Man’s ability to pay attention is in decline. Teachers are keenly aware of this fact. As is anyone with a modicum of self-awareness.
Writing in 1987 (though published in English in 2005), the great Swiss-German theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar lamented the situation as he saw it then:
‘In America,’ according to one report, ‘an adolescent by the time he has reached 17 has on average sat in front of a television set for 15,000 hours, thus almost two full years.’ [Just imagine the amount of screentime hours a 17 year old would have clocked up in 2026!!] Hans Meier quite justifiably asks ‘whether, in the age of the media, we are handing on a cultural legacy (and a religious faith) or whether we will not finally lose, with the lost language, the ability to hear and see at all.’[1]
It is easy to blame the devices which we all carry in our pockets and which have been uncritically adopted at a societal scale. To be sure, the blame laid at the feet of the smartphone is largely well placed, but we do need to recognise that the so-called ‘smart’ phone is but the tip of the iceberg. There is surely more to it than simply the universal proliferation of devices and screens.
The attention deficit which seems all but ubiquitous in our society is not merely a problem of psychiatric or neurological disorder, nor it is merely social problem. It is, to be sure, certainly the mutual cause and effect is both of these things—but it is also a spiritual problem. And here is where our conundrum arises.
It may be easy to simply argue that a spiritual problem requires a spiritual solution, and thus to proscribe a simple remedy of a regimen of prayer, fasting, and abstinence—such perennial advice, tried and tested as it is will no doubt serve us all very well, and with the Lenten season just around the corner now is as good a time to begin these practices (or to give them another crack!). In addition to these traditional remedies, I’d like to follow the German Thomist philosopher Josef Peiper in offering another one. In a wonderful little essay ‘Learning To See Again’ urges us to cultivate habits of attention – to learn to see again – by taking up or being ‘active oneself in artistic creation, producing shapes and forms for the eye to see.’[2]
If we stick to them, the practices suggested above, of prayer, fasting, and abstinence, and the practice of some kind of artistic creation, will likely serve us all very well. My experience however, tells me that these practices are relatively hard to begin and even more difficult to maintain. Acknowledging that there are good reasons to try to avoid a bad habit and taking steps to do so is a good first start, but simply trying harder, or “white-knuckling it”, doesn’t really last long. What I’ve found that what is most effective is if my desire for the good or the true is ignited. If this happens, then I am much more likely to take more seriously the beginning and intermediate steps which might progress me along the road to the obtaining or participating in that goodness or that truth.
The issue that we face however is that the attentional issues that we suffer at present attack the very root of our capacity to be activated by desire. If we cannot maintain attention long enough to be inspired by the good or the true we really are in a bind. Balthasar, again, astutely notes: ‘A missionary in a primitive culture has it relatively easy: he encounters a perhaps very primitive ‘ naturaliter christiana’… But where is the ‘point of contact’ with the ‘anima technica vacua’? I do not know.’[3]
The anima technica vacua [or ‘empty technical soul’] that Balthasar identifies is the soul for which reality has lost its depth dimension.[4] Such a soul finds himself or herself before reality and, rather than allowing oneself to feel the dizzying vertigo at the grandeur of being, turns simply to their screen and swipes away at 6 second ‘shorts’. T. S. Eliot noted this well in Burnt Norton, the first of his Four Quartets: ‘humankind cannot bear very much reality’.
So, what then are we to do? Balthasar was correct, it seems to me, when he advocated beginning with beauty. The experience of beauty, of the sublime, is arresting—it can shock us into paying attention. We have here a kind of paradox (attention itself is required to even notice the beautiful). If caught in the maelstrom of a deeply fragmented attention, we can muster all our might and try to focus, even for a short time on one thing and allow ourselves to be ‘touched, or better, wounded by the desire for beauty.’ [5]
It is for this reason that The Dawson Society for Philosophy and Culture has partnered with Communion and Liberation here in Perth, WA to host our Wounded by Beauty series.
The next concert in the series will feature a performance of Antonín Dvořák’s Piano Trio No. 3 in F minor, Op. 65 by Perth’s acclaimed Chimera Ensemble, with accompanying commentary and lecture by Emeritus Professor John Kinder FAHA, OSI (UWA). The series invites audiences to discover the foundations of music as one of the most sincere and moving expressions of human experience: our shared longing for beauty, happiness, and a mysterious ‘Other’ that promises fulfilment of the heart. Whether you are a lover of classical music or a neophyte, this is a great way in, and great way to experience something truly beautiful and to continue cultivating those habits of attention that will open us to the experience of reality according to the totality of its factors.
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[1] Hans Urs von Balthasar, Epilogue (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 8.
[2] Josef Pieper, Only the lover sings: Art and contemplation, trans. Lothar Kruth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), 29-36, at 35.
[3] Epilogue, 8.
[4] See Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Logic, Vol. 1: Truth of the World, trans. Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 16.
[5] Joseph Ratzinger, “Funeral Homily for Msgr. Luigi Giussani,” Communio: International Catholic Review 31, no. 4 (2004): 685.
