Discourse 30: Entertainment as Evolutionary Microtrauma

Microdosing and the Iron Law of Cause and Effect

Elsewhere I have said that too often we only consider the human being as a political creature without considering that we are in fact a biological machine full of physiological algorithms of feedback systems that are constantly in a state of flux due to our stimulus-response mechanics. During that discourse, I was referring to natural law which I posit is a biological phenomenon which speaks to its universality among our species. Natural law, while reinforced by aspects of various cultures, arrives within us independently of our human social constructs and arguably is the source of them.

In this brief essay I am not addressing the metaphysics of natural law nor am I going to include them in this observation of the consequences of our entertainment. This does not mean I do not believe such things are involved nor am I implying in this essay that humans are merely a product of our stimulus-response mechanisms. However, in our public discourse we often forget that we are in fact living within an animal body that is not only subjected to the laws of nature, but that it adapts to changes in its environment in real time as well over a period of generations. Changes we do not have conscious control over.

Before moving forward, I want to point out that it is our ability to reason that makes the discernment between the real and the unreal, between entertainment and our real life. In fact, the best entertainment acts as a form of simulacra, triggering the response with an artificial stimulus, albeit to a less pronounced degree. Important to note- our involuntary body and mind are not capable of delineating the artificial from the authentic.

I do not feel that it takes any more than a short paragraph to point out to the reader that both the quantity and velocity of our entertainment have drastically changed. Furthermore, the technology of entertainment, as well of that as culture has been used towards various agendas. At some point we crossed a threshold where such exposure began to make not only cultural changes, but incremental evolutionary ones. How much of this was intentional is a good discussion but is not the point of this essay. The point here is to deliver an idea.

Entertainment can produce the full spectrum of human phenomenology. The more immersed we are the more profound the experience. When we are watching, we experience the environment- albeit often digitally- but to a degree emotionally and visually just as the characters are experiencing. Dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and various endorphins can be released along with other hormones and neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine and cortisol. When these signaling agents are released, they trigger cascades of up and down regulation of receptor quantity, as well as altering our neuroplasticity. As mentioned, it is not our animal body but our reason that draws the distinction, which still does not prevent the innate reflexes of the body from engaging. Being aware of our reality through reason we can lesson the degree of this reflex due to our perception of the simulacra, much in the way we can be spooked by a scary movie or briefly saddened by a character’s death- only to return to stasis via the knowledge of it being entertainment. Yet, the body remembers. While you do not think you are going to die watching a horror movie, part of you indeed thinks it is possible- even if just for a moment. This “microdosing” has effects that I am not sure we understand, at least those of us engaging in the public square.

Has this made us more emotionally transient due to a numbing phenomenon? Could this be why general empathy has been in decline for decades and the demon of Acedia runs rampant over society with the plague of apathy? With the constant cycling limbic triggers, have we become desensitized to authenticity because we exist in ambient artificiality? Naturally, the hyperreality adds another layer to this phenomenon, but humans are changing on a level greater than the individual. Could this have something to do with autism as well- a retreat away from being over stimulated? To that last question, I do not know. There are other factors at play, but our general psychology has indeed shifted.

I cannot help but wonder, with all of this noise, what are we missing in the silence? Is this why so many are being beckoned by solitude? Does this interfere with our spirit hearing the word of God carrying on the wind? While I am drifting into questions regarding metaphysics- the point remains. We are becoming spiritually numb, and the cause might not just be our lifestyle choices but evolutionary microtrauma.

Beyond entertainment, the news media does the same thing by feeding us fear and panic for its own purposes. Society sits in an ambient fog of pleasure- pain, our individual survival mechanisms turned so high we find ourselves most often contending with crippling anxiety as a general feeling. To a degree this is why bread and circus are so effective for the state, it numbs and placates our spirit against revolution- but I suspect it is so very much more. If the outside world reflects our inner one, we do not need to look past our architecture to see that we have become almost formless, sanitized, colorless.

I am not against entertainment, on the contrary. Our human story depends upon it, as does organic culture. Rather, I think we should consider what we expose ourselves to and the effects that it can have not only on our individual psyche, but our species at large. Many will quickly agree that porn has such an effect, where the simulacra numbs a person towards real connections because they have grown limited or incapable of feeling a certain way. Yet, we never consider that it is not just porn that effects our spirit, but everything we are exposed to on a daily basis. Epictetus said:

“If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to exist”.

Perhaps that is where we are now, everyone is chasing pleasure not because they cannot find it, but because they no longer are capable of authentically perceiving it.

My advice, slow down. Step away. Practice moderation. It would probably be best if we all just unplugged, but alas- we are all stuck in the quicksand of modernity. With the promises of progress, we dove into the deep end of the pool before we tested the water.