A Bright(er) Idea

Yes, Thomas Edison deserves our thanks for his role in inventing the light bulb.*

But can we also thank physicist Joel Spira? In 1959, Joel invented the household light dimmer, which was a huge improvement over the on/off light bulb. But Joel never gets any publicity. So thanks, Joel.*

I grew up in a home with no dimmers (I know, real Angela’s Ashes type stuff), but the apartment I share with Julie has several sliding light fixtures – and I love them for a couple of reasons.

First, they give me a sense of control, some freedom of choice. Do I want the living room to be lit like a French bistro? Or a hospital operating room? It’s up to me. I can move the slider up or down as I see fit. I’m the Scorsese of my own home.

The second reason I’m a fan of dimmers (and the point of this essay) is that I believe dimmers are a good metaphor for much of human existence.

Or at least a better metaphor than the on-off switch.

Most areas of my life are more like a dimmer than an on-off switch. My emotions, politics, opinions, knowledge, personality – none are binary. They all have gradations, gray areas, points on a spectrum. They are all on a dimmer.

Consider my mood. As I wrote in a previous post, when people ask me how I’m doing, I don’t say “great” or “terrible,” I say, “7 out of 10.” (Or sometimes 6 or 8 out of 10). I’m not all light or dark.

Or aspects of my personality. My extraversion and introversion are on a dimmer. I’m not fully one or the other. And I’ll go further: I believe I have at least some control over the extraversion dimmer dial. I can force myself to act in a more extroverted way, and eventually I become more extroverted.

It's not just me, though. I think society is rarely binary. Consider that democracy is on a dimmer. I don’t think that our country will switch from democracy to authoritarianism overnight. The dial would turn gradually, with more and more power accruing to the president, and our freedoms gradually waning.

Likewise, I don’t think any country is totally free enterprise or totally socialist. Every country has some services provided by the government, which you could define as socialist. In America, we have state-funded police, firefighters, highways, and, at least for now, the post office. It’s a dial.

So, there you go. The dimmer can be a powerful metaphor to save us from binary thinking.

But wait! The dimmer metaphor itself needs some adjusting. You know what’s often a more accurate metaphor than a dimmer? A whole bunch of dimmers! I think many aspects of life are best represented by a series of dimmers, like dials on the control panel in a recording studio.

Consider my answer to the question “How are you doing?” I often say, “7 out of 10.” But that’s just shorthand. The real answer is that my well-being is made up of several dials, and 7 is just an average. The physical health dial may be 8 out of 10, but my optimism about the world may be 4 out of 10, and my work satisfaction might be 7.5 out of 10. We are all complicated, we all contain multitudes of dimmers.*

I wouldn’t be a good replacement for Ebert or Siskel. I don’t like the thumbs-up thumbs-down binary when rating movies. Instead, I like to break it down. I recently saw the musical Easter Parade with my mom. The acting was 6 out of 10, the dialogue 5 out of 10, the set design 10 out of 10, the dancing 9 out of 10, and so on.

And perhaps most importantly, we need to be less reductive when talking about politics. The left-right frame is inadequate to represent our many opinions. The two-party system lumps together people of vastly different views. Instead, a person’s politics might be better viewed as a series of dials, with each dial representing an issue. A church/state dial, a gun control dial, a social safety net dial.

Some political scientists have created maps that are more nuanced than the left/right metaphor. These maps have their benefits and drawbacks, but at least they’re trying to break away from the reductive left-right metaphor. I’m posting two of them below.

I’ll end by saying that I hope you liked some aspects of this essay, if not all.

*Edison was pretty bad at crediting those who helped him develop the light bulb, so I want to shout out folks such as engineer Lewis Latimer, who invented a durable carbon filament used in the bulb.

**There were also several precursors to Spira’s household dimmer, including one for theaters invented by Granville Tailer Woods in 1896.

***Why is it called a “dimmer” not a “brightener?” Seems unduly negative.