They were the last words of his I ever heard, and those in an e-mail, as he couldn’t speak by the time I got to Michigan.
I realize that telling you a story about my hitchhiking across America, or about my father, isn’t telling you the story of Cannery Row, but in a way it’s very much the story of Cannery Row. The stories are meta to the novel. My dad was a huge fan of Steinbeck, presumably because he knew so well the America about which Steinbeck wrote.
Beyond that, telling you the storyline of Cannery Row would be a disservice. It’s a novel, and one shouldn’t have even an inkling of where a novel is going when one starts to read it. It was only after I finished the book that I began to research its history and found a rich treasure trove of information on the web about the real Cannery Row, the real Monterey of the 1930s, and the real Ed Ricketts. I hope you will, too.
But first indulge yourself in a bit of old-fashioned escapism—step back to the time of the Republican Great Depression and meet a wonderful cast of characters in a story that will leave you smiling, wistful, and newly informed.
Maybe, hopefully, we’ll all live to see that true spirit of America—its people so brilliantly drawn by Steinbeck in Cannery Row—again emerge as we Americans awaken from our dream-fog of consumerism and hellish wars and rediscover the sense of self and community and purpose and the egalitarian values of community on which this nation was founded.
From Buzzflash.com, © 2007, published by Thom Hartmann.
PART II
Brainstorms
A COLLEAGUE OF THOM HARTMANN’S ONCE REMARKED THAT there’s never a dull moment in the Hartmann brain. A glance at even a partial list of his achievements bears this observation out. In addition to his years in radio and television broadcasting and print journalism, he’s run at least seven successful businesses, among them an advertising agency and a travel agency, and he’s been a private detective, a practitioner of homeopathic medicine, and on the Vermont roster of psychotherapists. He’s a former ham radio operator and a private pilot, and he used to be a skydiver. There’s seemingly nothing that doesn’t interest Hartmann and seemingly no topic he hasn’t thought about, researched, or even written a book about. With one year of formal college under his belt, he is a true citizen-scholar in the mold of his hero, Thomas Jefferson. If you were to observe, in jest, that the guy seems hyperactive, or maybe easily bored, you would be correct. Or you could call him, to use his own term, a hunter.
When Thom and Louise’s son Justin was a boy, he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. The news sent Hartmann not into a well of gloom, as it might some parents, but into an intensely focused search for information and answers. His research led him to the realization that he too had attention deficit disorder, followed by the writing of seven books on ADD and the invention of a fascinating original theory on the meaning and the origins of ADD: hunter in a farmer’s world, described here in “The Edison Gene.”
Hunter in a farmer’s world is a powerful metaphor, and it reframed the conversation about ADD forever. Hartmann’s first book on the subject, Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception, published in the early nineties, was the first to come out and say that attention deficit is not a disorder or a defect but an evolutionary adaptation. The creativity, distractibility, and risk-taking that are characteristic of people with attention deficit are part of a unique skill set that was critical to the survival of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. However, traits that were advantageous in a hunting culture—constantly scanning the environment, impulsivity, distractibility—became a liability when human society switched to farming, which required patience and self-discipline. In 2002 gene researchers identified the genes associated with “hunter” behavior, confirming that Hartmann’s model was a scientific reality.
Taking the hunter/farmer model further, Hartmann developed the paradigm described in “Older and Younger Cultures.” One of his keystone theories, this pivotal idea is a lens through which we can view human behavior and find solutions to some of society’s most pressing ecological and sociopolitical problems. This piece also introduces two men whose friendship and ideas would have a profound influence on Hartmann’s intellectual and spiritual development: Gottfried Müller, the founder of the humanitarian organization Salem International; and the Coptic master Kurt Stanley.
Hartmann’s background in advertising, psychology, and progressive talk radio informed his book Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America’s Original Vision. After spending years observing Republicans making huge strides in messaging, he realized that progressives needed help learning how to tell their stories to convey their vision to America. In the lively essay “Framing,” he describes the art and the science of political persuasion using tools and techniques from the advertising industry. Mastering these communication strategies will do much more than just allow you to frame your message—it will show you how to distinguish and rebut right-wing propaganda wherever you find it.
The last piece in this section, “Walking the Blues Away,” describes yet another breakthrough Hartmann theory: walking as bilateral therapy. Hartmann contends that walking, throughout human history, has been the brain’s method of healing itself from psychological trauma. It’s a natural form of bilateral therapy that humans have used for centuries to alleviate emotionally charged memories. Just as our bodies can heal with time, our brains are designed to be psychologically self-healing. Walking “gives you access to healing powers, creative states, and emotional and psychological resilience beyond what you may have ever thought possible.”
The Edison Gene
From The Edison Gene: ADHD and the Gift of the Hunter Child
In the space of less than 40,000 years, ever more
closely packed cultural “revolutions” have taken
humanity from the status of a relatively rare large
mammal to something more like a geologic force.
—RICHARD G. KLEIN AND BLAKE EDGAR
I WAS IN INDIA IN 1993 TO HELP MANAGE A COMMUNITY FOR orphans and blind children on behalf of a German charity. During the monsoon season, the week of the big Hyderabad earthquake, I took an all-day train ride almost all the way across the subcontinent (from Bombay through Hyderabad to Rajahmundry) to visit an obscure town near the Bay of Bengal. In the train compartment with me were several Indian businessmen and a physician, and we had plenty of time to talk as the countryside flew by from sunrise to sunset.
Curious about how they viewed our children diagnosed as having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), I asked, “Are you familiar with those types of people who seem to crave stimulation yet have a hard time staying with any one focus for a period of time? They may hop from career to career and sometimes even from relationship to relationship, never seeming to settle into one job or into a life with one person—but the whole time they remain incredibly creative and inventive.”
“Ah, we know this type well,” one of the men said, the other three nodding in agreement.
“What do you call this personality type?” I asked.
“Very holy,” he said. “These are old souls, near the end of their karmic cycle.” Again the other three nodded in agreement, perhaps a bit more vigorously in response to my startled look.
“Old souls?” I questioned, thinking that a very odd description for those whom American psychiatrists have diagnosed as having a particular disorder.
“Yes,” the physician said. “In our religion we believe that the purpose of reincarnation is to eventually free oneself from worldly entanglement and desire. In each lifetime we experience certain lessons, until finally we are free of this earth and can merge into the oneness of God. When a soul is very close to the end of those thousands of incarnations, he must take a few lifetimes to do many, many things—to clean up the little threads left over from his previous lives.”
“This is a man very close to becoming enlightened,” a businessman added. “We have great respect for such individuals, although
their lives may be difficult.”
Another businessman raised a finger and interjected. “But it is through the difficulties of such lives that the soul is purified.” The others nodded in agreement.
“In America they consider this behavior indicative of a psychiatric disorder,” I said. All three looked startled, then laughed.
“In America you consider our most holy men, our yogis and swamis, to be crazy people as well,” said the physician with a touch of sadness in his voice. “So it is with different cultures. We live in different worlds.”
We in our Western world have such “holy” and nearly enlightened people among us and we say they must be mad. But they may instead be our most creative individuals, our most extraordinary thinkers, our most brilliant inventors and pioneers. The children among us whom our teachers and psychiatrists say are “disordered” may, in fact, carry a set of abilities—a skill set—that was necessary for the survival of humanity in the past, that has created much of what we treasure in our present “quality of life,” and that will be critical to the survival of the human race in the future.
Genetics and Differences
The long history of the human race has conferred on us—some of us more than others—a set of predilections, temperaments, and abilities carried through the medium of our genetic makeup. These skills were ideally suited to life in the ever-changing world of our ancient ancestors and, we have now discovered, are also ideally suited to the quickly changing modern world of cyberspace and widespread ecological and political crises that require rapid response. I will call this genetic gift the Edison gene,* after Thomas Edison, who brought us electric lights and phonographs and movies and—literally—10,000 other inventions. He is the model for the sort of impact a well-nurtured child carrying this gene can have on the world.
While I’m principally referring to the DRD4 gene, the science of genetics is embryonic, with new discoveries being made every day. No doubt sometime soon we’ll have a better, more complete list of specific genes that make up what Dave deBronkart first called the “Edison trait” back in 1992 and Lucy Jo Palladino expanded on considerably in 1997 in her wonderful book The Edison Trait: Saving the Spirit of Your Free-Thinking Child in a Conforming World. For the moment, however, I’ll use the useful shorthand the Edison gene.
When Edison’s schoolteacher threw him out of school in the third grade for being inattentive, fidgety, and “slow,” his mother, Nancy Edison, the well-educated daughter of a Presbyterian minister, was deeply offended by the schoolmaster’s characterization of her son. As a result, she pulled him out of the school. She became his teacher from then until the day he went off on his own to work for the railroads (inventing, in his first months of employment, a railroad timing and signaling device that was used for nearly a century). She believed in him and wasn’t going to let the school thrash out of him his own belief in himself. As a result of that one mother’s efforts, the world is a very different place.
“Ah, but we mustn’t coddle these children!” some say. Consider this: Edison invented, at age 16, that device that revolutionized telegraph communication. It started him on a lifelong career of invention that led to the light bulb, the microphone, the motion picture, and the electrification of our cities. Would the world have been better off if he’d been disciplined into “behaving himself”?
The children and adults who carry this gene have and offer multiple gifts, both individually and as members of society. Sometimes these gifts are unrecognized, misinterpreted, or even punished, and as a result these exceptional children end up vilified, drugged, or shunted into Special Education. The result is that they often become reactive: sullen, angry, defiant, oppositional, and, in extreme cases, suicidal. Some Edison-gene adults face the same issues, carrying the wounds of school with them into adulthood, often finding themselves in jobs better adapted to stability than creativity.
What exactly defines those bearing this genetic makeup? Edison-gene children and adults are by nature enthusiastic, creative, disorganized, nonlinear in their thinking (they leap to new conclusions or observations), innovative, easily distracted (or, to put it differently, easily attracted to new stimuli), capable of extraordinary hyperfocus, understanding of what it means to be an “outsider,” determined, eccentric, easily bored, impulsive, entrepreneurial, and energetic.
All of these qualities lead them to be natural explorers, inventors, discoverers, and leaders.
Those carrying this gene, however, often find themselves in environments where they’re coerced, threatened, or shoehorned into a classroom or job that doesn’t fit. When Edison-gene children aren’t recognized for their gifts but instead are told that they’re disordered, broken, or failures, a great emotional and spiritual wounding occurs. This wounding can bring about all sorts of problems for children, for the adults they grow into, and for our society.
I and many scientists, educators, physicians, and therapists believe that when these unique children don’t succeed in public schools it’s often because of a disconnect between them—their brains are wired to make them brilliant inventors and entrepreneurs—and our schools, which are set up for children whose brains are wired to make them good workers in the structured environments of a factory or office cubicle.
Those children whom we call “normal” are more methodical, careful, and detail-oriented and are less likely to take risks. They often find it hard to keep it together and perform in the rapid-fire world of the Edison-gene child: they don’t do as well with video games, couldn’t handle working in an emergency room or on an ambulance crew, and seldom find themselves among the ranks of entrepreneurs, explorers, and salespeople.
Similarly, Edison-gene children have their own strengths and limitations: They don’t do well in the school environment of repetition, auditory learning, and rote memorization that has been set up for “normal” kids, and they don’t make very good bookkeepers or managers. Genetically, these kids are pioneers, explorers, and adventurers. They make great innovators, and they find high levels of success in any field where there’s a lot of change, constant challenge, and lots of activity. Such personalities are common among emergency room physicians, surgeons, fighter pilots, and salespeople.
There are many areas in which such people can excel—especially when they make it through childhood with their belief in themselves intact.
1993: The Hunter Gene
Dozens of studies over the years have demonstrated that ADHD is genetically transmitted to children from their parents or grandparents. From the 1970s, when this link was first discovered, until 1993, when my first book on the topic was published, conventional wisdom held that ADHD, hyperactivity, and the restive need for high stimulation—all were indications of a psychiatric illness that should be treated with powerful, mind-altering, stimulant drugs.
But could it be that ADHD, this psychiatric “illness,” has a positive side? I proposed in 1993 that these behaviors and temperaments—often misunderstood in schools—were once, in fact, useful skills for hunter-gatherer people (which I’ll refer to simply as hunters) and also have a place in the modern world of emergency rooms, police departments, entrepreneurial businesses, and sales, to which the skills of the hunter can been transferred.
A year later the metaphor entered the popular culture with a Time magazine cover story on ADD and a sidebar article about my hypothesis, titled “Hail to the Hyperactive Hunter.”1 I contrasted the hunter skill set with the skills of the very first farmers, or agriculturalists, which have become those most favored in our schools and most workplaces.
Of course, when I referred to farmers in my comparison, I wasn’t talking about modern agriculturists who contend with all the equipment and challenges of agriculture today. Instead I was considering the skill set of the first settled people who engaged in agriculture, those who had to spend hour after hour planting, cultivating, and harvesting crops by hand.
To engage in such early farming activity, three basic behaviors—which we now know are genet
ically determined and are related to brain dopamine levels—would have to be minimized: distractibility, impulsivity, and risk-taking. These three behaviors, however, would have been assets to hunters.
Because they are at the core of the ADHD diagnosis—and relate to those with the Edison gene—these behaviors are worth briefly exploring, along with their history in human societies.
Distractibility
Distractibility is often incorrectly characterized as the inability of a child or an adult to pay attention to a specific task or topic. Yet people with ADHD can pay attention, even for long periods of time (it’s called hyperfocusing) but only to something that excites or interests them.
ADHD experts often noted that it’s not that those with ADHD can’t pay attention to anything; it’s that they pay attention to everything. A better way to characterize the distractibility of ADHD is to describe it as scanning. In a classroom the child with ADHD is the one who notices the janitor mowing the lawn outside the window instead of focusing on the teacher’s lecture on long division.
But while this constant scanning of the environment is a liability in a classroom setting, it may have been a survival skill for our prehistoric ancestors. A primitive hunter who couldn’t easily fall into a mental state of constant scanning would be at a huge disadvantage. That flash of motion on the periphery of his vision might be either the rabbit that he needed for lunch or the tiger or bear hoping to make lunch of him.
When the agricultural revolution began 12,000 years ago, however, this scanning turned into a liability for those people whose societies changed from hunting to farming. If the moon was right, the soil held the perfect moisture, and the crops were due to be planted, a farmer couldn’t waste his time wandering off into the forest to check out an unusual movement he noticed. He had to keep his attention focused on the task at hand and not be distracted from it.
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