Stating the Obvious | Value of the Obvious | Stepping Outside the Flow

Stepping Outside the Flow

If things are as Ricard describes; if we are frequently victim to the rapid flow of our thoughts; and, if having our attention centred on something we already know can be a way of stepping outside of this flow, then it would seem that stating the obvious can also have value as a method for controlling time.

A statement like, ‘that monument is really big’ could function as a way of channelling vision – to point out something like this, is, amongst other things, to centre the flow of thoughts upon something. It may be that the next moment our thoughts have already forgotten about the monument and are onto something else, but the statement affords us to the opportunity to alight for a while.

It is, of course, possible that we may have thought about the monument without having it brought to our attention; and indeed, we may have meditated upon it of our own volition. But stating the obvious implies a social function, a subject to state the obvious to, and in this sense a truism like this can have value as a flow-altering device, both for the person saying it (as a reminder to themselves) and the person receiving the information.

Stating the Obvious | Value of the Obvious | A Reminder

A Reminder

We have seen that through recalling information we are afforded the opportunity to re-assess our relation to it. It’s also worth considering that stating the obvious can simply function as a reminder, bringing to mind something that we may have forgotten or become oblivious to.

Obvious things by their nature are often subject to being overlooked, and as such we run the risk of becoming mindless to them. In other words, the knowledge may have become so commonplace that we no longer are aware of it in the way that, at one point, we may have been.

This idea can be seen when a new person enters a workplace. If this person needs to be shown the ropes by a more experienced member of staff, then this process could, for the latter, involve relating a number of ‘obvious’ pieces of information. However, it may be that to the experienced staff member this information has become so obvious, so everyday, that they no longer remember that they even know it. The information has, in other words, become unconscious; it has become part of a process, and no longer exists in the way that, outside of this process, it may have done.

Langer talks about this idea, ‘Repetition can lead to mindlessness in almost any profession. If you asked an experienced and a novice typist to type a paragraph without the usual spaces separating words … it is likely that the person with less experience will have an edge … A familiar structure or rhythm helps lead to mental laziness, acting as a signal that there is no need to pay attention. The rhythm of the familiar lulls us into mindlessness …’4

So the presence of the novice, asking questions and making statements about the obvious, could function to retrieve information from the unconscious, and remind the expert of what they had, in some sense, forgotten.

Stating the Obvious | Against the Obvious

Against the Obvious

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To say that a person is stating the obvious is an observation, and is, in itself, not a criticism. At what point then does this neutral observation become a value-judgement? Let’s examine some of the ways in which the concept of stating the obvious may be devalued.

Stating the Obvious | Against the Obvious | Progress

Progress

The idea of progress is a prevalent myth in contemporary society. Scientific discoveries and technological advancements are frequently used to convince us that, as a race, we are advancing, even if voices from outside these areas would have us think otherwise. If science is a secular religion, then faith in progress is an inevitable fiction amongst the faithful.

Progress implies motion, a moving-forward, and engenders catchwords like ‘new’, ‘latest’, ‘modern’ and ‘original.’ In this sense, progress can often be at odds with the idea of inaction, and its various synonyms (‘reflection’, ‘meditation’, and ‘day-dreaming’). This, of course, needn’t be the case; progress can be achieved through inaction, but our interest lies in the point at which these two ideas become antithetical.

We’ve seen how, in allowing us to examine what we already know, stating the obvious can be of benefit, inasmuch as it allows us to ‘chip away’ at ourselves, or to shed skin. These ideas imply loss as a means of progression, and in this sense run contrary to the idea of progress that feeds the popular imagination, that of progress through discoveries - through gain.

We are led to covet the new and the latest, attitudes that are crystallised in the world of commodities. We live with a constant sense of motion, of moving forward, and this is compounded by the disposability of things; to have the latest model often involves jettisoning the one that is out of fashion, and so we become used to a constant sense of flux, to jumping from one to the next. Philosopher John Gray talks about this idea, “Progress condemns idleness. The work needed to deliver humanity is vast. Indeed it is limitless, since as one plateau of achievement is reached another looms up. Of course this is only a mirage; but the worst of progress is not that it is an illusion. It is that it is endless.”5

In many ways, then, the idea of inaction is foreign to the dominant way of life in our society. In light of this, the concept of stating the obvious, with its implications of deceleration (lion-thought vs. dog-thought), and loss as opposed to gain, can often be denigrated and belittled.