We've Been Dehumanized for Too Long

How can we make our existence more humane, what I learned about Money, and why I left Twitter for good

“Hey Eyal, tell that joke again, it’s hilarious.”

I wasn’t in the mood for telling that joke, though. And being told to felt *dehumanizing* in some way, you know? You know. When we are asked to do something that is strictly for someone else’s self-perceived benefit, we feel more like a tool than a living being.

Dedicated listeners of Deep Dive know that I’ve been slowly and thoroughly reading Iain McGilchrist’s The Matter with Things. I recently made it to a chapter talking about Schizophrenia, an extreme condition characterized by very left-hemispheric thinking. A striking feature of schizophrenia (or is it schizoaffective disorder? Pardon my potential inaccuracy) is perceiving whatever object at the center of attention as lifeless, even if that is another person. This tendency is the hallmark of several other rare psychiatric conditions which McGilchrist mentions in the book.

The point that although our society can’t be diagnosed with schizophrenia but can be said to exhibit similar tendencies is made in the book. But what I contributed to the discussion in my head that was fresh and surprising is the relationship between that realization and my own personal relationship with society: I feel dehumanized quite often living in today’s society, and I don’t think I’m alone in this.

I think it’s fair to say that our ability, as a species, to focus on the lifeless-yet-useful aspects of objects in the world is what allowed us to escape the food chain, dominate the environment, and live in material wealth. But sis we have to extend that perspective to other humans, for example? Isn’t that mindless extension what stands between us and a reality in which more people are living well?

One concept I’ve been thinking about for a long, long, LONG time is Money. The concept, when viewed from a perspective of utility, is nothing short of genius: Person A wants flint arrowheads, but no flint can be found where he lives. Person B has flint arrowheads and wants seashells, something only person C, who doesn’t want anything right now, has. The solution? A gives B money which will be given for C and kept for later use. Everybody gets what they want, right? On one level, yes. On another, this reminds me of one-night-stands: Wanting to feel the pleasure of sex, people engage in an activity that, I believe, can’t be only seen in terms of utility, no matter how hard we try. A part of us (healthy people) does see it as something soulful, or sacred. And so, oftentimes we feel disgusted in retrospect for having lost some part of our soul.

Think about the times you gifted someone something you made. You didn’t receive anything in return, and hopefully you didn’t expect something in return (though in politics - the most horrible corner of human existence, people do “gift” things like that all the time.) How come there is such a strong feeling of having gained something, even though nothing material was gained? What about brothers-in-arms who feel a lifelong bond because they looked after one another during a battle? No monetary gain was made, but in humane terms, the world itself was gained. I could go on and on, but you get the point.

Today, the intervals between partaking in life-enhancing human encounters get longer and longer. We spend a lot of time engaged in interaction revolving around money, giving others what they want so we can get what we want in dehumanized fashion. That’s why “everything is awesome and nobody’s happy”, as Louis C.K once said (incidentally, he dehumanized women while satisfying his sexual wants a few times.) Everything is awesome because we have money, which allows us to get what we want, and nobody’s happy because we lack humane interactions, which is what we need.

There is nothing wrong with the concept of Money itself. It is a great tool that could ensure everybody in the world gets access to basic things needed for survival, so that we don’t have to worry about hunger, predation, etc. It’s just that our left-hemisphere view of things - the one that views them as lifeless - doesn’t recognize that even something like exchanging material things has a humane aspect to it. We grow up in the west nearly completely unaware of this. If we are aware, it’s in some vague way because the part of our soul that doesn’t get nourished complains before getting drowned out by the authoritative voice of culture itself.

When I’m told to perform some work for someone and I’m duly paid X amount of money without a good word, my feeling isn’t very different from the one I got when I was commanded to tell a joke I wasn’t planning on telling. It sucks. Keep your money. Luckily for me, my job is interacting with people in a very human way on their holiday, so I get plenty of very human feedback, which counts as much, if not more, than the compensation I get by the end of the gig. That is the only reason I still enjoy my job.

This idea of Rehumanization has been on my mind for a couple of weeks now. We desperately need to rehumanize our society. We are already noticing how our viewing of the world as a lifeless thing has led to destruction of ecosystems, but I’m not sure we fully grasp the impact it’s had on our society which, when disintegrated, leads to misery on a personal levels. I myself desperately want to be perceived, at least some of the time, as useless-but-lifeful, rather than the other way around. I want some exchanges of goods or services to be less fair monetarily and more fulfilling psychically. And that brings me to a short life update.

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Bye Bye, Blue Bird

I deleted my Twitter account. I don’t think it’s that interesting to explain myself fully, except in the context of what I’ve written above. I was on Twitter for 3 years. I signed up in order to follow some brilliant minds but ended up making lots of friends and allies along the way. Now that I have them, my experience on Twitter became dehumanized. On the whole, it was like seeing a bizarre performance put on by human fireflies, each signaling maniacally to assert their own existence, mainly to themselves. I have a lot of sympathy for everyone! Many people are there to make friends as I did, many are there because they feel dehumanized in a way similar to what I described. But, for me, it was to move on to writing on here, emailing, and having calls with the friends I made. I also wish for people to never miss a chance to introduce me to their friends who they think might enjoy a curiosity call with me.

I think there are few social media platforms that actually promote the right-hemisphere way of paying attention with lifefulness (SubStack, maybe?) That’s why I stepped away from Twitter as part of my process of rehumanizing my world. I very much would like to hear from any of you, friends and readers, and I promise to reply in a humane way.