When the Roman Empire collapsed, one of the causes cited by Gibbon was increasing religiosity, which Gibbon viewed as a tendency towards superstition. Under this theory, people become unduly absorbed in religion and superstition, and shirked the duties of life, allowing the civilization to collapse. They immersed themselves in fantasy, and as they did, Rome collapsed. What if these theorists got it wrong, and a retreat into fantasy wasn’t a cause, but a symptom of the approach of K?
One thing I am struck by today, is the amount of fantasy in our culture. I have seen at least two TV shows now, totally based on fairy tales happening in modern life, complete with Princes and monsters and witches. I actually watch Grimm, being a Silas Wier Mitchell fan.
Young adult TV seems to be all about life as a young Vampire/Demon/Ghost-hunter/Werewolf/Wizard/Superhero/etc. We even have a Zombie Apocalypse meme in our society, with real gun companies making real Zombie-killing guns, complete with chainsaw bayonets (and selling them for real gun prices), even though their tactical utility in anything but a David Arquette comedy/monster-movie would be debatable. This is a pretty significant cultural change, from TV which used to be mostly real-life police procedurals, family sitcoms, and the occasional Sci-fi fantasy of what might be someday.
One of the most insightful tweets I have seen was by Pax Dickinson? (@paxdickinson), where he said, “My zombie fad theory is that it lets hipsters ironically prepare for civilizational collapse without being uncool militia-type worriers.”
I see bad times ahead. Deep down, I know this pleasant ride, with no harshness, can’t last much longer. I am an aggressive guy, and I know I’ll be fine, as will those close to me. But I still find this perception of impending economic failure deeply disturbing. Suppose I had an amygdala which was so averse to anything negative that I couldn’t bring myself to own a gun? How would my brain deal with that nagging perception, that things were about to get bad?
What if escapism is a natural phenomenon in a collapsing society, whereby those with weak, easily overwhelmed amygdalae, begin to prepare themselves for amygdala-stimulating events by imagining them as safe fantasies which could never happen in real life. Maybe this is a defensive psychological strategy.
In Rome, Romans looked to religion and angels and demons, because to look out the window, and realize the Barbarians were coming and their whole civilization was about to collapse was just too much to face. Today, our youth focus on vampires, werewolves, and zombies because the thought of a real economic collapse, followed by one day encountering a flashmob of armed indigent-savages on the way to the grocery store is just too much to bear.
I keep talking about weird stuff on this site. Ways you can control people’s thoughts and behaviors, if you understand the amygdala and dopamine. But I believe in it – fully. I have seen it firsthand, and it is so bizarre, I still feel an indescribable awe – like I can’t believe it. I began by seeing the most extreme example possible – a devastating blow creating a full on meltdown. But as time goes on, I see how a subtle pressure can radically alter perception, and change how people view the world.
In your brain is a structure which can actually guide your thought processes. It gets first dibs on analyzing everything you encounter, before any other structure, and labels the information, good, bad, ignore, flee, or too painful to consider. It can help you embrace one idea, or reject another out of hand. It can flag an unimportant idea as important, and make you focus on it, and it can not flag an unimportant idea, and make you ignore it. It can actually create a condition of denial, by physically not allowing your brain to see a vitally important reality, or make you obsess over something meaningless.
Pick pockets will apply an innocent amygdala stimulant or stimulants, to divert attention from the less innocent stimuli of your wallet sliding out of your pocket, while hypnotists will eliminate all extraneous amygdala stimulants through peaceful visualization techniques, to focus your amygdala and mind completely on a single specific suggestion – making it reality.
Even more amazing, it is a structure which can extend the reach of its physiological effects to every facet of human bodily function, literally paralyzing your body with fear, altering your digestion, preventing logical thought, tying your tongue, changing how your body moves, altering the expression on your face, and even dictating how open to an argument you are – all without any conscious, volitional input from you, as a person. Adolph Hitler’s amygdala became so overwhelmed during the fighting of WWI that his brain actually shut off his vision, and left him blinded, to stop the agony.
It is an enormously powerful structure, and understanding it is the key to understanding the human condition, from personal interactions, to the presentation of ideas, to the cultural changes one sees as a society transitions between r and K. So this post is an article on Rome, and psychology, and the collapse, but it is also another piece in the amygdala puzzle, fleshing out another nuance on how it can shape thought, preference, and behavior – especially among the masses, who are different psychologically, from the average Conservative/Libertarian.
