In Finland, an expert who swallows well-worn platitudes is called to comment on every issue. Instead, thinking is considered hateful elitism, writes author and psychiatrist Joel Haahtela.
The flood of information the person striving in the middle is giving away his greatest treasure, the ability to think.
We live in the midst of the tragedy of the disappearance of thinking. We are bombarded with information that requires an immediate response. When one reaction is over, we are already in the middle of the next one, and we don't have time to process what we see, we don't have time to think. A person's internal experience of time is broken.
A reaction is always a feeling, and a feeling is faster than a thought. We are in the grip of a wave of emotions, and the media has no desire to change the matter, because emotion sells better than thought, the latter is boring and too slow.
At the same time, memory and thinking are being outsourced to artificial intelligence, which does not suffer from concentration problems, depression, or the confusion that is an inevitable part of human nature. It is lustless, eternal and ever awake.
The disappearance of thinking may be a worldwide phenomenon, but on the other hand: thinking has never been valued in Finland. Does anyone summon philosophers, artists, theologians and writers? We have no tradition of intellectual culture, or even the desire to create one.
It often comes to mind that in Finland the idea that it is some kind of social threat is downright hated. Or at least it's a wrong kind of elitism that doesn't fit the character of the people, placing oneself above others, which must be stopped as soon as the first civilized word falls from the lips.
Experts instead, it is appreciated. Finland is the promised land of experts, where even the most ridiculous issue is invited to be commented on by an expert who arrives to recite well-worn platitudes.
Perhaps the wish is reflected in the experts that the fragmenting world could be managed rationally. However, the result is mostly a comic tone that also makes you cry. The schizoid nature of random information is reinforced and the experience is absurd.
When you listen to the discussion of experts, the ideas are almost invariably picked up from the market of ready-made ideas. So how do you say what is correct. There is no need to expect anything unexpected. The biggest fear is that expertise is questioned. Undoubtedly, the basic problems of Finnish people lurk in the background: the fear of shame, failure and standing out from the crowd, the need to conform.
That's why an open-minded thinker who emerges from the crowd pleases, even if he is wrong. Thinking is not being right, although it is often confused with it.
How about then representatives of my own profession, writers? We need to look in the mirror.
Finnish writers remain silent for the most part. If someone thinks something, at least they don't think out loud. Maybe someday someone will scribble their name on some public cross-art appeal that needs to be thought of the same way as everyone else. But that's not thinking.
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Writers should look in the mirror.
The basic rule is that the author does not take a stand. The Writers' Association is also strangely inactive. We don't hear opinions on any really important and relevant issue, except if it's about money. The literary policy program was a refreshing exception to this.
However, the Writers' Union could be the nation's conscience, which cannot stand injustice or lazy thinking. It could be a thorn in the flesh, the beating heart and soul of cultural life.
Literature is stepping behind conventional explanations, an attempt to think what has not been thought. It explores the hidden areas of history and rewrites the generally accepted story in a new form. It digs with the help of fiction where historians can never reach by their own means.
Literature also plays an essential role in creating concepts. The world is developing at a tremendous speed, and our conceptual systems cannot keep up. The birth of the modern world has been a race with conceptual systems, because the development and internalization of language involves slowness.
A person is in a state of permanent confusion, every moment a little late. He has to operate in the middle of the information accelerator with an incomplete language, and it constantly leads to misunderstandings. Without words, we do not understand what is happening around us. And finding and naming new concepts requires creative thinking, this is how we face new phenomena.
Language unites, but it also separates. With the help of language, we create ourselves and the other, we define our relationship with the other. When we say man and animal or man and nature, we have made a difference between the two with the help of language. And this separation enables oppression, discrimination and exploitation.
So the loss of thinking is dangerous. Words are a weapon and can be used for good, they create reality.
The loss of thinking also exposes individuals to emotional influence and disinformation. When you immediately move on to the next emotional reaction, the disinformation that has not been unpacked accumulates. Eventually, it inevitably begins to affect life. At worst, we are in a constant paranoid state, the core of which is the feeling of losing control: the world feels like it is flooding over us in a chaotic, frightening rush.
To my mind has remained a narrative philosopher From Ludwig Wittgenstein, who lectures at Cambridge University. He gave his lectures at home, sat on a rickety wooden chair, and never knew what he was going to talk about.
Wittgenstein tried to create his thinking in a moment, to step into the unknown. He was sweating, heaving and constantly ending up in dead ends. By today's standards, he was a lousy performer.
But there was something real and genuine in all of that, a great love for thinking, the outcome of which was unknown. The most important thing was the opportunity to enter the freedom of the world of thought, the first question of which was: Is it possible to think freely?
Today a new president of Finland is elected. We live in a time of black swans, unpredictable, shocking events. The world recreates itself every day, and the truths we know will be past truths tomorrow.
The new president must unearth the ancient power of humanity and the mainstay of Western culture: the ability to think. Mere pragmatism is not enough, you need a touch of Havukka-aho.
The author is a writer and a psychiatrist.
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