Being human. Do we know what it actually is to be fully, optimally human?
We are very willing to haul out the rather reductive "Oh, it's human nature" when discussing our fellow man's behaviour, good and bad. But what is true human nature?
Have you ever wondered about your own deeply-suspected potential? Have you ever looked at those who have lived inspirational lives, those who have been ethically, creatively, physically and emotionally all of a piece, and wondered whether you could ever reach such mythical, integrated and great heights?
And here's a thought! All our psychological models (starting with Freud) have been based on the tendencies of humans already skewed and damaged by the upbringing and societal programming of that era. Freud's 19th century patients were, surely, the product of the most unenlightened and punitive society imaginable? How, then, could he have come up with any kind of accurate psychological model based on the behaviour of damaged people? Did Freud feel a frisson of schadenfreude in presuming to pronounce on the human condition?
So, who really knows what true human nature is, or can be? We are all skewed in one way or another! Have we let ourselves down by aspiring less and less, by being 'good-enough', by conforming bit by bit to the current 'idea' of human capability, to limiting beliefs?
"Be in this world but not of it." (John 17:6-19)
We have allowed the imprinted 'standards' of society to override the 'still small voice' within us. The voice, in my estimation, is God reminding us of our original and true human nature. It tells us, if we deign to listen, that acknowledging our humanity means that we consciously let go of our attachment to our ideas, our concepts, our identifications, and thus close the gap between our ways and his.
John Trudell said,
"Think like a human being. Don't think like a minority, like a gender, like a class, like a race. We are human beings first. Everything else is secondary ..."
He said,
"It's about evolution, not revolution."
He said,
"WE are the alternative energy."
These statements are particularly useful now, at a time when the fear is being ramped up and in the doing we are feeling more and more helpless.
We live in a world in which there is plenty to fear. Apparently.
Not least the beautifully manufactured climate emergency.
However ...
How many times did God send angels to humanity, urging them to
"Fear not"?
It is said that the phrase is repeated 365 times throughout the Bible. A reminder to reset ourselves every day.
Arthur Koestler's 'Ghost in the Machine', I gather, philosophically explores man's dual nature and the problems of humanity stemming from this.
" ... the work explains humanity's tendency toward self-destruction in terms of brain structure, philosophies, and its overarching, cyclical political–historical dynamics, reaching the height of its potential in the nuclear arms arena.
"One of the book's central concepts is that as the human triune brain has evolved, it has retained and built upon earlier, more primitive brain structures. The head portion of the "ghost in the machine" has, as a consequence of poor, inadequate connections, a rich potential for conflict. The primitive layers can, and may, together, overpower rational logic's hold. This explains a person's hate, anger, and other such emotional distress."
Seems pretty sound so far, particularly the mention of "poor, inadequate connections" in the head portion of the 'machine'. I have not read the book, and in actual fact was led to it by a comment a reader made in response to an article by another philosopher writing about Pandora's Box and the nature of hope. He says,
"Arthur Koestler in his book 'The Ghost in the Machine' felt the only hope for mankind considering our horrific history of creating suffering for ourselves and other life forms was that somehow we could create a drug or technology that would rewire or correct our emotional disconnect from our intellect."
Why a drug or technology, when loving devotion to one's child would negate the need for rewiring in the first place?
Call me ambitious, but I believe that we have the equipment to have a chance of living a transcendently 'good' life, to be glorious human beings! But for that equipment to work, we have two main requirements. Firstly, secure and complete love and nurturing, leading to a properly wired neurological system. This enables stability and, thus, a functioning launching pad for our potential. Secondly, a well-nourished and therefore healthy brain and body. The necessity for nurturing and nutrition go hand in hand.
I think it can be inferred that these two requirements are physically and spiritually key. A well-intentioned 'religious' or 'spiritually inclined' person doesn't necessarily or inevitably lead a good life or behave well.
O' What may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side?
William Shakespeare
THE WEST: THE CIVILISED WORLD?
It's heartbreaking enough observing all the openly naughty people (in prison, on the streets or indeed running loose in the corridors of power). But what about us respectable nice ones, ostensibly well-behaved but with our naughtiness under wraps! We don't know it, of course, convinced as we are of our decency and virtue.
It only takes a small trigger, though, for the wraps to fall away, revealing the snarling monster named "Unexpressed Rage and Pain" crouching underneath!
Jung, I think, really was on the right track with his concept of the 'shadow' self.
Professor Jordan Peterson loves Jung and has put enormous thought to the concept of the 'shadow' self.
He has reached the conclusion that "a harmless man isn't a good man. A good man is a dangerous man who has everything under voluntary control". In other words, he has the self-knowledge and humility to realise what he is capable of (i.e. he has had the moral courage to become acquainted with his 'shadow') and therefore has a handle on his reactions when under stress or emotional pressure.
A harmless man, he implies, is living under false pretences. He hasn't allowed himself to admit to his dirty, nasty bits, preferring to present an unobtrusive and blameless front to the world. He is harmless, likeable, not to be faulted and therefore highly defensive. He just wants to be seen, seen for who he is, to be accepted. Imagine then the explosion when some hapless passer-by inadvertently offends him! A powder keg disguised as Mr Cellophane.
We are all in the same boat! Who among us is perfect? Jesus, who, I believe, completely understood human biology and psychology, said, "He who is without sin throw the first stone."
He said, "Look to the plank in your own eye before commenting on the mote in another's."
Exactly what was he saying? I think he was pointing out that to continue judging others keeps us away from examining our own, similar, tendencies.
And that, in that examination (if you have the guts) you become free because you are aware and therefore have a choice of response. You have the choice to acknowledge (and thereby heal) and grow beyond your repressed 'beastly' bits!
It's choice that separates us from most other mammals, who are powered only by instinct. Only with our pre-frontal cortex operating in conjunction with the other two parts can we go beyond instinctual responses and choose. Otherwise, we allow ourselves to regress. We as humans are more than our feelings, our knee-jerk responses. That is what makes us human.
That's what enabled some caught up in the Holocaust, like Viktor Frankl, author of 'Man's Search for Meaning' (1946) (buy here) to survive. He consciously chose his response to the horrors surrounding, and imposed upon, him.
ARE WE BORN SINFUL?
For a long time I have been mulling the possibility that 'original sin' as presented by the theologians may actually refer to our strange and challenging physical design. We have a brain that has incredible potential but which also, if not given the conditions it needs, has enormously 'negative' potential.
To be told that that one was born in 'original sin' feels like a scary and hopeless dead-end. There is, it seems, simply no escape from one's own in-born disgracefulness! It seems like the odds are against us, from the start, with no promise of redemption. Or perhaps, if I tie myself into knots trying to be 'good' against the grain of my own wretched nature, then I may emerge 'blameless', at least in the eyes of the dodgy old Rector no-one in the congregation quite trusts with their daughters and sons.
I have an ever-developing idea that this is actually a biological/physiological issue, rather than a spiritual one. Furthermore I think that, when we get the biological stuff right, we will see that there is no separation between the two in any case. It's all the same thing. It's the nature of life, and we have, through shame, separated the two. It is rather like separating twins at birth. Even if they never meet, each one never feels complete.
In other words, if we are not given the optimum conditions for 'virtuous' living by 'virtuous' parents, such as care, attention and respect, then we will inevitably live our lives on some 'sinful' edge or another. We've been physiologically moulded to do so!
MEN BEHAVING BADLY
You can't shame someone into behaving well. Well, you can but, well, they won't really be behaving well. They'll just be behaving well to avoid, well, trouble.
They'll be well behaved but with all their unconscious 'issues' remaining intact behind the mask. What will it take to bring those issues forth? An offence here, a trigger there? Righteous anger converted to self-righteous rage?
THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS
Envy, gluttony, avarice, lust, pride, sloth, and wrath. What a horrible lot we are! If only we could behave ourselves!
THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS: Deadly to whom?
'The Seven Deadly Sins' could be seen as symptoms or tendencies displayed by those of us who lacked early love, attention, regard. We are making up for what we feel we lack.
I'm greedy, you say? Perhaps early on I perceived that my needs were ignored, nourishment withheld, to fit in with some 'schedule' my mother went along with?
I'm proud, you say? Have you ever considered the possibility that I'm trying to cover for the 'smallness' I actually feel?
These 'sins', or personality defects if you like, certainly affect the way we relate to others, and can be 'deadly' to otherwise burgeoning friendships or loves. And, putting aside problems with others, these 'sins' are certainly 'deadly' to my well-being and happiness during my precious time on this earth.
They are deadly if I want to cultivate a whole and real relationship with life, with God.
THE DEFINITION OF SIN
The concept of 'sin' is so shame-laden and unpleasant that no wonder we hesitate to admit to, and examine, our own 'sins'. Would it be more constructive if we regarded ourselves with less shame and more compassion, and instead tried to re-examine the word 'sin'?
The Cambridge Dictionary defines 'sin' as:
the offence of breaking, or the breaking of, a religious or moral law.
Do we have here a translation problem? How was 'sin' described, in the Bible, before all the translators got hold of the thing?
"It means missing the mark. It is a term in Greek that comes from an archery term meaning 'to miss the bulls-eye'."
It is sad, then, that the Church surrounded 'sin' with the threat of fire and torture and shame, rather than presenting it more gently and wisely as 'missing the mark'.
The question is: what is this 'mark'? God's approbation? A laid-out virtuous path to gain the approval of an angry and vengeful father? If so, no, I'll give it a miss, thank you.
Or is the 'bulls-eye' love itself? And is love not a shining and untroubled state of being, a natural unforced goodness, an ease in going about life with no need for compensation and other psychological shenanigans? Does not love become the natural state of a person who has himself been well loved, acknowledged and respected?
This is a person who has had his needs met at a time when he couldn't meet them for himself. He therefore trusts in love, not lack, and he knows to the bottom of his boots that there is no need for fearful grasping. "Ma didn't hold herself aloof from me. She responded to me, she saw me. And so why should life be any different?" It's a matter of early belief in the goodness of life being planted in the welcoming soil of early experience.
The greater the neglect, the greater the ego. And the greater the ego the greater the unconscious desire, or need, to be acceptable. To be accepted. Those seven deadly sins ... ego in a desperate effort to survive perhaps?
In evolutionary terms, acceptance by the tribe ensured survival. To be expelled by the tribe meant certain death. And of all the things we know about being human, the fear of death is at the root of everything. And not feeling acceptable (to our parents, to our teachers, to our society) feels like death. To feel safe from this ever-looming sense of possible (psychological) annihilation, we present an acceptable facade to ourselves and to the world that we will defend to the .... death. The death of our true integral self.
And this is a circular path, leading nowhere and beyond. Somehow we in the West became convinced that children need to be trained, taught, to be civilised. Early childcare manuals emphasised a child's need to learn self-control, to be shown how to behave. John Watson, a behavioural psychologist cum 'childcare expert', said this:
“There is a sensible way of treating children. Treat them as though they were young adults. Dress them, bathe them with care and circumspection. Let your behavior always be objective and kindly firm. Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead, when they say goodnight. Shake hands with them in the morning. Give them a pat on the head if they have made an extraordinarily good job of a difficult task. Try it out. In a week’s time you will find how easy it is to be perfectly objective with your child and at the same time kindly. You will be utterly ashamed of the mawkish, sentimental way you have been handling it.” (Watson, Psychological Care of Infant and Child, 1928)
I remember a family member expressing her belief that small children are "savages" and require this directed manner of upbringing in order to become decent adults. To respond to a child's 'demands' is to spoil that child.
How ironic that the 'savages' in the Brazilian rainforest, the Yequana, teach their children nothing! They hold their babies close until they can move around independently, and then all they do is demonstrate, by their own example, how to go about things. They instinctively know that the child has an inbuilt need and drive for acceptance and, moreover, will watch and copy the examples before them.
And indeed the children become balanced, sociable members of the tribe with no training whatsoever!
Our Western tragedy is that, even if many of us have long rejected the Church and its doings on a conscious level, it seems we have nevertheless kept on board a belief in 'original sin', a huge fear of that 'sinful' 'savage'. We cannot trust in the basic 'goodness' built into our children.
I don't care if you translate 'goodness' into 'evolutionary survival tactic'. It makes sense that a human being, whether a Western child in an affluent family or a native jungle child, will do its damnedest to fit in, do what he notices works for himself and everyone else, and therefore feel safe and at ease. From that point on, he becomes a natural man, doing what a human being does, without a need to label his qualities as 'good' or 'loving'. Being viscerally safe, he can now embrace well-being. His inbuilt sense of unity with others ensures that concern for others' well-being flows from him without thought. Respect for the earth will be inbuilt.
It's just the way he is. But if you want to use words then, yes, a 'good' and 'loving' life now commences.
In the meantime we, in the 'civilised' world, withhold, shame, punish and train and lo! we have a troubled, crime-soaked picture to gaze at and mull over.
KEEP THOSE MISSIONARIES AWAY FROM ME!
THE CHURCH AS SINNER?
The Church, I consider, created its own monster in undermining the human's integral and benign beingness. We have a bleeding society to prove it. The Church, with its priestly intermediaries, convinced its congregation to give up self-responsibility through shame and fear. And consequently our reality is seen through the lens of fear. We have lost sight of God, the garden, of innocence.
"We are stardust, we are golden
We are caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden."
from 'Woodstock', by Joni Mitchell (1970)
(It's just a bummer that drugs were being infiltrated into the garden at the same time. Yes, infiltrated. But you know about all those conspiracy theories, don't you?)
INNOCENCE
We shouldn't mistake 'innocence' for naivety. Innocence is, more, a state of being unsullied by erroneous and limiting concepts and ideas. There is no foolishness here. Just clear-sightedness. Here is a mind open to possibilities not available to closed, already made-up ones.
If this mind is clearly, deliberately and consistently tuned to a higher channel, then what proceeds from that channel will be available to that mind. There will be coherence, and clarity. There will no static or interference from other channels.
PERCEPTION vs TRUTH
We know that our perceptions can be distorted by artificial means, by drugs and alcohol to name a couple. Supposing we have allowed our perceptions to be distorted by the drug of lazy compliance to others' thoughts? By not noticing how we unconsciously take on the dogma, the propaganda, the brainwashing?
By mistaking comforting belief for actual independent thought?
Western man's window of perception has arguably become very grimy. Are we so in thrall to man-made and divisive concepts that we will continue to add to the grime? Don't we have independent thought and integrity any more?
BE THE ANTIDOTE
"Be the antidote to the diseased perception of reality. Through guilt, sin and blame we've turned our own fears, doubts and insecurities onto ourselves" John Trudell.
When I take my specs off to give them a good old polish with my hanky, I am sometimes shocked at the smears and greasy fingermarks and bits of detritus I find on the lenses. I even feel a little bit ashamed! But I polish them anyway, and, placing them back on my face, I see the world in front of me more clearly.
ORIGINAL INNOCENCE
Original innocence ... could this, after all, be what we have lost? Rather than a belief in 'original sin', we could embrace instead 'original innocence''?
And perhaps innocence is represented by the native way, by the primal stuff that we are all made of? Cultivate that and you're there!
THE GARDEN OF EDEN
Was the Garden of Eden intended as a portal between heaven and earth? Was not mankind offered a potential life of wholeness and bounty when first popped down into the Garden? Was he not told he had dominion over the earth, a divine responsibility if ever there was one?
Mankind fell at the first hurdle. Out, cried the Lord!
Innocence was lost.
Could it be said that, with each new birth, we are given another chance?
When a baby is expelled from the womb, the matrix of creation, it finds itself in a potentially cold and alien Garden. The way we receive that baby is everything. If received with instinct-led care, warmth and nurture, this new being can experience the Garden as the Lord originally intended. If loved well, he gets past the Cherubim with the flaming sword, he effortlessly becomes a natural custodian of the earth, and he thrives. Simples!
THRIVING
Once in the Garden, the human being needs very particular conditions in which to thrive. Krishnamurti says it well:
"Really to care (for a child) is to care as you would for a tree or a plant, watering it, studying its needs, the best soil for it, looking after it with gentleness and tenderness ...."
Leaving a helpless and therefore dependent baby alone in distress is not tender. Berating a small child for bad behaviour is not care. Rushing his development, by expecting things he is not actually physiologically capable of, is futile. And cruel.
Giving a child secure and constant touch, respectful response when he signals his needs, is what provides the soil for growth.
Let's put first things first. Let's get the physical needs dealt with first and then see where we are. We may find that there's not an awful lot of 'training' to do when it actually comes down to it!
Give a child the deep dark loam of bodily and emotional closeness and provide a courteous and conscious example for him to absorb and, ironically, once the puny little thing has rooted and has started to bud, you can let go and trust it to effortlessly bloom.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Is there a chink of light in this picture? Is it as simple as this? That the 'virtues' can be seen as naturally-lived expressions of a loved, integrated person? No need to try? No need to train?
Perhaps, then, the redemption Jesus speaks of might be seen rather differently. Humanity redeemed by earthly and physical love.
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