My education has recently blessed me with one of those discoveries that serve as shining examples of why the pursuit of knowledge is such a noble and joyful endeavor. I was provided with a formal, academic way to discuss what I had always been aware of: the tendency of those with bias, partisan or ideological, to only hear what they want to hear. I always referred to this phenomenon as one’s “filter” — the strainer that all knowledge goes through so it conforms nicely to one’s ideological outlook and worldview. One day, in a sweltering classroom during summer session, a professor informed me that there is a political science term for this: the “perceptual screen.”
As the professor elucidated the nature of the perceptual screen, I could feel my blood temperature rising and words longing to be uttered rising in my throat. His description was amusing and clear: We consciously and subconsciously block out undesirable information that conflicts with our ideological and partisan beliefs, just as “Star Trek” defense shields protect against undesirable photon torpedoes. If the information does make it past the shield, the screen interprets it in a way that strips it of legitimacy. I was impelled to raise my hand simply to say, as if anyone really cared to hear, that I just thought this was horrible — that I was acutely aware of the existence of the perceptual screen and that the worse part was I knew I had one myself, and find myself in constant conflict without it.
“Perceptual screen” is basically a fancy name for one of the most unfortunate aspects of mankind. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake — the quest for information purely to discover the nature of one’s reality — is a concept that has historically been relegated to the few. People have an instinctive need to believe in certain things and hold a few rock-hard convictions. This is natural and understandable — we all need to believe in something.
But when belief creates blindness to the point of ideological demagoguery, and when people stop trying to balance their perceptions with pure information, it cannot help but make me regret that our culture teaches us to pursue truth and information not for its own sake, but for the reinforcement of our beliefs.
Many might think that this is just the way people are, the way they will always be, and that it contributes to the diversity of opinion.
This may be true. But there are many examples nonetheless of the extreme dangers of our perceptual screens. Case in point: Perhaps President George W. Bush’s main shortcoming is not an extreme elitist strain or a willingness to lie or distort evidence, but a Teflon-coated perceptional screen that caused him to disregard evidence contrary to the idea that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. This led to what is probably an unnecessary (if not immoral) war, one that Americans will be paying for dearly for generations to come — and maybe all because the president could not see past his perceptual screen, knowing only the black and white view of the world he believed in. This characteristic of our current president greatly impairs his judgment; even if his devotion to his convictions are admirable, it is not always beneficial.
On the other side of the spectrum, there are figures like author and filmmaker Michael Moore, people who will not accept the possibility that they are wrong, even when presented with evidence to the contrary. Moore serves an important role in the societal process by providing passionate criticism and opposition to the status quo, but he does so in a way almost totally devoid of critical thought and designed to appeal to the simpler, primitive nature of humanity. In doing so, he may further his cause, but not without making the American populace collectively more shallow and simple-minded along the way.
The attempt to digest information in an honest and untainted way is one of the most important contributions that an individual can make to a society. Unfortunately, our culture shows no sign of moving in that direction. Studies show that the proportion of true independents there are in this country (as opposed to how many simply say they are independent while voting the same as partisans) has remained virtually the same. And thus it has probably been throughout all history.
I have no grand dreams for humanity, and things will most likely continue as they have. After all, people should always have beliefs and hold fundamental values. However, such things do not have to dictate the digestion of any and all information. They are guidelines of how to live one’s life, but they should not be traffic cops regulating what one is allowed to see and think. The pursuit of knowledge and truth for its own sake, and the discoveries it can yield, are worth a thousand clever documentary films or stump speeches reinforcing what you already are programmed to believe.
