01. A History of Communication

In 1959, Eugène Ionesco published one of his most famous plays. Entitled Rhinocéros, this work depicts the spread of a fanciful epidemic: rhinoceritis, which turns all the inhabitants of a town into rhinoceroses. Metaphorically, this disease embodies the spread of totalitarian ideologies that proliferated in Europe at the dawn of World War II. Being a rhinoceros therefore means, under the author’s pen, blindly adhering to any belief without taking the trouble to evaluate its worth, which the central character of this story firmly opposes.

To achieve this, he confronts the social pressure exerted on him by his entire entourage. At the end of the play, realizing that all his relatives have become rhinoceroses, the character stands up and declares: « I am the last man, and I will remain so until the end. I do not capitulate. » This cry from the heart underscores the importance of preserving oneself from social norms.

Nonconformity and Freedom

Ionesco is an engaged author. The ambition of his work is to convince us that nonconformity protects us from the harmful influence of the worst ideologies. Like the hero of his story, we are invited to emancipate ourselves from social norms that hinder our ability to distinguish between true and false, as well as right and wrong. Fundamentally, this message aligns with what almost all Westerners have believed since the second half of the 20th century, as evidenced by the following injunctions you have undoubtedly heard: « Think for yourself! », « Form your own opinion, think for yourself, don’t be a sheep! »

You may have even uttered them yourself, for almost paradoxically, nonconformity has become our norm. I note in passing that those who are most fond of these injunctions are generally convinced that they escape the sheepish nature they denounce. They believe they can assess the relevance of any information, and if someone happens not to share their conclusions, they will quickly blame the influence of some deceptive ideology that biases the judgment of their contradictors. « People don’t think, » they say, and without really admitting it, they want you to think their opinion is well-founded, thoughtful, and weighed, unlike others’.

It seems difficult under these conditions to believe in the sincerity of these statements, which in most cases turn out to be merely a disguised way to comfort oneself in one’s own opinions while denigrating those of others. The funniest thing is that our societies are filled with individuals convinced that they understand the world better than anyone else, and when these people confront different opinions from their own, they easily believe they are the only ones capable of thinking correctly. The problem, as Perret sang, is that we are all « someone’s fool » who considers themselves more legitimate than us in the art of distinguishing truth from falsehood. Could it be, under these conditions, that we are all ultimately « fools » in our own way? It is probable, as the following reflections testify.

The first consists of reminding us that we are not intelligent enough to rationally verify all the beliefs we adhere to. Some have certainly convinced themselves otherwise. It is therefore important to try to understand why so many Westerners believe they can form a clear opinion on everything.

The technological advances we collectively demonstrate are probably not unrelated: our numerous technical and scientific feats testify to a particularly developed human intelligence. As a member and representative of such an ingenious race, each can easily believe they are endowed with tremendous intellectual potential.

However, numerous studies show that the individual intelligence of our species’ members hardly differs from that of some animals. Ravens, for example, can solve puzzles that would leave many of us perplexed[1], as demonstrated by the works of Mathias Osvath and Can Kabadayi[2]. The famous gorilla Koko, known for mastering sign language, was evaluated at nearly 80 IQ points[3]. This is more, by comparison, than the average IQ of a country like India or Algeria[4].

The most comprehensive study in this field is that of Esther Hermann and Mike Tomasello[5], two eminent researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Anthropology, who quantified human intelligence to compare it with that of many other species. Their finding in this context was unequivocal: our spatial, quantitative, and causal evaluation capacities are hardly different from those of orangutans and chimpanzees. In the end, humans only distinguish themselves from other species when they use cognitive concepts they did not develop « by themselves, » but inherited as part of their education, such as geometry, math, and algebra, for example.

Human Intelligence is Social

Human intelligence is social. It depends on our ability to learn and teach things we would not be able to develop ourselves, but which others have intellectualized for us. The number Pi, for example, or the list of planets in our solar system, are notions we have simply learned in most cases without any prior verification. This means that the vector of our intelligence is social. It is language, according to Descartes, which conditions our ability to transmit and assimilate knowledge. That is why the development level of populations is generally linked to their communication skills.

Evolution of Communication Means, Collective Intelligence, and Individual Cognitive Specialization

The first human societies emerged simultaneously with oral language, which allows encoding complex information in the form of sounds. This is effective, but one must remain within reach of their interlocutor to address them. This spatial and temporal constraint long limited the development levels of populations to very modest levels: if you have ever played the game « telephone, » you know that information is lost when repeated many times.

To free ourselves from this constraint, we had to invent other means of communication, such as writing, which allows information to travel further in space and time. Thanks to it, we can still read many texts that have crossed centuries since Antiquity. This feat is inaccessible to animals. When an old raven dies, it takes with it the fruits of its own discoveries and all the conclusions it has drawn. The raven species is therefore condemned to constantly rediscover what has already been discovered, like an eternal return to the starting point.

In other words: the members of the human species are not necessarily more intelligent, but thanks to language, they are able to transmit knowledge that accumulates over generations: what the elders know, the younger ones will learn. The latter can therefore devote themselves to new discoveries and other advances that they will in turn pass on to their own children. In this respect, we can consider that humans « outsource » their understanding of the world to those who have died.

This is an incredible chance. Just imagine if we had to constantly rediscover the inventions of the past. We would never finish. Let’s take the example of the wheel, which results from a cognitive journey spanning several centuries that we would be unable to catch up with alone. We would probably be even more embarrassed if we had to rediscover « by ourselves » the value of Pi, which we believe we know to a few decimal places without mastering the mathematical demonstration, meaning that this value rests, for most of us, on simple social beliefs that we cannot demonstrate. These are, of course, mathematically justified beliefs, but they are still « beliefs » as long as we are not able to personally verify their accuracy.

Like this number, most of the things we believe we know are actually based on social beliefs we conform to. Rest assured: nothing is more normal, as Tocqueville already asserted in 1835[6]:

« If man, » he wrote, « were forced to prove to himself all the truths he uses every day, he would never finish; he would exhaust himself in preliminary demonstrations without ever advancing; as he does not have the time, because of the short span of his life, nor the ability, because of the limits of his mind, to act this way, he is reduced to taking for granted a multitude of facts and opinions that he neither had the leisure nor the power to examine and verify himself, but which more skilled individuals have found or which the crowd adopts.

It is on this first foundation that he builds his own thoughts. It is not his will that leads him to proceed this way: the inflexible law of his condition compels him to. The sociologist adds: there is no great philosopher who does not believe a million things on the faith of others, and who does not assume many more truths than he establishes himself. This is not only necessary but desirable. A man who undertook to examine everything by himself could only devote little time and attention to each thing: this work would keep his mind in a perpetual agitation that would prevent him from penetrating deeply into any truth and from firmly settling in any certainty. His intelligence would be both independent and weak.

Therefore, among the various objects of human opinions, he must make a choice and adopt many beliefs without discussing them, in order to better deepen a small number that he has reserved for examination. »

This is why we are forced to specialize intellectually: we choose our studies, our educational path, and our professional field of expertise. We devote most of our time to a segment of specific skills that our « small » brain will be able to assimilate. It is under this unique condition that we truly give ourselves the means to think « for ourselves »… within the limits of our own specialization. The problem is that we always end up relying on other notions that escape our skills. The « knowledgeable » and the « learned » are therefore primarily « believers, » constrained, like us, to outsource an essential part of their own understanding of the world.

I believe it is necessary to say it very clearly here: when a human being speaks to us, it is actually centuries of history expressing itself through them. This unique faculty within the animal kingdom is both our chance and our misfortune. It allows the emergence of the most beautiful civilizations while condemning us to credulity, for humanity needs to « believe » and learn without verifying. The question is therefore not whether this is desirable or not. It is even less whether we should protect ourselves from it. The question could be, however: why do we conform to a particular belief, since we are not able to personally verify its accuracy? And to what extent could this harm us?

This chapter is an excerpt from a book entitled 01-Tradition: Escaping the Social, Ecological, and Migratory Catastrophe.

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