Attention is a fundamental human need, and an imperative in business and politics. So be careful where you pay it

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

As they say in the psychological writings of the Human Givens school, attention is one of our basic, evolved emotional requirements - and there’s plenty of forces, whether propagandists in the private, public and political sectors, who want to engage and exploit it. We have to become attentive to the attention we give, and give away too easily.

Here’s a few writings that have come our way on this topic, this week. Brand consultant Milly Shotter writes 500 Words every month on deeply felt topics, and she’s come to attention this month. Piece below:

There’s a corner of my backyard shaded by bowing purple buddleia where I’ve spent most of these recent warm summer mornings. Today has been no different. Drawn by familiarity and the sun I brought porridge and tea. Then I sat and watched and pondered. As my attention wandered freely I found it ironically wandering to the subject of attention itself.

It is said we are living in an attention-economy. This isn’t news to anyone. It’s been brought into mainstream cultural discourse through commentaries such as The Social Dilemma but it also feels too difficult to fight against on an individual level. While we understand that we are complicit by freely giving our attention, the alternative would mean turning our backs on much of digital technology and all the connection, access to information and entertainment it brings. 

In myself I observe a sort of frenetic yet glassy-eyed state when I do engage with online media. Frenetic presumably searching for the dopamine hit; glassy-eyed because I am at the mercy of whatever the day’s algorithms are serving up.

The pressure on our attention as a scarce resource is consequently reducing our focus. It’s reported that the likes of adverts or articles only have three seconds to grab our attention, and we spend an average of just 52 seconds on a web page. So ensues a downward spiral.

The concept of contemplation, defined as a sustained consideration of an idea or subject, stands in stark contrast to the current framework of attention. Contemplation doesn’t suit a capitalistic context because its very nature is sacred and not something that can be monetised (at least for now!).

In fact, etymologically, the root of ‘tem’ in ‘contemplation’ refers to a ‘place reserved or cut out’. It’s also related to the Greek ‘temenos’ - ‘sacred area around a temple’.

Contemplation requires us to mark out a space for observation. Yet largely we have our spaces marked out and filled for us. Be it by obligations of life, work, or routine. And often instead of holding an idea continuously before the mind, I recognise in myself a default impulse to act on an idea, rather than to simply hold it.

When I read about the story of legendary American scientist Barbara Mcclintock on GROW, I was profoundly struck by her radically patient and empathetic approach to her research. Mcclintock’s subject was maize, which she observed intimately for fifty years. It led to a breakthrough in the field of genetics, for which she was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1983. She committed her attention so deeply that she developed what she called ‘a feeling for the organism’.

As Claire L. Evans writes about Mcclintock’s approach: “The closer and more willingly you look at the world, the more it allows you to see.” We have more of the world at our fingertips than ever before, but with our attention so fragmented are we really seeing it?

As linguistic relativity suggests, expanding our vocabulary of attention might help to change our relationship with it. For example, by using words such as contemplation, meditation, observation, or consideration. We may also want to think about the conditions that work best for us to enter into a deeper, more contemplative mode. A colleague of mine says she saves things up to think about for when she runs.

For me, it’s this space of 500 Words that gives focus to my observations and sensemaking. For others, the physical space of a temple or church might be what’s required. And sometimes, it can be a ritual as simple as sitting under a buddleia bush with a cup of tea.

More here. We can dive just as deep with this podcast discussion from Vox:

From the blurb on the Apple Podcast:

Sean Illing talks with Michael Sacasas, an author and teacher exploring the relationship between technology and society in his newsletter, The Convivial Society. This conversation is all about attention: what it exactly is, what its purpose is, and how it is under threat by the technology of modern society and its ubiquitous distractions.

Michael calls upon venerated philosophers (like Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch) as well as contemporary writers (like Nicholas Carr and Jenny Odell) to make the case that figuring out how to command our attention is a matter of great moral significance, and is a crucial component of living a good life.

References: 

• "The idea of perfection" by Iris Murdoch (1964)

• "Against Dryness" by Iris Murdoch (1961)

• Simone Weil, letter to Joë Bousquet, Apr. 13, 1942: "Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."

• "On Two Ways of Relating to the World" by L.M. Sacasas (The Convivial Society, Nov. 22)

• How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell (Melville House; 2019)

And finally, from Maria Popova’s The Marginalian, some quotes on attention from D.H. Lawrence:

If you live by the cosmos, you look in the cosmos for your clue. If you live by a personal god, you pray to him. If you are rational, you think things over. But it all amounts to the same thing in the end. Prayer, or thought or studying the stars, or watching the flight of birds, or studying the entrails of the sacrifice, it is all the same process, ultimately: of divination.

All it depends on is the amount of true, sincere, religious concentration you can bring to bear on your object. An act of pure attention, if you are capable of it, will bring its own answer. And you choose that object to concentrate upon which will best focus your consciousness.

Every real discovery made, every serious and significant decision ever reached, was reached and made by divination. The soul stirs, and makes an act of pure attention, and that is a discovery.

…It is the same with the study of the stars, or the sky of stars. Whatever object will bring the consciousness into a state of pure attention, in a time of perplexity, will also give back an answer to the perplexity.

More here.

NEW ENERGY SOURCES, PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, NEW ECONOMICS, ARTISTSpat kaneattention economy, attention deficit disorder, human givensComment