SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF

I’m working on a theory that the suspension of disbelief only really lasts forty-five minutes. You can believe almost anything for three-quarters of an hour.

I once got so stoned that for forty-five minutes I persuaded myself Kurt Cobain was actually an invention of Dave Grohl, who killed the character off when he, and the actor playing him, had outlived their usefulness.

Perhaps, after strapping on the explosive underpants, handlers have to express deliver the suicide bombers to their target sites before the clock ticks forty-six: maybe in the forty-sixth minute it all starts to seem like a bad idea?

I’m pretty sure it used to be a whole hour, but with modern media and shortening attention spans you work with what you’ve got. Cutbacks, you know; onward and downwards.

Most television shows once ran around an hour; in recent times this has shrunk to – wait for it – forty to forty-five minutes. Now, most people erroneously believe this to be due to the need for advertising space, but no, don’t be deceived. The TV moguls, in their omniscience, realise that we won’t buy anything for one entire circuit of the dial. Just ask Julia Gillard.

If you want proof of my little theory, set your . . . VCR? Okay, whatever damn machine it is that you use, to record the program after Master-chef. Here is the evidence that advertising bucks can be squeezed out without trimming program length. But only with reality TV – nobody believes that shit.

What, if any, are the effects of this phenomenon? Could they possibly be deleterious? I mean, sure, we’re making the world a much tastier place: I frequently sit, eating noodles from a Styrofoam cup and thinking “gee, that apple and berry crumble Matt Preston’s eating really looks delicious”. By a species of osmosis, I’m eating the crumble. The only thing more satisfying is the four and a half minute suspension required to convince myself that the brunette in the porn film actually would sleep with me.

The answer truly seems to be communications technology. In the days when a message had to be carved in stone, pressed in wet clay, or written on a scraped sheepskin before travelling for weeks, possibly months to its destination, you could believe the same thing for centuries at a time. People fought each other for land and wealth: the fact that God was on your side was just a bonus; God rode with the winner.

Movable type changed that. Suspension of disbelief was reduced at a stroke, sometimes to mere decades. God still rode with the winner, but nobody was quite certain anymore what was on His banner. All of a sudden however, it seemed much more important; belief, reduced in quantity, became qualitatively more potent: and more volatile.

The ensuing centuries ushered in a maelstrom of war and revolution, schism and genocide. Exponential expansion in the promulgation of ideas saw confused populations lurch between extremes, falling in for certainty’s sake behind strong or charismatic leaders; rushing in turn to tear them down again. Anyone with an eighth-grade education or a television knows where it all ultimately led.

We long ago ceased in the main to be believers, becoming consumers instead. The fact that none of us is certain for more than a few minutes at a time what we believe makes it easier to appeal to our appetites: and to our base instincts.

We face an explosion of information that most of our species is constitutionally incapable of assimilating. This renders us vulnerable. There are a few amongst us who know no doubt or indecision; very occasionally, they’re able to persuade people enough for long enough that something is important enough to fight for; discriminate for; persecute for. In a world where global annihilation is possible within a very few minutes, this should give us pause.

The only thing more dangerous than someone who doesn’t know what they believe is someone who does.