It dominates people’s lives, overrides their sense of selfhood and subjugates their values to the whims of a globally dominant military complex that prioritizes shareholder value and political interest at the cost of massacring faceless innocents abroad. For those who are conscious of their humanity, this is deplorable enough, but it worsens: we have made a spectacle out of it! 

In this weekend’s football match against FSU, the game opened with men parachuting from the sky, blinding fireworks and deafening songs. We sang and danced and pranced for the American military-industrial complex. We saluted and cried and laughed and hugged and smiled, bereft of the most basic of sensibilities. Why, they are our most beloved traditions! How we roared and roared, blissfully ignorant of what we were actually doing, what we were inculcating into our subconscious, of what we were deeming morally permissible. It is so easy to get lost in the decor, forgetting the substance of our support. It is so easy not to think at all. It was a circus, yet it was us who were the jumping animals, exploding with joyful bloodlust and a moronic, misguided sense of belonging. 

Truly, how can we claim to be any more than that, when we purposefully deprive ourselves of the only thing we claim to separate us from animals?

We were simply repulsive.

Naturally, our crave for stagnant cognition is exploited by propaganda, as it was in the FSU game or in Trump’s reelection, but this is a deeper issue than that. The fact of the matter is as follows: it is infinitely harder to select empathy, to suspend our cognitive dissonance and rationalize against our raw urges. It is so much easier to dance than to think; it is so much easier to cheer than to feel.

But, our human failures need not be the standard.

Progress was never meant to be linear — where we take a step back, we will take two steps forward. We must fight not through rocks alone but also through thought. We must break the shackles of our isolated bubbles, of our streams of confirmation bias, of our primitive patterns. We must learn to want what’s hard: what’s right.

Though we may be cursed with finding bliss in cognitive dissonance, we are blessed with the ability to break free from it. We have the possibility, nay, the duty to be more. To truly transcend hatred and solitude, to be what we can be, we must think, and think hard. These conversations are hard, hurt, and may be impossible to have at times, but they are most imperative. 

What legacy do you want to leave behind? Are you a circus animal, or are you something else? Only you get to decide that. The more people that decide right, the easier this world will be to live in.

When you lie down and your final wind leaves your mortal coil, let it be said that because of you someone breathed easier.