William James On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings

 William James wrote A Certain Blindness in Human Beings to emphasize all of the perspectives, lessons, and gifts that people take for granted on a daily basis. So what exactly are we not seeing? What I believe we aren’t seeing are the joys of life itself, our view of life has been skewed far from its origin, and now we take it for granted. James believed that people tend to value things based on how we, personally, feel about them. “Where we judge a thing to be precious in consequence of the idea we frame of it, this is only because the idea is itself associated already with a feeling.” This doesn’t account for its usefulness or sentiment to other people; not it’’s effect in your life or on the lives of others, but simply our emotional response to the object, action, or moment. This is because we lack an understanding of a perspective outside of our own. As humans, selfish in nature, we cannot directly experience the perspective of others so we tend to not consider it, leaving it far from our mind. When we are forced to confront it, not understanding the nature of its purpose and joy, we don’t feel how they feel about it and neglect its simplest of virtues. This lack of a holistic understanding or open-mindedness can cause wars, divorces, and broken friendships, but it can also cause you distress in the way that others may not understand your perspective just as you may not understand theirs. 

I very much agree with James on the subject. Through my own experience and relationships with others I have noticed that many of the things I think negatively about are often things I have never tried or have only tried a few times. Cynthia Ozick said “Two things remain irretrievable: time and a first impression.” Many people today are so influenced by the first impression of a task, object, food, or person that they seldom tend to experience it beyond that if they didn’t enjoy the first impression. For instance, most jobs require an interview in which they ask very subjective questions that you may not have been prepared for and they will stake your career with that company on those answers alone. If you get the job, you may work there for several years without question merely because you did well in the interview. On the flip side of course, you may be more than qualified for the job and because your first impression wasn’t what the employer expected, you may never get that job. 

What I believe are the most important things that we as people aren’t seeing are the circumstances, beliefs, and perspectives of other people. There’s a disconnect in modern social life where people live their lives online and only get part of the story and assume it's the whole story. This story may not even be fully true and yet the viewers are ready to accept it as true without further inspection, discussion, thought, or research. This causes a bigger problem in the way that people see and understand each other and causes us as people to grow more self-centered, bringing us further into the problem that James is discussing in the text.

 “The spectator's judgment is sure to miss the root of the matter, and to possess no truth. The subject judged knows a part of the world of reality which the judging spectator fails to see, knows more while the spectator knows less; and, wherever there is conflict of opinion and difference of vision, we are bound to believe that the truer side is the side that feels the more, and not the side that feels the less.” 

The social world needs a reset and a long break from online social media services. If we discuss our lives more intimately in person, we will get more than just words, but a story with emotions like pain or joy that will help us to get closer to the truths of those around us. The social relations we hold would become far fewer, but far more real and intimate than they could ever be over a social media platform. We are all victims of the society we have been born into, but it isn’t too late to change it.