Grow up in a certain time and place and the oddest things
will seem normal to you. Mood rings and pet rocks, earth shoes and bell bottoms
were things we never really questioned in the 70’s. And if you grew up in a
society where they cut the heart out of a virgin in order to appease the
volcano god, well, that seemed like a perfectly rational thing to do at the
time.
Of course, you see the absurdity of it all, don’t you? You
see the madness of a society that advocated slavery or wearing powdered wigs in
order to look important, right? That’s the thing; when you’re outside of it it’s
easy to see what is wrong with a given era. But when you’re trapped inside of
it, it’s almost impossible to see the absurdity that takes place right under
your nose. There is some fundamental flaw in the human intellect that leaves a
person blind to the obvious if those around him are similarly unaware. We are
tied to a greater communal mind in ways we cannot understand and are unlikely
to admit. We are less the rugged individualists we see ourselves as and more
like the sheep we tend to mock. We tend to rebel in more or less the same way.
Hence tattoos as a symbol of self-expression, because a Maori design on your
shoulder so marks you as an individual.
You see, a given mindset is a hard thing to shake. We all
want to believe we are free from biases, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
But as much as mindsets are quick to come and go, there is one bias common to
the sun worshippers of primitive times and modern day hipsters: we all believe
that we were born in the one place and time that got it right.
This is not to blame those who are unable to see past their
own backyards, as it seems to be something universal in our nature. But by
realizing our penchant for group-think we should arm ourselves against it. We
can do this by deliberately stepping beyond the borders of the here and now,
and perhaps the best way to do this is through reading. By reading we can visit
other lands and times, can permit another’s mind to guide us through a different
train of thought. But do not read a book about Victorian England written by a
contemporary writer for this purpose as it will contain contemporary biases.
Read a book written in a different age. It doesn’t so much matter if it is a
classic, a romance, or a comic, you will know it for what it is. If a child’s
story, you will see how an adult spoke to a child in a different era.
Read an old magazine and glance through the advertisement as
well as the articles. Immerse yourself in a different environment. When you
return from it you will see things differently.
That is what troubles me about libraries is that they are
quickly replacing those testaments of ages passed with new interpretations of
them. But like a photograph, anything that is copied loses some fidelity with
each copy that is made. Go back to the original, back to the source, the real
thing, or at least as close as possible. The powers that be of any given age
wish to keep you blind to other perspectives, wish to have you see the world in
the way they are trying to paint it. They want to purge the world of historical
perspective, which is why The History Channel has day-long blocks of Pawn Stars
and Car Wars or whatever the hell they are showing nowadays. Step outside of
the cage others would make for you, or else the heart that is sacrificed to the
volcano god might just be yours.
