Caveman Logic: The Persistence of Primitive Thinking in a Modern World (18 page)

If you find that instance unhelpful, here is another one: A colleague of mine at another university was teaching a course in the Philosophy Department called Critical Thinking. He repeatedly made his goals clear to the class: “I am trying to teach you
how
to think, not
what
to think.” Courses like this often use contentious issues as a springboard to debate. The presumption is that when people are emotionally triggered, they are less likely to argue cogently or reason critically. Such moments provide grist for the mill. One of the topics up for debate was the question of human origin. My colleague presented an evolutionary account, including detailed evidence from molecular biology that suggested a common origin for all humans. In this context, he introduced the idea that “we are all Africans.”

One of his students was an Aboriginal woman who asserted that her Ojibway background made it clear that her people had “always been here” (North America) and had not “come from” anywhere. She resented his suggesting otherwise. My colleague’s position was that there should be some give and take when tribal mythology conflicted with scientific data. He proposed that her tribe’s assertion of a “First Nation” claim could mean that they “got here first,” but he resisted the claim of separate ancestry since the case was simply not supported by modern genetic evidence. In any case, my colleague did what a good academic should do under the circumstances and attempted to use the difference of opinion as a teaching tool. He welcomed further discussion with her in a public forum where the entire class could benefit from the exchange.

The woman wanted no part of an exchange. She was not prepared to debate the accuracy of tribal mythology and thought it inappropriate that she should have to endure such a critical experience as part of her university education. And so she went to the dean to complain about both him and his class. For good measure, she joined forces with two other students who also took exception to what they were hearing. These were fundamentalist Christians who also objected to hearing a public challenge to their belief system. My colleague, who did not have tenure at the time, was dismissed. At first, he defended himself vigorously, arguing that if the free exchange of ideas could not occur within a university course in critical thinking, where could it occur? The dean rejected his argument. It was simply easier to terminate an untenured professor than to deal with a Christian and Aboriginal backlash. Unlike many in his circumstances, my colleague hired a lawyer and took the university to court for wrongful dismissal. In a refreshing turn of events, he won his case and is now considering how to translate his victory in court into some kind of redress for the disruption of his academic career.

In his 1971 treatise,
The Occult
,
¹²
Colin Wilson argues that if we are to grow toward our potential as a species, we must reclaim our connection to the supernatural. In Wilson’s view, there is no shortage of it out there.

Wilson begins by arguing, “Primitive man believed the world was full of unseen forces.” He goes on to assert that “the Age of Reason said that these forces had only ever existed in man’s imagination,” and that “only reason could show man the truth about the universe.” That’s a bit glib, but as a whirlwind tour through the history of human events, I can accept it as a general summary. Beyond this point, however, Wilson and I seem to have been watching two different movies. In Wilson’s view, the Age of Reason succeeded. Man abandoned his universe of supernatural forces and became a rational creature. Reality became the boring place it has because active involvement from the spirit world has been banished. Sadly, Wilson concludes, man became a “thinking pygmy,” giving up on the “supernatural world of broader significance that stretches around him.” His book is a nearly eight-hundred-page tome urging man to rediscover his “Power X” and reclaim this world. If only Wilson’s conclusions were true.

Since we’re talking in broad generalities here, let me propose an alternative to Wilson’s view. I’ll begin on common ground. Primitive man was indeed awash in a world of spirits. And I will concede that the Age of Reason attempted to replace superstition with science and supernatural causal agents with rational understanding of our limited role in the universe.

But it failed. Intelligent thinkers are always conspicuous—we remember names like Newton, Galileo, and da Vinci hundreds of years later. But it’s a common mistake to assume they are representative of the average member of our species and his or her deepest, most intransigent thought processes. These towering figures who valued science and reason over superstition and magic never became a dominant force within the culture. If we fast-forward to modern man, we find a curious blend of technosophisticates whose worlds contain DVD players, iPods, SUVs, and wireless networking; their kids download music and movies off the Web and use Google to do their term papers, but at the core (and this is where Wilson and I disagree) they are not far removed from those “primitive men” whose loss Wilson laments. Give them one of those basic questionnaires we’re always reading about in
Time
magazine or
Reader’s Digest
, and you’ll learn that nearly half of them believe in some sort of supernatural agent, and at least half of them believe in ghosts, angels, predestination, and communication with the dead. And collectively, they support the growth industry in creationist museums and amusement parks that has emerged in the past few years. It’s hard not to share Richard Dawkins’s belief that “human minds are ripe for malignant infection.”
¹³
Wilson would be proud. And these aren’t even the more extreme cases. Any sociologist worth her salt can find you subcultures where the role of the supernatural is even more dominant and socially supported than in mainstream, white-collar America. You want more evidence that primitive man is alive and well in the twenty-first century? Pack your Imodium and venture to the third world nations of our Earth. You will return wondering what Wilson was thinking when he issued his entreaty to return to Caveman Logic.

In fact, Wilson supports our case inadvertently when he talks about our “instinctive desire to believe in unseen forces” and our need to discover “the wider significances.” I agree, and so did authors James Redfield and Rhonda Byrne when they took their obscene profits from spiritual junk food like
The Celestine Prophecy
or
The Secret
to the bank. We can quibble over definitions, but to me the term
instinctive
suggests two things: this desire is species specific—that is, present in all members, even a defining characteristic of the species—and deeply ingrained or hard to change. But, having defined our need for the spirit world in this manner, it seems surprising that Colin Wilson would assume it could have been eradicated quite so simply half a millennium ago.

In any case, he clearly believes that we should work on getting it back. If I believed for one second, as Wilson does, that it were lost, I would be out there waving flags of victory and doing all I could to see that it would stay lost. But there is just too much evidence to the contrary. We have not become those “thinking pygmies” that Wilson decried. Far from it. Our belief in unseen forces and supernatural agents is alive and well, right next to our TiVos and iPods.

Wilson also argues that “civilization cannot evolve further until the occult is taken for granted on the same level as atomic energy.” Most people would find that statement absurd, but the problem lies not in Wilson’s belief but in his expression of it. The “occult” has become a dirty word. It marginalizes its believer. Are “normal” undergraduate women with 3.5 grade point averages, active social lives, and loving families “occultists” because they also happen to believe in the physical presence of angels in the world as well as communication with the dead? Unless you provide a more exclusionary definition of “occult,” I believe they are. And, as such, I believe they should be a source of comfort to Colin Wilson. The fact that this hypothetical undergraduate is not sacrificing chickens in her dormitory room is not the point. Indeed, that kind of expression of her belief system might get her and her 3.5 GPA expelled. It is her underlying beliefs that are in question, not how bizarre their outward manifestations are.

All this may seem unduly harsh. Is our poor, beleaguered undergraduate with her polite ghosts, angels, and “everything happens for a reason” belief any different from the rest of us who check our horoscope every day “just for fun”? Probably not, but I’m not sure this gets us, as a species, off the hook. In fact I think it may push us further on to it. It all goes back to Wilson’s calling this tendency an “instinct.” I’d probably opt for terms like
evolved brain architecture
or
mental module
, but we’re both really saying the same thing. It is not a random pattern of activity that gets rediscovered by each new generation. This is hardwired stuff, the circuitry that is part of our evolutionary heritage. Perhaps the only comfort is that we are not talking about biological determinism. There is a small light amid all this darkness. If absolute determinism were really the case, neither Wilson nor I would have written our books. There
is
hope. There
is
choice. Of course, Wilson and I hope you will choose different things. But we both believe you have some say in the matter.

Within certain circles, people pride themselves on being “seekers.” Just what they are seeking is often left unspecified, although implicitly it is assumed to be something lofty like “the truth” or “meaning.” Perhaps some of this search is triggered by a fear of death or growing signs of mortality. As novelist Julian Barnes writes in
Nothing to Be Frightened Of
,
¹⁴
“Death never lets you down.” Apparently, that certainty only encourages seekers who are looking for eternal life, a quality usually reserved for one’s gods. A common complaint is, “It can’t be all over when I die. Please tell me that some part of me will go on living. I don’t care if you call it my spirit or my soul. Just assure me that I’ll go on.”

Reincarnation is one way of accomplishing this by hooking one’s soul or spirit up with a new body, preferably human. I’ve heard it said that even the species part is negotiable. Any old port in a storm. Interestingly, such seekers are not comforted by the fact that their genetic material, presently carried by their children, will be doing just what they wish. Freud put it rather poetically when he took the gene’s point of view (anticipating Dawkins by nearly a hundred years) and described our present body as the “vehicle of a possibly immortal substance.” But it doesn’t really matter. What nature offers is not good enough for many seekers. Selfishly, they want their consciousness, belief systems, and values to stay around intact for the long haul as well.

Another concern held by many seekers is their fear of the existential void. The soundtrack for this mission might well be the Peggy Lee song “Is That All There Is?” These seekers complain, “I need
meaning
in my life. It can’t just be all about finding a mate, having kids, going to work, watching TV, eating dinner, paying the mortgage, growing old, and dying. What does it all
mean
? Why am I here? What is my
purpose
?” The unfortunate thing about these questions is that they reveal a conspicuous inability to find “meaning” in what sounds like a perfectly successful existence.

Every species on Earth has been selected for its ability to survive, compete for resources, find a mate, chart out a small territory to live and reproduce, and, if you’re lucky, hang around for a while afterward, perhaps nurturing your young or the young of your own offspring. What is this “greater purpose”? Why must it be about just
you
and why must it so often involve the supernatural? “What does God want of me? Why am I here?”—these are not questions about humans in general. This is all
me
stuff. Apparently, there is no comfort, peace, or fulfillment in procreating or enjoying art, literature, food, or love. Is the pleasure of exploring the real world or relationships within it not “purpose” enough? Why do most seekers need more grandiose answers to the question of purpose? They don’t explicitly relegate everyone else to a supporting role, but there is an indisputable element of egotism in searching for
your
purpose. The very suggestion that one’s life has been “ordinary” or without some kind of unique cosmic design seems to spread ripples of panic through a being. And so begins the uncritical and often desperate search for meaning.

As sad as I am to point this out, the classic Christmas film
It’s a Wonderful Life
is a rallying cry for such thinking. Jimmy Stewart’s character needs to discover that without him, people all around him, indeed the whole town, would have been a desperate and miserable lot. It is only then, after discovering how important he is, that Jimmy Stewart’s character is able to carry on. He literally has to satisfy himself that his own existence has been central to the prosperity and success of everyone in his sphere of influence. Then he can get on with the business of living. Well, Jeez, Jimmy, what about the rest of us poor schmucks who may not have saved our brother’s lives, as well as countless others in the bargain? Not everyone has such a salubrious butterfly effect swirling around him. Should we just jump off a bridge, as you were about to do when the movie began? Is there no point in living without being privy to that cosmic design that has singled us out to become a Hollywood success story?

Although she is no longer part of the entertainment landscape, JoJo’s Psychic Alliance once dominated Canada’s television airwaves, competing with her US counterpart, Dionne Warwick’s Psychic Friends. It was hard to get through an evening of late-night TV without running into an infomercial featuring either Dionne or JoJo. Both were the butt of endless jokes. Comedians wondered, for example, what happened to Dionne Warwick’s psychic abilities when she was arrested for marijuana possession at Miami International Airport in May 2002?
¹⁵
Likewise, critics snickered when JoJo’s partners robbed her blind, forcing her into bankruptcy in 1997. She claimed, “I never saw it coming.”