43
Perceptual Shutdown And the Future of America
"Progress is possible only when people believe in the possibilities of
growth and change. Races or tribes die out not just when they are conquered
and suppressed but when they accept their defeated condition, become
despairing, and lose their excitement about the future."
Norman Cousins
Americans threatened by foreign terrorism, battered by ubiquitous
crime, victimized by downward mobility, and menaced by the decline of
American industry, are trying to fight back. The average breadwinner's
workweek has gone up from 41 hours to 49,107 and the run-of-the-mill family
now has two working parents. Yet despite these adaptations, somewhere
deep in the back of their minds Americans feel trapped. They sense they are
being pummeled by forces over which they have no power.
As we've seen earlier in this book, a strange thing happens when
humans and other animals are cornered by the uncontrollable. Their
perceptions shut down, their thoughts grow more clouded, and they have a
harder time generating new solutions to their problems. The outlines of this
perceptual shutdown were revealed by an extensive series of experiments we
encountered a while back, experiments which have become recognized as
classics. In a typical version, two rats are placed in cages next to each other.
The cage floors can be electrified--producing a painful shock on the rodents'
feet. In one cage is a bar the rat can press to turn off the floor's electrical
shock. In the cage next door, there is no such convenient turn-off switch.
Both floors, however, are on the same electrical circuit. When the electricity
shuts off in the floor of one cage, it shuts off in the other as well.
When they're first put into the cages, the two rats go about their
business--scratching, preening, sniffing for food. Soon, the first shock hits.
Both rats jump, startled. They race around their cages, searching for relief.
<< < GO > >>