Are we bored?

[gailkate]

George Will's column today (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/02/AR2007030201401.html ) suggests that Hillary is in trouble because people have fallen in love with Obama. He says Republicans have traditionally nominated the guy next in line and Clinton thinks that's her position. But what really strikes me in this column is the idea that we are driven by boredom. See the bold print:

There is a Republican tinge to Sen. Clinton's campaign: She is next in line. That fact -- combined with the Clintons' (how often the plural is pertinent) money machine, combined with the Clintons' earned reputation for ferocity -- is supposed to impart to her an aura of inevitability.

But such an aura annoys voters by telling them that they really have no choice. And that can provoke them to play the game that G.K. Chesterton called "Cheat the Prophet": The players listen politely to explanations of what is inevitable, then they make something else happen, which defeats boredom.

Boredom, the sociologist Robert Nisbet wrote, is among the universal and insistent forces driving human behavior. Mankind's nervous system evolved during millions of dangerous years (saber-toothed tigers, etc.). Now, however, mankind has suddenly, in a few millennia, encountered the monotony of orderly life, which bothers human brains formed by and for hazardous circumstances.

Among the cures of boredom that Nisbet listed are war, murder, revolution, suicide, alcohol, narcotics and pornography. He might have added presidential politics. Memo to the Clinton campaign: Inevitability is boring.

We can talk about this in terms of politics, but I think the broader question is also interesting. I agree with Nisbet's theory, but I also think we've confronted so much change in the past 150 years that we haven't evolved fast enough to keep up. So we're bored but also anxious and prone to depression.
I may have to erase this tomorrow because I'm not even sure what I think

[slb2]

gailkate said:

George Will's column today (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/02/AR2007030201401.html ) suggests that Hillary is in trouble because people have fallen in love with Obama. He says Republicans have traditionally nominated the guy next in line and Clinton thinks that's her position. But what really strikes me in this column is the idea that we are driven by boredom. See the bold print:

There is a Republican tinge to Sen. Clinton's campaign: She is next in line. That fact -- combined with the Clintons' (how often the plural is pertinent) money machine, combined with the Clintons' earned reputation for ferocity -- is supposed to impart to her an aura of inevitability.

But such an aura annoys voters by telling them that they really have no choice. And that can provoke them to play the game that G.K. Chesterton called "Cheat the Prophet": The players listen politely to explanations of what is inevitable, then they make something else happen, which defeats boredom.

Boredom, the sociologist Robert Nisbet wrote, is among the universal and insistent forces driving human behavior. Mankind's nervous system evolved during millions of dangerous years (saber-toothed tigers, etc.). Now, however, mankind has suddenly, in a few millennia, encountered the monotony of orderly life, which bothers human brains formed by and for hazardous circumstances.

Among the cures of boredom that Nisbet listed are war, murder, revolution, suicide, alcohol, narcotics and pornography. He might have added presidential politics. Memo to the Clinton campaign: Inevitability is boring.

We can talk about this in terms of politics, but I think the broader question is also interesting. I agree with Nisbet's theory, but I also think we've confronted so much change in the past 150 years that we haven't evolved fast enough to keep up. So we're bored but also anxious and prone to depression.
I may have to erase this tomorrow because I'm not even sure what I think

In case gk decides to erase her premise, I'm quoting it.

Hey, I'm really not trying to make a gender issue here, but overall, all those "cures" for boredom are male-oriented. imo

Any thoughts to that?

[slb2]

But I do see the point being made. I know that I often prefer to address issues of chaos rather than issues of need. I happen to have a story to write, but with no deadline on it, I'm just letting it slide. I'm waiting for something exciting to appear so that I can dash off a nice line about the latest musician or artist or whatever, rather than write this (boring) 1000 word article about publishing.

The boring things that need to be addressed: environment, peace, equal health care, civil rights are not addressed in the same way that more "exciting" issues are. War, drugs, atomic detonation come to mind.

I think I should stay out of these current events threads, though. I'm too intuitive without substance. It's all touchy-feely with me, forget the hard, cold realities.

[Jane]

I know for sure that by the time the next Presidential election rolls around, I am going to be way more than bored about the whole thing. Mitt Romney is already running ads in Michigan; Hillary and Barak are already sniping; Ann Coulter is being her usual disgusting self. Egads! Just shut up already. I wish we could just vote today and have it over with.

Yes, the truly vexing problems that face us are not nearly as interesting (apparently) as Anna Nicole's pink coffin cover. And the revelations about Rudi's marital history, Obama's cocaine use and Bill's infidelity are going to dominate the landscape while, at the same time, the glaicers all melt.

[gailkate]

No doubt about it, Jane, the whole exercise is starting too early and makes one wonder if anyone at all is doing anything in Congress. I'd started sriting this before Jane chimed in so I think I'll just add it as is. My thoughts a re still a jumble.

slb2 said:

... I know that I often prefer to address issues of chaos rather than issues of need. I happen to have a story to write, but with no deadline on it, I'm just letting it slide. I'm waiting for something exciting to appear so that I can dash off a nice line about the latest musician or artist or whatever, rather than write this (boring) 1000 word article about publishing.
Thanks, slb2, you've found a place to take a bite out of this huge topic. Procrastinators will all recognize your avoiding the boring essay. Despite what Nisbet said, boring is still boring, non?
The boring things that need to be addressed...are not addressed in the same way that more "exciting" issues are. War, drugs, atomic detonation come to mind. Or Anna Nicole, Michael Jackson, the murder of JonBenet. I try not to have a tabloid mind, but you can't turn on the news without having that appetite teased. The other night a newscaster quoted Samuel Johnson's "Nothing focuses the mind like a hanging" and I had to laugh. No one is entirely above the attraction to drama. Maybe curiosity is the instinct and it's shared by all animals.

I think I should stay out of these current events threads, though. I'm too intuitive without substance. It's all touchy-feely with me, forget the hard, cold realities.

None of us would equate intuitive with lack of substance.

[slb2]

slb2 said:

None of us would equate intuitive with lack of substance.

I wonder if you are in the minority with your thoughts here, gk? I know one person who thinks that intuitiveness is like a bucket made of swiss cheese.

[rogesgallery]

As I have said in previous posts "Technology is advancing far faster than our sociology" I still see no reasonable solution to that lag. Technology is inextricably tied to the strength of the dollar and the dollar has become the gage as to the strength of our sociology and the conflict between these tangable and intangable forces have come to drive politics without regard for the long term social outcome. Immediate gratification has become a goal without rational consideration for future generations. Education has become a means for one to add up columns on a balance sheet with little attention to philosophical thought.

I see this boredome factor every time I try to start a conversation on social alternatives. Instead of an argument as to the merits of the current system I get a blank stare. I wonder if it is boredom, lazyness, or an ingrained fear of the sacrifice that change requires? Or is it just an overriding indocrination inherently embedded by soundbites from the founding documents.

[joew]

rogesgallery said:

As I have said in previous posts "Technology is advancing far faster than our sociology" I still see no reasonable solution to that lag. Technology is inextricably tied to the strength of the dollar and the dollar has become the gage as to the strength of our sociology and the conflict between these tangable and intangable forces have come to drive politics without regard for the long term social outcome. Immediate gratification has become a goal without rational consideration for future generations. Education has become a means for one to add up columns on a balance sheet with little attention to philosophical thought.

I see this boredome factor every time I try to start a conversation on social alternatives. Instead of an argument as to the merits of the current system I get a blank stare. I wonder if it is boredom, lazyness, or an ingrained fear of the sacrifice that change requires? Or is it just an overriding indocrination inherently embedded by soundbites from the founding documents.

I'm not sure I completely understand you, roges, but what I do understand, I basically agree with. We have not developed societal rules for dealing with all the possibilities. So the rule-by-default becomes, "If it is possible to do it, it is okay to do it if you want to."

I'm off on a bit of a tangent from the original topic, but I'll bring it back by saying that another cure for boredom is new technology.

[rogesgallery]

I'm not sure that I understand the topic of the thread. Is it: Are we bored as a society, as voters, or are the candidates bored or just boring? Has the status quo and campain rhetoric become boring?

It certainly can't be as George Will describes it ("Mankinds nervous system developed during millions of dangerous years") since, accordindg to the religious right, the sabertoothed tiger never had the oppourtunity to chase man in that he ("the Sabertoothed tiger ect.")was extinct when god plopped man upon the formerly nonexistant earth. The belief in this as the history of earth is the basis for creation and one of the largest voting blocks in America. How, I ask, can we get bored when faced with a paradox such as that?

Though, The Bones of the Prophet VS. The Bones of the Tiger, will come along later in the campaign, it serves as a point of anticipation which in itself should stave off boredom.

I have to respectfully disagree with Wills assessment of the relavence of Nissbetts theory of societal boredom in that recent history indicates that society suffers from long term memory loss, ie. the lessons of Vietnam lost in the period of one generation past. But maybe that is just selective memory loss.

What I do agree with is that we are discarding some very viable and intuitive candidates for the cost of todays campaigns.

As to intuition: It is some times better to pick ones way slowly through the holes of the swiss cheese and come up at the other end with a knowledge of where you've been than to burrow through a block of cheddar not knowing where you'll come out.

Joe? We have invited a new technology to serve as entertainment in the voting and campaign process it's called Electronic voting. I think it will serve to stave off boredom and waste resources for years to come.

[booklady]

slb2 said:

slb2 said:

None of us would equate intuitive with lack of substance.

I wonder if you are in the minority with your thoughts here, gk? I know one person who thinks that intuitiveness is like a bucket made of swiss cheese.

I'm sorry to hear that, since it's a thinking quality that I try very hard to get my students to do.

[gailkate]

Intuitives are a bit like psychics in that we can't always explain what we know. I think that's why this thread is so hard to pin down. It's a jumble of threads all mixed together and then left out in the rain, so we're having trouble teasing them apart. Worse, we're not sure we want to because the connections in the jumble are important.