A World Of Mental Pictures

“We see what our minds are trained to see.” ~ Journal Note, 1991

Most of what we know comes to us indirectly. We accept what we read in books, what we see on television and in the movies. We read newspapers and make assumptions about the veracity of what is called news. Astute readers may occasionally notice a little spin within the writing but we usually assume the reported facts have actually occurred.

Yesterday’s headlines included a story about a murder. A man stabbed a man outside a bar in Hermantown. We generally believe that in point of fact, the murder not only took place but occurred outside a bar and not across the street at the auto parts store. It was purportedly the first murder in Hermantown history. Most of us accept that as a matter of fact even without knowing the history of Hermantown.

Things are dicier when it comes to news broadcast from overseas. Walter Lippman, in his 1921 book Public Opinion analyzes in depth the problems associated with our pictures of reality. He begins with the story from Plato’s Republic of the men in the cave who can only see each others’ shadows but believe they are perceiving reality.

How do we understand what is really going on in the world if our minds have been filled with pictures that are interpretations, not realities? Lippman points out that our images of the world do not come from direct experience. As a consequence, our behavior is not derived from what we know but rather from what we are led to believe."The way in which the world is imagined determines at any particular moment what men will do," Lippman writes.

The book appeared shortly after World War I, and is peppered with examples of how the American public often had a distorted view of events at that time. Lippman’s book outlines “how opinions are crystallized into what is called Public Opinion, how a National Will, a Group Mind, a Social Purpose, or whatever you choose to call it, is formed.”

During the Viet Nam War, falsified skirmishes from the battlefield were sometimes leaked to the media in order to make it look like the Viet Cong were attacking a U.S. outpost. The news stories helped legislators in Washington D.C. win key votes to help escalate the war effort. Those votes were based on events that were non-existent.

We have an image inside our heads of our world & universe that’s more comprehensive than any generation in history… TV, magazine, Nova, Discovery, talk radio, the internet. Does all this flood of information make us wiser and smarter than any generation? Or are we now so overwhelmed that we’re even more easily manipulated?

Tomorrow night is our Philosophy Club and we just happen to be discussing Descartes. Descartes, as you may recall, was the one who presented us with that famous dictum, “I think, therefore I am.”

The point he was making is not that he exists because he is a thinking person. Rather, he was wrestling with this very same issue that we’re discussing here. What is true? What can I be sure of? What a reliable basis for behavior? I need a tool to help sort through all these sensory perceptions and miscellaneous anecdotal messages regarding what I should be. What do I know innately as opposed to what I have been told from outside myself?

We like to believe we have reliable pictures in our heads. Capitalism is good. Government needs to be handcuffed. Business people are good because they provide jobs. Unions are bad. Muslims are dangerous fanatics. Or maybe we have alternate pictures. The compartmentalization of everything into black and white is likewise a picture many people have. It resolves a lot of things, makes some choices less complicated.

But what is true? What is reliable?

My suggestion -- and it’s sort of the place Descartes ended up -- is to separate what you know to be certain from what is grey and uncertain. When we hear a new idea, we shouldn’t just swallow it whole without examining it. Put it on the shelf for a little bit and see how it stacks up or fits with everything else you’ve tested and accepted… or rejected.

Even the apostle Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, did not demand that his hearers accept what he himself was saying. He commended those who checked things out first before acting on Paul’s teaching.

I have high regard for those who are able to hold new ideas with a loose grasp until they’ve fully investigated and verified them, if able. Sometimes it may even stay on that shelf till it gets cobwebs. Eventually, as the saying goes, the truth will out.

In the meantime, things aren't always what they seem.