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Thought Is a Luxury

It’s easy for you and I to sit here and deliberate the deeper what-ifs of life and spend time discovering who we are and what we want to be. For me at least, studying your own mind and becoming more creative and spiritual people is, before diving deeper, an integral part of human existence. Yet, it hasn’t always been this way and in fact, it’s still not this way for many people.

The title of this article comes directly from “The Quiet American”, one of my favourite books. “Thought’s a luxury” says Thomas Fowler while he and Pyle are sat hiding in a watchtower, under attack.

Fowler asks rhetorically, “Do you think the peasant sits and thinks of God and Democracy when he gets inside his mud hut at night?”.

Without basic needs met, thoughts other than where their next meal will come from and whether or not their house will hold up in the weather cannot be explored. The minds of people who have “real problems” to solve cannot be wasted on mere thought experiments and philosophical questions.

The ability to think, and by that I mean really put your mind to things beyond basic needs, is in fact a luxury that few people can afford.

A practical way to visualise this is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This is a theory developed to put human needs into a hierarchy in order of importance. The idea behind this pyramid is that the before moving onto the next stage, the previous stage must be mostly, if not fully, satisfied.

This suggests that thought, labelled “cognitive needs”, is very far up on the list of things that need to be fulfilled. It being the fifth step up the pyramid further proves that you and I are quite privileged in being able to satisfy our curiosity for information.

While it may be debated whether or not this is an entirely accurate way to judge an entire species, in this case at least, the fundamental idea of other things being substantially more important than curiosity and cognitive fulfilment is very clear.

Moreover, Fowler presents the idea that bravery without consequence is just another hypothetical experiment.

“‘With a return ticket courage becomes an intellectual exercise, like a monk’s flagellation.”

He compares courage with the comfort of a return ticket to a monk who inflicts pain on himself only to practice discipline. In both scenarios, the repercussions are limited to how far both are willing to go before any real danger arises - before they are forced to actually start worrying about more fundamental needs such as safety.

So, why then, do we take for granted our ability to think deeper in modern, Western society?

While you could put it down to a general lack of gratitude, which is in part true, I think there is something deeper behind this.

Because, for most people at least, the first three to four stages of Maslow’s Hierarchy are constantly met, we no longer have to think about them and being in a state of cognitive freedom is the norm.

Every average middle-class person in Western countries has the privilege of having food and drink readily available, adequate shelter, belonging to a family and some form of self-importance whether that be in the workplace or otherwise. Looking at it, many would argue that’s the bare minimum average life but I’ve just named the bottom half of the pyramid.

Actually, many of our day-to-day problems now stem from abundance. Obesity, alcoholism and social media addiction all begin from having too much of something. No longer do we need to forage and hunt for food, instead we must refrain from eating it.

But, I digress. A large proportion of the world is now at a stage in which they can readily think for themselves and solve great problems.

Since the beginning of the 1900s, communication technology has advanced from the steam locomotive to aeroplanes and now to the internet where you can send information across the globe in seconds. Had the masses not evolved beyond hunter-gatherer tribes, we wouldn’t even have the concept of an invention that benefits everybody.

The question of whether or not giving everyone the ability to create and think big is a net positive thing or not (insert your preferred war or regime here) is a much bigger question. Nonetheless, there have been near infinite amounts of beneficial creations such as the aforementioned; everything has its downsides.

Finally, I believe the abundance of thought directly corresponds with the decline of religion in western countries. Now, this seems like a very bold claim as well as entirely contradictory to everything I’ve just said but, at least to me, it adds up.

Since the end of World War 2, countries that were once almost exclusively Christian, including the USA, Western Europe and Australia are now converting to secularism. Take the UK for example, for the first time ever, in 2021, less than half of the population described themselves as Christian (down 13% from 2011). I think it’s important to note that not only is Christianity decreasing but the amount of non-religious people is increasing - an increase of 12% from 2011 to 2021.

So why is this? If more people have their physiological needs met then surely more people will turn to discovering spirituality in God.

In the past, religion was something people would rely on for hope. The debate of whether or not God was real was little considered due to people spending their time and mental energy on their biological needs. Church was attended almost as an obligation and because it was the centre of community.

Give people more time to think and put them in a society that is more inter-connected than ever and they start to question the existence of this seemingly nonsensical being they worship and realise they can communicate with anyone over the phone in seconds, lessening the need for a central community hub entirely. God has been replaced with the modern idols of consumerism, promiscuous sexual interactions and quick-dopamine short form entertainment.

Perhaps, in a full-circle sort of way, thought will once again become for only the most privileged as modern conveniences and indulgences consume the minds of the masses.

Sources, references and further readings:

#Thought #Ignorance #Society