 Psychologically Speaking
with Stewart Hase
Boiling Frogs and Cooked Geese
If a frog is placed in hot water it will immediately hop away due to the sudden change in temperature.
However, if a frog is placed in water that is at its own body temperature and the water is gradually heated the frog will not react. Rather, it will simply boil to death without even knowing what has happened.
Metaphorically speaking humans are subject to the same phenomenon. When we are exposed to a threat or something that disgusts us we are normally shocked, and experience very uncomfortable feelings. Our tendency then is to actively make sure that similar threats are not encountered in the future. Like the frog we leap away from the thing that discomforts.
However, consistent and gradual exposure to some threats can cause us to become desensitised, so that gradually we no longer feel the same emotional response. One of the most obvious examples of this in modern society has been that of our increasing desensitisation to violence. Over the past few years the media, television and movies have in a very graduated way pushed the limits of people's sensibilities.
Occasionally they go too far and there is a public outcry but mostly producers know exactly how far is far enough. Today we are exposed to very graphic scenes and violence is no longer intimated, it is seen in graphic detail. It all gets to be a bit ‘ho-hum' rather than shocking. The effect of course is that our desensitisation to what we see and hear on TV or in the newspapers flows over into real life.
It is no wonder that children are killing other children with little obvious sense that what they do has consequences greater than they are able to imagine. Indeed, they cannot imagine it at all.
While violence is an obvious example of how society becomes desensitised, there are others. Our tolerance increases to the point where we no longer notice: increasing crime, lack of corporate morality, high taxes for the have nots and tax avoidance by the rich, rising pollution, environmental degradation, materialism, corruption, consumerism, and the list goes on. We even become desensitised to our own stress and forget what it feels like to be healthy.
We need a more critical eye on what is happening around us, or support those who are critical, if we are not to end up like the frog.
How often have we looked back and asked, much too late, ‘How could I let this happen?'
We need to find ways to recognise when the water is starting to get warm, not when it has boiled and we are a well and truly cooked goose.
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