The Theory of Familiarity

Greetings, and so sorry for the long absence. I plan to be updating this page much more often now. I have many ideas to share, as well as some stories. I hope that you will follow diligently and enjoy and maybe even be challenged. The following is the first in a set of essays which I have been working on. They may look intimidating, but my goal is to be as explicit as possible. Comments and discussion are not only welcome, but encouraged...

The Theory of Familiarity
(A Theory of Everything?)

So, what is this theory? For decades, physicists have searched desperately for a so-called "theory of everything", a unifying framework to explain the deepest mysteries of existence. These ideas are fraught with mathematics so complex that they have yet to even be developed. The "truth" seems to lie dormant, sleeping until the next brilliant light comes along to show the way, perhaps a new calculus must be invented. What small glimpses we have been able to catch of these possibilities are astounding and exciting, which makes them all the more tantalizing as we realize it may be decades before technology and the human mind develop enough to fully understand them. But fear not, dear reader. Your Humble Narrator is no mathematician, and this theory is not one of these. As later writings shall make clear, the following idea is more of an archaeological or anthropological analysis of the human condition.
Still, I admit, I have not answered the question at hand, but please, be patient. We shall make our way to it soon enough. The Theory of Familiarity is just that. It is a theory that I believe is immediately familiar to us, for lack of a better word. It is so basic and fundamental to our everyday existence that, once it is explained in the following pages, it will be instantly recognizable and at once comprehensible. Indeed, the very fact that it is so commonplace is what I believe makes this realization go unnoticed by most people. But, any good theory should be easily explainable to people. As Richard Feynman was fond of saying, it should be able to fit on the front of a T-shirt.
Furthermore, in no way would I feel confident in asserting that this realization will be a unique revelation to anyone. I doubt that I have stumbled upon a thing that no one else has ever "thunk up" before and that this is somehow an "original idea". In fact, the Theory can be seen to assert that there is no such thing that is Original in the true sense of the word, which is to say that it has somehow just popped into Existence with no discernible source. Nonetheless, I believe most of us do not immediately realize the full implications of this theory, and my purpose is to demonstrate that its reach is far indeed. As such, this should be seen merely as a stepping-stone, a foundation for other ideas later to come. There is a journey to be undertaken, but we must first come to the most basic and superficial realizations before we may really begin.
So, what is my T-shirt motto? Though posterity (if indeed, this idea catches on) will positively design a snazzier slogan, I'll start with this: "What we know is what we hold most dear". That's it. No earth-shattering, mind-blowing cryptic enigma of an axiom, at least not at this point. Surely, one can hardly argue with this idea. We love our friends more than strangers, we love our home more than somebody else's and, presumably, we love ourselves more than we love others (a point to which we shall return in another essay). This is simply an observation of fact, and yet, once we think about the matter a little deeper, and realize we can apply this principle further, we see that it can actually serve as explanation for our entire perception of the world.
For example, a small child can identify a circle, a square, a triangle. It doesn't matter if that circle is slightly elliptical, the square more of a rectangle or the triangle is scalene, isoceles or equilateral. At such a young age, these shapes all fit into the broad categories of basic shapes we have created in our short lifespans. Similarly with colors, we don't recognize if a shade is burnt sienna or periwinkle; it is brown or blue.
We learn by organizing things into categories called gestalts and distinguish them from other gestalts by the ways in which they differ. Initially, these are very rudimentary and only consider basic criteria for inclusion, but as we grow so too do our gestalts become more subtle and refined. We partition them off into smaller and smaller gestalts as we learn to distinguish less and less superficial characteristics that we had previously been ignorant of. In this way, we become more conscious of the world around us. Slowly, as we grow, we begin to see more. We live our early years in a state of constant awakening. Each day, we become more aware of this curious world in which we find ourselves. And because we find the world to be curious, we ourselves become curious and we ask constantly (as any exasperated parent can tell you): WHY? We wonder about things. We wonder why the sky is blue, the grass green and how in the world can one fat man in a flying sled visit every child on Earth in a single night. Many of these questions are difficult to answer, and often the answer is not what we wish it to be, but, by this process, we come to understand the world.
Unfortunately, what also happens is that we begin to cease questioning as we get older. Somehow, we unjustly gain a sense that we have come to know everything, as smug teenagers will boast. We can't exactly explain why the sky is blue (something about light refraction?) but we feel secure in just knowing that it is. It simply is. We stop questioning and learn to accept. Partly out of laziness and disinterest, partly because there are simply too many things vying for our attention and energy and partly because we are conditioned not to ask anymore, we stop wondering "why?". We understand it all.
This is a crucially important epoch of our development. It is when our opinions and ideologies are becoming cemented in us. Though it is often a time of great (and usually stupid) experimentation, the seeds have already been sown and we can hardly flee our roots. Already, our experiences have vastly shaped us and though we may appear alien to society as a whole, eventually our wild teenage ways will settle somewhere near 'normalcy'. Of course, it is important to remember that we are referring to our Western context here and that there are myriad other cultures with different ways of doing things. But, I, for one, would be willing to bet that they have similar analogues to this "John Hughes syndrome".
In any event, this is the period when our outlook on the world, our political views become first articulated. When we are younger, we form only a very basic view of "right" and "wrong",. This includes such broad conceptions as "Stealing is Wrong", "Killing is Bad", "Eat Your Veggies" and what-have-you, but as we are increasingly exposed to the "real world," we find that this black-and-white blurs into shades of grey. We learn that there are many subtleties and nuances to moral reasoning (what if the person is stealing to feed his impoverished family? or killing to defend himself?). Then the issue gets a bit more prickly. How are we to make sense of this roiling sea? Where does our sense of moral rightness come from at all? This is when we may refer to the theory of familiarity. In the first, our basic societal customs and norms have come from this, a concern for our own family and/or group. In primitive society, heaviest priority was placed on the welfare of the group. In a time when survival of the tribe was so tenuous, things that were unfamiliar were assumed to be dangerous and, therefore, to be avoided. All cultures of the world thus have similar injunctures against killing, lying, stealing, disobeying authority figures, et al. They have been progressively dressed up in the manner of the widely various tribes, but by and large, these basic codes remain the same at their core and can be distilled to these initial principles.
This group centered-ness gives rise both to compassion for our fellow man and an almost inescapable ethnocentrism. In the first, this certainly seems good as we feel concern for others and an aversion to their suffering. This makes us act in kind and considerate ways. But as we look at foreign cultures, and the similarities become less apparent, this feeling of goodwill becomes necessarily diminished. Though we may disagree passionately with human suffering and atrocity, rare (and unfortunate) is the person who can truly claim to be equally affected in this way. Who is this natural tzaddik who would feel just as sharply the death of some person whom they've never met living on the other side of the globe as they would their own mother or brother? As the language implies, we simply are not as familiar with this stranger, and indeed if they had never existed, in most cases, it would not have had the slightest effect on the outcome of our own lives. This principle applies similarly in broader cultural contexts as well. We feel the loss of American schoolchildren in senseless shootings and plane bombings. We find the slaughter of millions of Jews, Catholics, etc in the Holocaust hateful and loathesome because we know these people. They are our neighbors and members of our communities, and frankly, are within our sight on a daily basis. Therefore, their suffering seems more real to us. But we do not feel the tragedy of the Rape on Nanking or the brutal expulsion of the Huguenots from France in even remotely the same sense. If we are even aware of these crimes, obscure as they are to our common Western knowledge, we know these horrors were wrong; but as they are not as culturally salient, we do not carry their scars.
Before one has a chance to misunderstand, it should not be taken from our musings so far that the Theory of Familiarity is a negative or pessimistic or even a cynical view of the world. Neither is it optimistic. As all other proper theories and so-called (and important-sounding) "Laws of the Universe", it is neutral. Trees do not grow to provide us life, earthquakes and hurricanes do not arise to destroy it. Nature exists independently and regardless of our presence, and it is only through its processes that we are here to observe it.
That being said, it is now necessary to highlight some of the so-called "dark side" of this theory. While there is, in and of itself, nothing wrong with primitive cultures fearing that which they do not know, just as there is no harm in telling children to never trust strangers, and in fact, this is probably more useful than not, continued appeal to this kind of blinder-thinking also gives rise to the most savage of human brutality.
Through this thinking, we establish the concept of "the Other". The Other is that which is not us, a shadowy figure that bears no resemblance to us. We can and have built up a vision of unfamiliar cultures that casts them as something different. Eventually, this idealization becomes inhuman, an animal, and for this reason, we make this soulless beast scapegoat, unworthy of consideration. This defense mechanism allows us to commit the most barbaric atrocities that we should shudder simply to recollect. To some extent, this is a necessity, as in the case of war, and it informs and reassures our previous reservations regarding the morality of killing another. It is easier to kill an idea than another human being, flesh of our flesh. Historically, this concept gained considerable mileage in epic literature where mass slaughter was glorified as a means for honour. Outside of some brief mention in Homer or the Chanson d'Roland of human suffering, the actual reality of carnage is for the most part glossed over. This is, as stated before, a necessary evil because otherwise a lord would have a most difficult time exhorting his ordinary soldiers to eagerly kill.
Most cultures have some degree of this desensitization built into the indoctrination of their children. As before, it is essential to the primitive group's survival. Unfortunately, once society has moved past this kill-or-be-killed stage of tenuous existence, these previously necessary and blameless caricatures remain in the cultural subconscious where they surface as bigoted stereotypes, though they have now become obsolete. Once one has been viewed as an enemy and less than a man for so long, it will be most difficult to release these tensions once they are no longer needed. The very ideas of Good and Evil allegorized as Light and Dark show us how amazingly deep these roots grow. We are taught to love Light and fear the Dark. The Light is understanding, truth, goodness. The Dark is deception, fear and evil. This is easy to understand. Things are apparent to us when illumined, we simply see them better. But things may hide in the dark, their actual form may fool us or go completely unnoticed. Of course, these ideas spring from evolutionary and survival instincts, but they stay with us as superstitions. There is clearly nothing "wrong" with darkness, essentially. Indeed, the Universe itself is overwhelmingly pitched in constant night, and yet it certainly cannot be interpreted as bad. But, also, it is a thing that we do not understand and so we are frightened by it.
In another regard, historically speaking, I believe that the concepts of light and dark very easily came into use to refer specifically to skin color, as most of our inherited literature comes from the pale skin of our European ancestors. The unknown were the swarthy-skinned "savages" whom we brutally conquered and subjected to nameless horrors. And the savages knew of us as "the White Devil".
When we don't understand another's ways, it is far easier to write them off as backwards or uncivilized. But, as a teacher once told me, in a statement I will never forget, instead of snidely asking "How can you believe THAT?" we should instead seriously consider "How CAN you believe that?"
The Theory of Familiarity also offers valuable insight into the way that we learn about things and it helps explain how we think and how we come to make any sense of this crazy world we find ourselves in. In possibly better language, we learn by comparison. As stated earlier, we form ideas of what things are often by noticing what they are not. Imagine that you are asked to identify a fruit by touch alone. Let's say that the fruit is actually a tangerine, but that, through Fortune's elaborate and convoluted twistings, you have never encountered this particular type of fruit before. You have, however, heard legends that speak of this mystical "tangerine" as being like an orange, only smaller. The first choice is small (which is good), but its skin is smooth and bumpy on the ends like an apple, so you guess that this is not it. The next offering is long and cylindrical and you suppose it to be a banana. The search continues. The next object is much too big to be correct (it is, in fact, a watermelon). Finally, you reach the last item. It is small and its skin is cratered with tiny pockmarks as you have felt before on an orange. At last! You have found your Forbidden Fruit!
When we have no previous direct experience with a specific stimulus, our understanding of it must come from these comparisons and contrasts of our earlier experiences. This apples to oranges (to say nothing of bananas and watermelons) example extends to our patterns of logic as well. Through our personal experiences, we have formulated basic principles of thought and "what-makes-sense"-ness which we appeal to and build upon with further experience and example. We ultimately seek to reduce all situations to these archetypes by systematic (but usually unconscious) rules of thinking. Imagine a mathematical proof, supposedly the purest form of logic. We can start from a seemingly intractable premise and, through careful considerations and tedious calculation, arrive at a convincing proof of "truthfulness" of that given claim. It is not that all the details are the same but that, in the end, we can reduce them to the same principles.
And this is, in essence, the central thrust of the Theory of Familiarity. We live in a world that is strange and awe-inspiring and terrifying in diversity. We strive to understand our place in it, though in reality, this is almost certainly an insignificant matter to the Universe. Often though, we become sidetracked from our quest as we become wrapped up in a situation's particulars and these distractions confound our reasoning and perception. We may think that we see everything, but this is basically untrue. The universe, all we see around us, is made up of the same few, possibly even only one, bits of stuff. Human behavior is not difficult to understand for the most part, we simply lack all necessary information. Things that seem irrational have a basis in understandable phenomena, we have only to find the means to comprehend. We must learn to clear away the dense fog that clouds our understanding. Rules, preconceptions, laziness shackle us to the disappointment of surrendered dreams. Once we realize the unity of all that is around us, we begin to see clearly. Only when we learn to approach the world with open-mind and wide-eyed wonder can we "go confidently," as Thoreau urges, "in the direction of our dreams".