An experience shared by many is that people in general tend to accept only what they already know or have experience of. A complicating factor is that people want a commonality of knowledge or experience, for this commonality makes them feel safe. They do not want to stand out. People who do, tend to be ostracized. Listen to conversations at dinner tables and even speeches in congresses. One would expect people to dare address the new in those places but only minor deviations are deemed acceptable and these are then only addressed in a facetious way or, as in scientific circles, as a posited reason, phenomenon, or explanation, in other words, as a suggestion or proposition, not as a fact.
The low acceptance level of people stems from
fear of looking ridiculous or being ostracized from your peer group. It is a socio-psychological thing and the single biggest barrier to the progress of knowledge. This is the reason why newfangled things are looked upon with suspicion. You will find that a person may accept something outlandish in a one-on-one conversation but reject it anyway when in a group. In science fiction movies, I have always wondered why the set dresser or the set design team could not create a film set that would resemble the future. They always show what is feasible in the year the movie is shot. This may be to accommodate the low acceptance levels of the viewers as postulated by the producers or may have a financial reason.Look at the screenshot from the Debriefing Scene of the movie Aliens that came out in 1986. This scene was shot in 1984 when computer screens showed green or white characters on a black background. There were no pictures, let alone color pictures, on screens. The Macintosh with the screen of the type we have today was only introduced in 1986, and it was black and white (greyscales). The set designer thought that putting a black-and-white picture on a very large screen on the wall was very advanced. In 1986 there were no flat screens, only the big fat tubes of CRTs. And to show green and white lettering on the same screen was really unheard of in 1984. So, although we look at this scene as something as outdated as it can get, for the people who made this movie, this was as far as their acceptance levels would let them.
We see in the movie Minority Report, issued in 2002, Tom Cruise operating a gigantic, bent menu-driven 3D wide-screen. He is wearing special electromagnetic gloves. Today, you can operate your entertainment screen in some Electric Vehicles with a wave of your hand. At the time this movie was shot, 2000-2001, bent screens did not exist. Screens as big as that did not exist. 3D projections and holographic projections were just being experimented on. The technology shown in this movie was in development in Switzerland and Germany but existed only on a primitive, small-scale, experimental level and we still do not have it today. In 2004, I had brief contact with two of the scientists who were working on this, for a book I was writing, E-learning voor Beslissers (E-learning for Decision Makers, published in January 2006). So far, Minority Report is the only movie where a serious effort had been made to figure out how the future would look. All other sci-fi movies I know of are projections of current technology or illogical fantasies (e.g. The Matrix and Star Wars have a lot of that but it is great fun).
So, here we have the phenomenon of acceptance levels. If something is considered to be above the acceptance level of the person that is perceiving the information, he will reject it or may even faint.
Low acceptance levels translate into political correctness and political correctness fossilized into set opinions that, once established, are held long beyond their expiration date. Earth used to be flat, remember? The Sun used to turn around the Earth, remember? This is still going on and is the major barrier to societal progress.
drs Charles van der Hoog
philosopher of culture
msterdam, January 2, 2023.
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