The Power of Unlearning
"Naked and Afraid" is not a template for building a society
Certain activities have negative learning curves in Western societies; that is, as time progresses, we get worse at doing them rather than better. Take nuclear power. Objectively, we are worse at building nuclear power plants than we were in 1970; indeed, most Western societies, including America, are currently incapable of completing one.
Negative learning curves occur primarily for two reasons. The first is the introduction of extraneous considerations to an activity, which is a serious and widespread problem today. If you see a major road or bridge of a certain age today, you have to question whether it could be built again in a reasonable time for a reasonable cost. The answer is generally “no.” Permitting, agency reviews, and litigation—often related to environmental concerns—delay new infrastructure at every turn. Projects that large majorities of society support go uncompleted because small groups of activists impose unbearable costs. If the interstate system had never been built, construction would not be attempted today because no one would believe it would ever be completed.
The second reason for negative learning curves is loss of knowledge. Knowledge loss is not limited to scenarios such as the Dark Ages or nuclear apocalypse. Even digitally replicated knowledge can be lost at a shocking rate. A single generation ago, Lotus 1-2-3 was a “killer application” for PCs, and so ubiquitous that it was used as a de facto compatibility test for new hardware. Today, so much of the original program has been lost that an enthusiast struggled for years to find a copy of program’s internal software development kit.
Beyond the absolute loss of learning, the dissemination of knowledge can falter even faster. Literacy never vanished in the Dark Ages, but it ceased to be common. Charlemagne was lauded for his enthusiasm for learning, including ordering his own children to be well-educated and literate, though he himself could not write. A Roman observer living a few centuries earlier would have been astounded that such acts would be thought worthy of praise, as literacy was then a universal expectation among elites.
That we could ever fall backwards in such a fashion is not unthinkable. Few Western citizens today could grow crops, preserve meat, or a build a simple house. It is easy to dismiss such activities as skills that are not needed by most in daily life, and which could be re-learned if needed again. But what if we lose knowledge that is more deeply embedded in our civilization?
Thirty-five years ago, Tom Wolfe’s essay “The Great Relearning” recalled the painful process by which counterculture hippies in 1968 San Francisco learned that basic social norms of hygiene were useful. Today, like the hippies, our society is determined to “start from zero” in defiance of all the hard-won knowledge that makes civilization possible. We are unlearning the moral basis of society. We are unlearning decorum. We are unlearning the socialization of children. We are even unlearning the biological differences between men and women.
What we will be asked to unlearned next, and is there any stopping point?