Context Blindness

Preface

They say we should let go of our grudges. That they are no good for us. That harboring anger and other negative feelings can end up hurting us. On the other hand, I was taught that there is nothing like a grudge to spark interesting research; that the research process, as well as the result, are the most meaningful if you care about your topic, especially if it makes you mad.

This book came about as a result of a huge grudge. Not the kind of bitterness one holds onto way too long after a precipitating incident, but a deep, persistent, ongoing feeling of anger, disbelief, and astonishment at the number of precipitating incidents and the frequency of their occurrence over the past few years.

I became obsessed with finding an encompassing explanation to seemingly unrelated events, some in my professional life and my direct experience, and others in the world, mediated by television and social media.

In my professional life as a college professor, I was startled by a new kind of student who obviously had a new definition and understanding of college and its purpose, different from that of generations that came before them. Their behavior felt rude, their language and demeanor seemed not to fit the situation.

In the realm of politics, Trump’s presidency was one of the primary triggers. His daily nonsensical utterances, rage, and vengeance were mindboggling and kept everyone thinking about politics all the time and constantly on edge. And, as Sullivan (2017) put it, “one of the great achievements of a free society in a stable ←ix | x→democracy is that many people, for much of the time, need not think about politics at all.”

Introduction

Every era in human history has a defining disease, and the language used around every disease defines the response of both patients and society to that disease. The illness itself then becomes a metaphor to describe unrelated social processes and cultural phenomena that resemble the symptoms—or the stigma—of the disease: cancer must be “fought” or “defeated,” and hatred is “like a cancer.”

Due to the physical disfigurement that accompanies leprosy, the sick suffered humiliation and segregation, and the word “leper” became synonymous with an outcast or a pariah. As Susan Sontag (2001) explains, tuberculosis was initially viewed as a disease of the artist afflicting a person of sensitive and sad temperament, and later as a product of urban decay and sexual excess. Similarly, AIDS became a symbol for social disorder and moral decadence. Neil Postman (1992) compares information glut—the overload of information that leads to the breakdown of a coherent cultural narrative—to AIDS. The dangers of information on the loose, he explains, are like those of an impaired immune system that cannot manage cellular growth and destroy unwanted cells.

Disease is the metaphorical source for psychological states as well. We can be “lovesick,” we buy things we don’t need because “nobody is immune to advertising,” and unexceptional events are “like the common cold.” We talk about behaviors as contagious, like laughter or riots. We draw parallels between the spreading of germs and the spreading of ideas.

The term “contagion” is used to explain phenomena in economics (financial contagion), psychology (social contagion), and anthropology (cultural contagion); we use it to describe the spread of ideas within social networks in the real world and online as well (Mitchell, 2012). We also speak about “viral” memes, Facebook posts, and advertising campaigns. The source of this metaphor has become more physically tangible, of course, since the COVID-19 pandemic. One may wonder whether its application to computers and social media has stripped it of its malign associations, making it difficult for us to see viruses as the potentially lethal, biological phenomena that they are. As Susan Sontag (2001) suggests, metaphors of illness obstruct the rational awareness necessary to contain disease. Our impaired ability to think of the coronavirus as literal may partly explain the arguments over masks and social distancing that facilitated its spread, although we never politicized anti-virus software or claimed it infringed on our liberties.