Attention Deficit Order

Why should we "pay" attention? Do we dare give it freely? French philosopher Simone Weil can guide some answers

A man walks down the street He says, "Why am I short of attention? Got a short little span of attention Paul Simon, “You Can Call Me Al”

Look at this post. You may already detect a disturbing ratio of words to images. Did you notice the scrollbar? It looks terribly short, which means this post is a bit long. Are you ready to commit so much of your time and attention to it? What, at this moment, can fight the tl;dr (“too long; didn't read”) rationale? Certainly not words like “rationale.” Being a dad of two, I can attest that with people it’s often the opposite: the shorter they are, the more attention they demand. The longer they become (my son is nearly my height), the more it’s us, the adults, who seek their attention.

Isn’t “attention deficit” no longer a disorder, but our new world order, an Attention Deficit Order?

Look at us. Humans seeking - and trying to understand - attention. One possible point of departure: Whether we give attention or seek it, we don’t speak of “paying attention” for nothing. It feels fitting. Attention is taxing, tiring, trying; it comes at a cost. No wonder we often dodge it, wittingly or not.

In our health care culture, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has long become a household staple. Experts estimate that 7.2% of children (under 18) worldwide suffer from ADHD. But being “short of attention,” often coupled with FOMO-hyperactivity, may be a bigger phenomenon still, and its wording misleading: Isn’t “attention deficit” no longer a disorder, but our new world order, an Attention Deficit Order? Is this much ADO about nothing, or should we do something about this modern malaise - and if so, what?

Seeking answers, I turn to the advice of the one thinker who has devoted so much attention to, well, attention: Simone Weil.

Simone Weil

I knew little about Weil, so for quick answers, I turned to my main source on existentialism: Existential Comics! (the last one on Camus is especially cool). It joins quite a few in arguing that what set Weil apart was that she “was the one who lived the real existential life.”

I think that for many, Weil’s personality eclipsed her philosophy (to my mind, they should go together). The story of her working in a factory, trying to teach her coworkers Plato’s Symposium is one case in point.

Maybe we romanticize her. Did she actually disturb society, or even just her “own” intellectual milieu - or perhaps only her own mind (getting caught in Rihana’s dystopia)? As for embodying, constantly living, her philosophy - Doesn’t “life,” by becoming (also) a philosophical expression, get in the way of developing and communicating that philosophy? We may wish philosophers were like Weil, but Weil is partly remembered because most are not.

Now, to the bigger question. When you live your philosophy, practice what you preach, the interplay between the two can be mutually enriching – you can understand, and better, both. The possible downside, however, is that your life becomes your “publication.” Living “the real world” may consume your energies (how much time and strength to reflect and write do you still have, having spent a whole day working in a factory?), alienate some people (“so you think you’re better than us?”), and eventually even alienate yourself (“they don’t/can never understand me!”). How can we gain the good and avoid the bad? Not sure, but I’m sure there’s a way (on the other hand, I’m notoriously naïve).

Odilon Redon, The Man, 1916

Another quick quandary: Is attention immersion? If so, I seem to have many such attentive moments, with people, nature, and art. But does my immersive attention eliminate my Self? Quite the opposite. There’s a seeming paradox here. Precisely because the attention overwhelms, the self surfaces. By sensing intensely, I become, at once, aware of my Self, feeling.

Michael Heizer, Double Negative

Would Weilian attention then ask me to feel less so as not to let the self out (then in)? I don’t know, but perhaps the paradox is entirely on me, maybe it emerges from my already (too?) deep sense of Self.

Instead of having a feeling Self, you’re filling yourSelf with others

Conversely, if you often feel like “no one,” Weilian attention might become a way of turning your absent “self” into a philosophy. Instead of having a feeling Self, you’re filling yourSelf with others. Lacking a clear sense of self, you can try to fake a “persona” to pass among people, or you can embrace a chameleon way of life, or perhaps both.

Surely, it’s not incidental that Weil directed her attentive empty self primarily to God (trying to fill no-one with The One?). And it’s likely not incidental that she died out of (willed?) starvation, as if emptying her corporate, not just mental, self as well.

I think of Buber’s I-Thou (You), and a simple search brought me to this piece, which cites his criticism of Weil invalidating the “I.” I get this, but I think Weil got something profoundly right, which Buber didn’t quite realize: the I can obscure the You. Still, unlike Weil, I think that it need not be the case.

I also agree with Weil that pain is part of the portal onto other(s). How strikingly different is that from Orwell’s 1984! For Big Brother, pain is the instrument of power, which Weil abhorred.

Weil suggested that God’s omnipresence inherently turns us, humans, into absence. There’s something slightly scary about it: Since God is everywhere, we’re nowhere - and that’s good! I guess she wanted to embrace, not fight, that inherent lack, and face-fight the lack’s implied “evil” by wedding the whole/holy and the lack/unholy to create a space (ether?) that invites Good.

I can imagine Weil agreeing that alienation can motivate authenticity; it may operate like emptiness does, almost priming us to become complete/good through God. As for choice and bad faith: whence freedom sans self?

Edmund Dulac, The Little Mermaid Dissolving into Foam