My friend JR Atwood recently posted about the synchronous increase in American waistlines, and decrease in American intellect.
He was responding to an article by David Rock, called “Are Our Minds Going the Way of Our Waists?“
David’s point is that new technologies are providing distractions (mental calories) in much the same way that industrial agriculture has provided physical calories – in abundance, and with little concern for quality or nutritive value.
Are we becoming fat-heads?
In the end, David asks us to consider evaluating new technologies for their effect, before embracing them wholeheartedly.
While it’s a useful exercise to do personally, no group will ever do this, and if they do, they will never successfully enact changes to behavior based on their findings.
The nature of life is to expand. People will always seek the newer, better, faster, crazier thing out there. Depending, I think, on how their culture defines those terms.
What “causes” obesity? Is it simply “overeating,” or “an overabundance of cheap calories?”
I don’t think so. Many “indigenous” peoples throughout history have had access to an overabundance of cheap calories all the time (fruits, grains, etc.), yet didn’t tend toward obesity.
Similarly, what causes “fat-headedness?” Is it the availability of blogs, tweets, commercial television, etc.?
While I can’t think of an historical corollary here (a time when information was overabundant), there’s probably one to be had – and one where the individuals didn’t turn into snippet-junkies, but used that abundance of information to create wonderful new things. Maybe the Renaissance, following Gutenberg’s printing press, would be a good comparison.
The common denominator underlying these attitudes or approaches – the things that guide action – is the cultural context that the individual identifies with.
Identifies with – not that they are “within.” There are sub-cultures within every larger culture, and there are “iconoclasts” within every culture – people who do not go along with the larger push of that culture.
The distribution of individuals’ cultural-adherence within their culture probably follows the bell curve. Most people most likely tend to follow the status quo within the culture (hence the existence of the culture…if they didn’t, it wouldn’t exist!), and then there are people on either end of the spectrum, fewer and fewer the further away you get from the culture’s main mores and values.
Most of the modern “healthcare debate” fascinates me for precisely this reason. None of it addresses the creation of a culture of physical health.
Why is that? I asked this recently, following another author’s lead. Why is America terrified of physical education?
I’m not sure what the answer is to that question.
When you consider the power of culture, however, it becomes clear that any other action, any action that doesn’t seek to create a culture of physical health/education, is merely lip-service…it’s just talk.
Examples of cultures that valued physical strength, health, or education (in an “external” fashion…cultures that valued the above in an “internal” fashion are even more numerous, but because they never explicitly stated their mores with regard to the subject, it’s much more difficult to pinpoint why they valued physical health, etc.):
- Ancient Greece
- Ancient Rome (pre-Republic)
- Sparta
- Viking culture
- Soviet culture
These are mostly totalitarian-type cultures. Or at least, cultures that demand a high degree of self-sufficiency from their populace.
Is there a link? Does “Democracy” breed fatness?
I’m interested to find out.
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