The Walling of Awareness

"The Walling of Awareness" is an excerpt from Jerry Mander's book Four Arguments for the Elimination of TV. His book as a whole, as described in Literature and the Environment's summary of Mander, is a bold criticism of technology and the artificial environments humans have created for themselves. According to him, becoming void of all natural influences that our world provides is "the great danger of the modern age."

The first point Mander brings to the audience's attention is the fact that modern society has developed a mistrust in natural observation. To do so, he highlights five studies reported on by the New York Times that make this mistrust blatantly obvious. I would describe the manner in which he presents this point as comically depressing (oxymoron?). Here is one example he gives: "A fourth project deomstrated that the juice of fresh oranges has more nutritional value than either canned or frozen orange juice." It seems that Mander's intention is to satirically critic how skeptical society has become, and highlight the man's ignorance of the fact that he is "one of many interlocking parts of the worldwide ecosystem."

The next main point that Mander transitions into is that a human's environment, as it stands, is almost 100 percent artificial, a fact that is detrimental to society's ability to rely on and grow from natural observation. He supports this point by through several examples, some of which are personal accounts and others that are more general. Mander's son once asked him "who built Mt. Tamalpais?" Such an inquiry seemed silly to Mander at first, but then he got to thinking about the environment children and adults are exposed to. How is anyone supposed to know worldly truths if everything they encounter is man made? Accordingly, it seems logical that a child would assume that mountains are man made like the buildings around him, or that organges grow in grocery stores like the rest of the food he and his mother shop for. The way that the world has developed causes individuals to loose all personal awareness. They only what they experience, which for the most part are objects, actions, and ecounters that are all man made.

One final point that Mander makes in this excerpt from his book is that our senses, which essentially define our existence, are being deprived by the artificially environment man has created. The example that he gives which carries the most weight is the current office setup. The white walls, the consistent lighting, the controlled temperature, and even the artificially produced white noise is all an attempt to keep employees focused and productive. While increasing human efficiencies, these office characteristics are desensitizing humans to stimulus. The senses are "abilities that have a range of capacity," for example our eyes naturally adjust to variations in light. To neglect to vary stimulus to the senses is to destroy the senses. The end result: humans live a mental life instead of a physical life because "mental images are the only stimulation."
The issues addressed in this portion of Mander’s book, and presumably the whole thing, were pretty shocking. He really brought to my attention the fact that most of the things I know about the world are either A.) observations of things that were manmade or B.) things about the natural world that were told to me through manmade institutions. The most horrifying part of this pieced of literature was the reference to the extreme form of sensual deprivation where an individual is in a temperature controlled bag, in water, blindfolded, with only air. The fact that one could go absolutely mad from a lack of stimulus is really scary. Obviously we are never really exposed to such extreme conditions even if we do work in an office building, but the example still has a powerful impact. After reading this piece, I intend to make an effort to increase both my natural observation and my variety of sensual stimulus. Hopefully such goals will be feasible.

Having combined all of these key points, it seems clear that the big idea is that man has tainted his own environment and thus is suffering the consequences of lacking natural observation. For me, the quote that really captures the essence of this article is this: "in less than four generations out of an estimated one hundred thousand, we have fundamentally changed the nature of our interaction with the planet." This is a pretty powerful statement, but it is indeed the big idea that Mander wants to convey. For me personally, this is pretty powerful. What this implies is that I am experiencing a world that is drastically different than the world that nine hundred ninety nine thousand, nine hundred ninety six generations of my ancestors experienced. Although shocking, it really makes sense. Their world was characterized by objects, events, and creatures that devoloped naturally over millions of years; our world is characterized by objects, events, and creatures that have been hastily man made in the past one hundred. What baffles me is that up until now, such a concept had never been brought to my attention prior to this. I had never stopped to think about how I had never seen an apple growing on a tree, and thus I just trusted what they told me in the textbooks. This ignorance is scary; do I not no one thing first hand from nature?

Mander's message is definitely meaningful. It brings awareness to seemingly endless influence that man made things have on man, and the absolute lack of natural observation that exists in society. I found Mander's message very similar to something we read in my Intro to Mechanical Engineering Class. The interesting thing though is that the book we read, called The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, argued the exact opposite. This text talked about how factory work and the industrial revolution created much more fulfilling work for people than hunting and gathering or farming. Its claim was that technology gives people purpose, and the production of new technology is what people really want to do with there time. If he had written this book/article earlier, Mander would have been considered what the author of The Existential Pleasures of Engineering referred to as an "anti-technologist" or one who believes that the push for new technology is ruing our society. The authors argument in this textbook is that technology provides many positive things: fulfilling work, following up on God's request to subdue the earth, and creating jobs and wealth for those in need. It would be quite interesting what the authors of each of these respective books would have to say to each other.

Despite the fact that his meaning is clear, its applicability is more of a gray area. There is little to no chance that Mander's ideals will ever be adopted by the majority of mankind. With that being said, it is important to note that breaking away from the conventional norms would require societal cooperation. One could adopt a lifestyle free of "Sensory Depriving Environments" and "Mediated Environments" but they would be presumably be solitary, relationship-less, and deprived. Plus, man is a social creature and thus would need human to human interactions that would be impossible while living on your own. In my opinion, the best way to apply this material to my life would be selectively. For instance, speak out against an office setting where all aspects of design deprive your sense. Also, make an extra effort to observe nature and do your best to share such experiences with others (especially your kids). This way one would not need to be ostracized from the rest of society, but would still be in tune with the natural world as best as he or she could.

Here are my questions for Mander, or just in general:

So what is the solution? How do either overcome these man made obstacles? Or do we have to start all over again?

You fight against widely accepted practices and technologies, and yet you enjoy coffee that was undoubtedly made by a machine? And you typed this book on a computer?

Is there a possibility of being observant of nature without disowning man's creations?