The resignation to think: a betrayal of our humanity.
The human has only one place in the Universe: the one he conquers for himself. If there is a reason to bear the heavy burden of existence, it is because we have no choice. The evolution of science has been made possible thanks to independent thought, exhibited by individuals who have deliberately distanced themselves from fatalistic explanations.
Giordano Bruno, for example, questioned the insignificance of a Universe we once believed was tailored for us. He opened the possibility that Galileo, inventing the telescope, dared to peer into the darkest skies and discovered stars beyond obscurity, appreciating the human eye.
Science illuminates our path because it bestows dignity upon our species. It enables us to create our destiny and look forward without the encumbrance of maintaining illusions and creating mirages. We are stargazing for stardust. We are dust.
Human dramas always result from disregarding data, evidence, and methodology. If the dreams of reason produce monsters, the absence of reason turns us into monsters.
Ignorance is not bliss; it is submission. Fear arises from ignorance, and ignorance must be combated with knowledge. Knowledge is and will always be our sole hope.
History attests to this: when man renounces the pursuit of knowledge, darkness prevails. The Middle Ages were the result of man’s refusal to explore, understand, and shape history. Thinking, questioning, and investigating were deemed unnecessary because all answers were provided by God. It was with the advent of the Renaissance, a movement that championed humanity and knowledge, elevating the need to establish an anthropocentric society over a theocentric one, that the most significant social advancements of the past two centuries were achieved.
This perspective has allowed humanity (at least in the last 200 years) to overcome the perils and shortcomings of our species: diseases, climatic disasters, tyrannies, and injustices.
In summary, two conditions have propelled human beings to evolve and progress: prioritizing knowledge and doubt above any superstition or overarching narrative, and the notion that individuals alone possess the capability to shape their destiny and preserve their dignity. Neither the State, nor the Government, religion, identity, or collectives can accomplish this.
Placing the fate of society in the hands of these entities results in authoritarianism that undermines the dignity and serves as the breeding ground for unimaginable atrocities (such as Nazism, Stalinism, and Latin American dictatorships, among others).
However, despite the overwhelming evidence, civilization is regressing, as we are reverting to behaviors and concepts that led to humanity’s darkest ages. We are renouncing the opportunity to emulate the character “Hymn” from “Equality 7–2521”: individuals who think and therefore create their worldview.
Today, technology has become a tool that shapes how we acquire knowledge. We forego reflection to obtain superficial versions of profound knowledge within microseconds. We resort to Googling to ascertain the meaning of something, turn to influencers who trivialize complex facts, and relinquish our ability to construct abstractions in favor of five-minute summaries of truth, which are not truly the truth.
Moving away from reason, human emotions are manipulated, and this manipulation becomes a spectacle. We all become actors in a show where appearances and ignorance dictate our conversations, interactions, and ideas.
It is impossible to ignore that social networks function as a stage, where we convince ourselves (or are persuaded) to think and act in a certain way. The popularity of opinions in polls is swayed by a (sometimes crude) algorithmic machinery that mimics human citizens. Like-minded individuals reinforce the aggressive comments from those who respond to data with biased interpretations.
It has been demonstrated that the misuse of technology has anthropological and evolutionary impacts on humanity. For instance, Michelle Desmurget coined the term “digital jerks” to elucidate how recent generations are born with lower IQ levels compared to their parents. Similarly, Bruno Patiño characterizes our civilization as the “fish memory civilization” due to our diminishing capacity for effort, patience, and slowness. According to Patiño, we now struggle to focus on something for more than 9 seconds.
It is not a coincidence that identity movements that offer answers to everything and do not accept dissent or criticism, such as populism, find support among younger generations. An example of this is the high voting response shown by the current youth toward governments like that of the populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador or Brexit in the United Kingdom, where there were these voters who supported the country’s exit from the European Union, even though it directly affected their job mobility.
Thought by commission and propaganda that robs us of the possibility of questioning the world is, as Ayn Rand said, one of the principles of totalitarianism (and the disappearance of the individual), as it is an effort to make the truth disappear and be replaced by collective and social lies.
Faced with this scenario, it is crucial to reclaim the philosophies and ideas that demonstrate the transformation that equality undergoes to become Prometheus.
At the moment when we are capable of thinking for ourselves and transcending the imposed reality, we become Prometheans who use knowledge to be free and dignified, individuals who illuminate the darkness, and above all, individuals who embrace what Steiner expressed:
“We cannot go back. We cannot afford the dreams of not knowing. We will open the last door of the Castle, even if it leads us to realities that are beyond the reach of human understanding.”
