Devo has always intrigued me, especially the story behind their name. “Devo” stands for “de-evolution,” a philosophical concept created by the founding members. The concept negates the optimistic viewpoint reinforced by industrial societies: the human race as a whole is evolving, in a sense improving. Specifically, human beings have grown mentally and spiritually. While we were barely intellectually superior to beasts tens of thousands of years ago, industrial progress has domesticated us. The warrior lifestyle is no longer necessary. We don’t have to conquer weaker peoples to sustain our ways of life (a statement that already screams bullshit). Overall, technological development has civilized and sophisticated the species.
This false theory leads to the more dangerous conclusion that proficiency in technology entails civility and sophistication. Someone can be sophisticated on the grounds that that person can drive a car, interact on Facebook and watch movies on Netflix. A person who isn’t technologically proficient meanwhile is “primitive,” resembling the human race in 10,000 B.C. more than the human race in the twenty-first century. The label “Age of Information” itself has fostered an assumption that we are processing data more rapidly than our ancestors, due to the presence of technology. If such an assumption is true, then we indeed have become more intelligent as a species.
Devo, on one hand, may have intended the concept of de-evolution to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as much as the song “Whip It” is tongue-in-cheek. The concept, nonetheless, has transcended its status as a rock-‘n’-roll pun and is now a common topic of debate. Not only does it negate the belief that human beings have become smarter, but it states that human beings are growing stupider. More people on a day-to-day basis are adopting this opinion. It was even the foundation of a premise in a comedy: Idiocracy!. The supporting evidence is that human beings have forgotten most of their survival instincts. Everyone agrees that an adept hunter from the Stone Age would have a better chance of survival in the wild than an urbanite who knows little about the natural world. The conclusion, according to de-evolution, is that most human beings are stupider because they’re incapable of surviving without modern amenities.
Human beings have forgotten various bodies of knowledge, a fact that is evident in the creation of the Great Pyramids. The likelier argument that human beings built them is still difficult to prove, as no one can completely pinpoint how the builders did it with such relatively limited resources. The simple explanation is that Ancient Egypt had a body of knowledge about building massive structures without machines. Modern civilizations do not have access to such knowledge, which would be invaluable to industries, anyway. Several pyramids took up to three decades to be built, and today’s technology would reduce most of the pains involved in constructing them.
As for the idea that we can retain more information than our ancestors, we have to consider the art of storytelling. The human memory, after all, used to be the sole recording device for recording information. When Confucius’s books became banned for a period of time in China centuries ago, Confucius’s followers memorized the entire texts, passing them on to the following generations.
Would a human being in today’s world be able to retain that amount of information? The answer depends on the validity of de-evolution. The band Devo certainly used the concept satirically, but several people have genuinely believed that people are getting stupider and that no one would possess the intellectual capacity to memorize multiple books.
The reason why so many people think that the human race used to be smarter is that the geniuses are typically the ones who go down in history. The truth is, the fools are usually forgotten because there have always been so many of them. Everyone remembers Jonathan Swift, but no one’s going to remember the nameless individual who bought Adolf Hitler’s claim that the Jewish race is the primary cause of syphilis. Human history is filled with cases of what we now call groupthink, destructive acts performed by those of a herd mentality. In Salem, Massachusetts, 1692, several people believed that their own neighbors practiced witchcraft. In 1938, numerous listeners believed that Martians were invading Earth when entertainer Orson Welles performed an adaptation of a H.G. Wells novel. The people who were fooled may not have been idiots in other circumstances, but their stupid responses reflect a common idiocy in humanity, one that has existed for the longest time. The hero, furthermore, is never the person who blindly goes with the crowd.
On an interesting note, many people mindlessly recite, “people are getting dumber,” in turn becoming a self-testament. Idiots often regurgitate what they find to be brilliant insights, wanting us to assume they are the smart people who are not a part of the problem. I’m now suggesting that the problem itself is nonexistent. The human race probably isn’t de-evolving any more than it is improving.
One reason for the opinion that stupidity is conquering intelligence is the public visibility of idiots. The idiots are probably more noticeable than they used to be. The Internet has permitted various idiots to share their idiocy with the world. Indeed, more idiots are probably posting videos and Facebook and Twitter posts than smart people. It’s not that smart people aren’t social networking and posting videos as well, but their presence, for the most part, is quieter. An obnoxious comment by an idiot on a message board will probably draw more attention than a thoughtful response written by a smart person. The biggest difference is that many smart people can excel in other areas besides social media and viral videos, while posting uninformed opinions on the Internet may be the only thing the idiot can do.
The idea that idiots will inherit the earth is also supported by a fear of textspeak, which for many is a symbol of the deterioration of language. The concern is that textspeak will someday become a standard form of written and verbal communication, the same way that Latin long ago lost its significance as the standard written language in Europe. On one hand, textspeak might never transcend its function as a form of shorthand that is used mostly for urgent messages. At the worst, it will become a stage in the evolution of human languages. The reason why informal registers such as textspeak would cause any breakdowns in communication is that various people still lack fluency in it. Textspeak would be an efficient form of communication if everyone mastered it.
In no way am I advocating that textspeak become standardized. I like expressing myself through the freedom of a wide vocabulary within grammatical constraints. For me personally, I derive more joy in crafting a complete sentence than simply typing “LOL.” My point, nonetheless, is that, even if textspeak did become standardized, it would in no way reflect a mass decline in intelligence.
The human race is not becoming stupider nor is it becoming smarter. The simple truth is, there are several bodies of knowledge, some more essential to our survival than others. To survive in a modern city, it is not important that one knows how to grow vegetables, hunt animals and construct some form of shelter. I’m not saying that learning such skills would be a waste of time, but they are completely futile for an urban life. While language skills and proficiency on phones and computers may be useless if one is stranded in the wilderness, such skills are vital to surviving in a technologized world. Sending an email may be extremely overwhelming for nomadic hunters from 10,000 B.C. Likewise, many of us would probably be overwhelmed by hunting a mastodon. Intelligence is not based on what one knows, but on how well one can adapt to various environments.
Nathan Franklin 