“Early zoologists classified as mammals those that suckle their young and as reptiles those that lay eggs. Then a duck-billed platypus was discovered in Australia laying eggs like a perfect reptile and then, when they hatched, suckling the infant platypi like a perfect mammal.
The discovery created quite a sensation. What an enigma! it was exclaimed. What a mystery! What a marvel of nature! When the first stuffed specimens reached England from Australia around the end of the eighteenth century they were thought to be fakes made by sticking together bits of different animals. Even today you still see occasional articles in nature magazines asking, ‘Why does this paradox of nature exist?’
The answer is: it doesn’t. The platypus isn’t doing anything paradoxical at all. It isn’t having any problems. Platypi have been laying eggs and suckling their young for millions of years before there were any zoologists to come along and declare it illegal. The real mystery, the real enigma, is how mature, objective, trained scientific observers can blame their own goof on a poor innocent platypus.
Zoologists, to cover up their problem, had to invent a patch. They created a new order, monotremata, that includes the platypus, the spiny anteater, and that’s it. This is like a nation consisting of two people …
The world come to us in an endless stream of puzzle pieces that we would like to think all fit together somehow, but that in fact never do. There are always some pieces like platypi that don’t fit and we can either ignore these pieces or we can give them silly explanations or we can take the whole puzzle apart and try other ways of assembling it that will include more of them.” — Robert Pirsig, Lila
Growing up, we’re taught to put everything in a black or white box. You do what you’re told — white box. He doesn’t — black box. You get good grades — white box. He doesn’t — black box.
It’s fine for a while, until the boxes overlap.
Wait, why did Jimmy get a good job even though he didn’t go to college, he didn’t do what he was told?
He’s an exception.
Fine. He gets his own box; a few others can join.
Every experience we have, the overlaps multiply. For me, travel has made those overlaps multiply exponentially.
You grow up a good, upper-middle-class white American. It’s simple enough. Capitalism is good. You study in Denmark. Your Economics teacher walks in one day, smiling. I just paid my taxes — 60% of my income!
More overlap. Hm, put him in his own box. That would never work at home. Maybe.
You live in Spain for a month. Youth unemployment is 42.6%. But life seems good. But then you visit a gentrified neighborhood, and maybe life isn’t good. But it also is.
We have unlimited boxes. Metaphors don’t weigh anything, duh. But they’re heavy on our minds.
Putting an idea or experience in a box means we don’t have to deal with it.
What if we thought beyond the box? Nah, that’d never stick.
We can deny reality, experience, empiricism — under the guise of religion, logic, even “science.”
The problem isn’t with those things themselves — it’s with us and our boxes.
In fancy terms, we walk around and let confirmation bias take over when confronted with cognitive dissonance. In less fancy terms, Western culture teaches us to explain the unexplained with limited, binary concepts.
In plain terms, we reject what we can’t yet explain.
The easiest way to feel “smart” is to be close-minded as fuck. When we sense an opening, shut that baby the hell up and go back to our comfortable circle of Yes Men.
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