On Animadversion

An excerpt from a letter.

Thank you again for a wonderful essay, "Is There a Natural Anti-Liberty Mindset?" You draw near enough to a certain human skill which intrigues me deeply, that I thought I should share my observations on this common interest with you.

There is a certain capacity of the human mind, a fundamental skill of civilized survival, which I call "animadversion." It's a Latin word which has not been brought into English inaccurately; we use it as a pale shadow of its original meaning. It is the facility of drawing one's attention to an issue of interest for further scrutiny under the full energy of our reason, and all our intellectual skill. This psychological process is a necessary precursor of the application of reason to a particular item worth study.

We hint at it in concepts such as "distraction" and "inattention" and "concentration." I believe that it is a skill which is taught in all fine schools and by all fine teachers; and is generally not refined in American society, but perhaps indeed suppressed.

The principle comprises the finding of something worthy of the application of reason and common sense, and the perseverate ability to see it through until reason is exhausted, and the desired conclusion is discovered.

Ayn Rand was a dogged and fierce advocate of this process, and imbued it with a moral necessity in Atlas Shrugged and in other places. She ties it closely with the moral elements necessary seen in good character.

You refer to a thing called an "anti-liberty mindset," and consider whether it is a manner of thinking which is innate or learned. I would suggest that such things derive from a simple psychological process that is the enemy of animadversion; that is, the ability to halt the process of rational thought upon encountering a certain signal, like a "Stop Command" of a Turing calculating machine - Halt and End, do not proceed in thinking, you are done.

This facility is regrettably an element of many dogmas, and is eagerly trained in American society. If we are careless in a certain matter, is someone likely to be harmed? There are areas in which we permit ourselves persistence of attention, such that we might come to a more clear conclusion, and others in which we stop and go no further. It nears the concept of "denial," but is not exactly so.

Sometimes this occurs from simple intellectual flabbiness, the weakness and inexperience in the skill of following a thought through independently, regardless of consequences or approbation. Sometimes we see it in the other extreme, which is the conscious choice to distract the attention to other matters at hand.

There is something sluttish about this passivity, to be intellectually defiled and deviated with the feeblest of consent, the rational equivalent of "boredom sex."  CS Lewis made great use of this characteristic of humans in "The Screwtape Letters," which are fictional examples of correspondence between devils, and using it as a manner of frustrating moral growth. A great, but insanely depressing read.

Our culture has refined intellectual passivity to the point that many people seek intellectual thralldom, disguised as "relief from stress," i.e. the stress of being intellectually alive. We get high, we gamble, we watch the Idiot Box or the InterSewer.  We substitute intellectually vacant memes, mantras which we do not even have the character of will to repeat ourselves, preferring to receive them on the broadcast media.

Death Panels, Chandra Levy, Miss California, Tea Parties, Global Warming. These are all things which many people in our culture simply receive as pre-packaged thought bullets to be attended to. We are even encouraged to take these things up and arrive at the pre-directed conclusion which is expected of us, having become incredibly skilled in media nuance.

Michael Vick has a job with the Eagles - good or bad? We search our database, struggling with connotations and nuance. I have a dog, and like dogs, therefore I am supposed to say "BAD!" in an energetic and outraged fashion. Angelina Jolie, and what of her? Good or bad?

This suffices for intellectual life for many members of our civilization, as near to being on life-support as anyone might wish to be. I would have the plug pulled, myself.

I would say that the capacity is perhaps innate - no more foreign to us, than the ability to draw our attention to things of greater urgency that suddenly present itself. A hominid lost in thought during a tiger attack, is a hominid less likely to survive. We have psychological conditions, such as "obsessive-compulsive disorder" where a person's ability to turn their attention this way and that under their own volition, has become impaired.

But it is only a primitive skill, which needs refinement - or expungement, as our society earnestly strives for. Stubborn attention to detail is not a particular hallmark of American civilization, and greatly to its detriment. I recommend reading some of John Taylor Gatto's writing on teaching to see an exploration of the matter; and also "Teaching as a Subversive Activity" by Postman and Weingardner - and old and deeply flawed book, but containing brilliance nonetheless.

You offer the wonderful paragraph:

"Is there a natural anti-liberty mindset? No, there is not. Children want to ask questions, to explore, to experiment, and to think. People truly want charity, or as that word is also understood, kindness and love. In such an environment, liberty flourishes. But there is an artificial anti-liberty mindset promoted incessantly by all things state, and by all things political. It can be rejected, combated, and I hope, destroyed. The first step is to recognize that the anti-liberty mindset is not natural – in spite of the state’s sustained and subtle messages to the contrary."

I'm sure that you understand FAR more than I do the utilitarian purposes of installing these mind-stops into people, well-demonstrated in the military. Humans, left to their own devices, do very human things, such as run away in combat; a tendency which leads to poor outcomes in military things. The Italians and French now bear the banner of this egregious habit, and the military strives to suppress it. Thankfully, the groundwork has been well-laid in the first eighteen years, making the advanced training much easier.

It is perhaps ironic that the very first thing which MUST be learned in military training is how to surrender - completely, abjectly, totally surrender.

The capacity to turn one's mind away without a struggle is the very antithesis of Libertarian understanding of civilization and humanity. Rarely is it clearly spoken of - although Ayn Rand brought it forth at the very start of her writings, and called it "Anti-Life." I think it deserves further discussion, as one of the most profound ideas which have harmed mankind.

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