Claiming Our Creative Powers

(...because if we don't, who will?)

Photo Cliff Scholz

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about a quote from Noam Chomsky. Here it is:

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”¹

One would do well to recite this as a kind of invocation prior to exposing one’s self to any news media whatsoever.

In light of it, the question as we watch or listen then becomes: What is not being said? And: Where is the camera not pointing and what entire story is being left unreported? If we are not asking such questions, I would suggest, we are not being entirely responsible. Instead, we’re most likely just falling into a convenient, media-induced trance. To the extent that we do, we give our power away.

Reporting is all about what’s included and what isn’t. Choices are being made about what gets talked about and what images are shared, and these choices are not random. From these thin slices of reality — be they lines of type, photographs or snippets of video — we construct within ourselves an idea of what’s going on in the world and how to think about it. In this way, we lend to these narratives our creative power. That’s why they are pushed so hard at us; it’s to ensure that we do, or at least that enough of us do that it changes reality for everyone regardless of our level of buy-in.

What’s going on at the US southern border provides an excellent illustration of the dynamic described in Chomsky’s quote. And I don’t just mean what’s happening there at this particular moment — any moment will do. My observation is that reporting tends to focus on conditions at the border itself and official responses to those conditions, with hardly anyone broadening the field of view to include meaningful context.

Can’t have people thinking, so it helps to keep the reporting intensely “current”. So, we are shown images of people crossing the river. And here are some images of folks crossing the desert. Never mind that we’re now 200 years into the Monroe Doctrine with all its various ramifications in this hemisphere. True, a little historical perspective might be helpful to our understanding. And that is precisely why it will not be included. What should be done about the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe at the border is the topic of “lively debate”. Anything deeper is not up for discussion. A look back in time reveals that both major parties have major blood on their hands in the region, so… no, we won’t talk about that. Thus the “presuppositions of the system” remain intact.

All of this is uncomfortable to think about. So there’s almost always an element of  complicity in our own propagandizing and the amnesia it so often requires of us. Fortunately, there is a pre-approved point of view shared by the “good” people on “our” side of the political spectrum, whichever side that happens to be. So we adopt that. It’s nice to feel like we belong, and to feel good about ourselves. Any residual uncomfortable feelings can be projected outward onto “them”. “They” are the problem. It’s also bothersome and painful to think too hard, so let’s not. We feel something for a minute or two, and perhaps incorporate a received opinion into our identity in case the topic comes up in conversation, but then, for heaven’s sakes, scroll on or change the channel. Isn’t there something good on?

No, my friends. The answer to that last question is: no. At this point it seems to me  that we’re literally better off looking out the window, given how our electronic screens circumscribe the scope of our vision and thinking in ways that our windows do not. And I need to remind myself of this all the time: look out the window. Or better yet, go outdoors. The demonstrable fact is that our daily exposure to flashing, talking screens subtly but very effectively works to define the terms of discussion, limit the range of acceptable ideation, and shape our ideas of what’s important and what’s normal. Eventually, as we take all of this in, these devices start to circumscribe our ideas of self. The only way I can justify participating in the online media landscape is the hope that I can offer an antidote to all the energy-thieving parasitism and poison out there.

That said, from the perspective of those who see “we, the people” as a problem to be managed and controlled, the proliferation of electronic screens is a good thing, since they do seem to work quite well. So if you’re wondering why we’re seeing a steady multiplication of such screens in all areas of life, from telephones to restaurants, medical offices and even gas pumps, perhaps there’s a clue.

I’ve often thought about how watching TV is like gathering with tribe members around an electronic fire to share stories. And, how unlike it is, also, since it’s so impersonal and anonymous compared with the traditional fire circle, where the lives of those sitting around the fire with us are at least somewhat bound together with our own. Despite this shortcoming, back in the 1990s when Mary and I used to walk around our neighborhood in Royal Oak, we’d see bluish lights flashing against closed living room curtains in home after home, indicating that, whatever else might be going on there, the TV was on, in a place central to those households. Now you can add computers into the mix, with everyone so excited to participate in the latest variation on the “compile-your-own-dossier-dot-com” business model. Oh joy: the television that watches us. Not that we weren’t warned it was coming. And people are so happy to participate. I suppose it makes us feel “modern”.  Captain Kirk had a flip phone, so we had been prepared for the advent of that technology also. We thought we’d be exploring strange new worlds. Turns out it looks a lot more like Brave New World, but what the heck. Even as dystopia bares its fangs, seems nobody wants to be left out or left behind.

“Oh, but it’s not all bad!” some will point out.

Of course not. We’re magical creatures, we humans.

For some reason, the image that keeps coming to me this morning is of a soldier opening an old-fashioned locket, inside of which is a photo of a sweetheart back home. The locket is small, the photograph inside it, even smaller. But from that image the soldier connects with something inside that gives strength to face the horrors of the battle ahead, or maybe the tedium, or the idiocy, or all of these things. Through that tiny image comes a recollection of the person, the relationship, the hope, and a reason to persevere. Perhaps a reason to live. And here I’m not trying to romanticize or justify war or frame it as an inevitable part of the human experience — I’ll leave that to our so-called news reporters. What I’m pointing out is that we humans have the capacity to look into a small thing like a photo in a locket and see something big, to hold a small object in our hands and be transported by it.

These are huge powers indeed. World-making powers. Reality-generating powers. And I hope this doesn’t come across as exaggerated, high-flown language. It’s easy to forget one’s creative powers when inhabiting a world we are actively structuring through our perception, moment by moment. We’re different the moment we open and engage with that locket, in whatever form that locket takes. And if we’re different, the world is different. Why do you suppose censorship is a tool of every despotic regime? Yes, let despots remember the day, but I’m certain they would greatly prefer that the rest of us hurry up and forget about it.

Whatever slips from our memory can also disappear from reality.

But once again, the larger point is: when we’re different, the world is different. This is key.

So let me give you some other examples besides the somewhat archaic image of a photograph in a locket. How about a book? Again: It’s basically flat. Open it, and we open ourselves up to it. As we do, it opens more deeply for us. Somehow, we construct a spacious experience from those flat pages. That’s what I mean by world-making powers. Then again, I’ve heard about how expert trackers can feel the mood and even intent of an animal being tracked merely by pressing their fingertips into a paw print, and possibly get information about the animal’s location. People are capable of many kinds of reading. Then again, here’s something perhaps more people can relate to: we hear the voice of someone we care about and connect through our feeling sense with the fullness of the physical presence from which that voice arises. And then we respond to that sound with our own fullness. We feel. Maybe we smile. Maybe poignant concern arises within us. Or maybe we’re reassured. But we are changed. And if you think about it, this is similar in important ways to the paw print example. Even if it’s a digitalized recorded voicemail playing through a tiny, tinny speaker in a handheld device, it moves us. Again, we take something that is thin, momentary, or fragmented, discover a world there, and bring it to a higher level of fullness and dimensionality.

Despite how amazing all this is, whatever our culture has normalized and thus sublimated, we take for granted. And it looks to me like some folks who think they have nothing better to do have correctly assessed the value of these fantastic powers and then sought the means to control, direct and subvert them, typically to their own benefit and to the detriment of others.

To a shocking extent, we go along with it. As Exhibit A, let me ask: What does it mean when everyone you see has basically the same “small object” in their hands these days? Wouldn’t it be a better world, a more interesting world, a richer and more creatively fulfilled world, if, rather than the ubiquitous data collection devices that we see people carrying around, if instead…oh, excuse me, hold on. Just had to check mine. A text came in from Mary about dinner… Deep breath here…

Okay let me start again: Wouldn’t it be a better world, a more interesting world, a richer and more creatively fulfilled world if, rather than these ubiquitous tracking and monitoring devices that people are so attached to and fascinated by these days, if instead, for example, one person you met was transported by a handful of feathers, another navigated inner landscapes via charcoal lines drawn on a nearby rock, yet a third and fourth divined messages from flowers and stones, and a fifth and sixth exchanged communications through hollow reeds?

Such are the possibilities, nearly universal among human societies for thousands of years.

And what’s the connection between modern propaganda, photo lockets and divination by stones? All of these rely on our power to open space and create intelligibility in our world, to fill in the missing pieces and make things real. Can we make a decision to deploy that energy more consciously? Lockets are for looking into, not living inside. Likewise, news narratives. Likewise, screens and printed pages. Yes, we can bring our multidimensional fullness to these things, but we should also be able to withdraw our attention and creative energy from anything we choose not to support. And that’s why I think it’s important for us to wake up to our creative powers, to acknowledge, honor and reclaim them, and make them our own again.

1. https://chomsky.info/commongood01/ Accessed Oct 7 2023.