The Authority of Self

Education vs. Coercion

While it may be legitimate to lock up a cutthroat criminal and throw away the key, it’s an admission of defeat.  At this point, the game is essentially over.  

The justice system may well be of practical necessity. But that is not the question here.

What we’re looking at is the game of rising to our full potential, which begins in childhood. That’s why we’ll be focusing on education rather than enforcement.

In the past, to ensure that our younglings grew up to be productive members of the hive, we would include classes on civics, or how to be a proper citizen.  And as was generally the case back then, we would try to guarantee our pro-social ambitions with a bit of coercion and discipline.  Which sometimes meant corporal punishment.

My friends working in education tell me that things are much better these days.  

Things like how some kindergartens now include empathy workshops in their routine.  Hopefully, these non-traumatic methods of encouraging beneficial life skills will continue to prosper.  I’d love to see classes on how to deal with anxiety, or how to think logically, become part of the curriculum.  Learning how to deal with being a thinking, feeling animal seems pretty essential.  

Unfortunately, most of us, including those working in education, feel at a loss as to how to do such a thing.  The adults in charge are usually as illiterate and confused about the human condition as everyone else.

Usually the best we can do is to outsource responsibility for dealing with this mysterious subject to someone we hope is an authority – someone who does know.  

If we’re lucky, and a whole lot of care and energy has been invested in this educational project, we could end up with someone specially trained by a group of dedicated child psychologists, pediatricians, neurologists, philosophers and poets.   On the other hand, as in my home town, sometimes the job is given to the local yoga teacher who believes in chakras, crystal magic and mantras.  

And how am I, as a confused human myself, to tell which might bring some legitimate benefit?  Is it the government agent trained by the deep-state?  Is it the bubbly, smiling young lady smelling of essential oils?   If we throw both medical science and our New Age spiritual traditions at the problem, fingers crossed surely something beneficial will stick?  (and god willing nothing too harmful will)

Hopefully the following fact might help clear some confusion, firstly : we are the subject.  

The subject that we are trying to understand is ourselves ie. you and me.

We are strategically placed to address the issue.   No one else can occupy this space at the center of our own experience.

We may not be privy to the vast amounts of biological, psychological or philosophical models that scholars have produced throughout the ages.  Our vast libraries of knowledge are far beyond any one person’s ability to assimilate.  But we are uniquely placed with an opportunity to observe the process from within – a first hand perspective of what it is like to be human.

Secondly : to examine is to discover – the inquiry is the learning.  The mere discovery of a new field of study immediately opens new doors.  All that is required for learning to take place is that we realise that there is something to be observed – in other words that we know where to look, and that we care enough to do so.

The primary role of an educator in our case is to simply point out that this field of study exists, and that it is of practical necessity – if we are at all interested in our wellbeing.  The teacher’s job is to help direct our attention.   The expression from Zen Buddhism is that we “turn the light of awareness back onto ourselves”.   

Rather than the main focus of our life being taken up dealing with the outside world – or “chasing after our attachments” (in zen speak) – we might awaken to the fact that a broader understanding is available.  A broader picture that is immediately available when we turn to face the source of our attachments, the center of our experience – ie our own window of consciousness.

The Light of Awareness

Allowing awareness, of whatever our current experience may be, to open up our perspectives about that situation is to have fully addressed the problem of self-centeredness.   If the self-centered focus of my experience is no longer defining my current existence and actions, then it loses its position as the only authority over my reality.  

What I mean by that “word salad” is probably better expressed by an example.  

Say I’m wholly caught up in an extreme bout of righteous anger towards my friend (or spouse, dog, or child).  And say I’m about to give them what they rightly deserve (like an insult, a slap, or a good shaking).  If in that moment I suddenly realise what it is that I’m doing – ie. I’m about to be violent with a loved one – the reality that I’m living suddenly collapses.   My experience, my state of mind is immediately transformed.  

Of course, at this point a new narrative will most probably take hold – maybe one of guilt and self-recrimination in the example given (which arguably means that the issue has not been “fully” addressed – we’ll get into that later).

All I’m pointing at for now is the transformative power of awareness.

What I’m pointing out is that, more than any scholarly or “spiritual” concept about the structure of harm, actually seeing the self-centered process clearly as it happens, is key.  

Quite aside from the fact that some of the authoritative narratives available are incorrect, and that we are occasionally ill equipped to judge which those might be.   I mean : faced with some mystical mumbo jumbo, how are we to tell the difference between stuff that makes no sense whatsoever and stuff that we simply don’t understand?   Or for that matter : the difference between the mumbo jumbo that is pointing to some truth, or merely appearing to align with our personal opinions.  

The teachings from spiritual traditions, and the models produced by modern life sciences can be potentially helpful.  They can just as easily add to our confusion.

Even if by chance we adopt a particular theory about our psycho-social makeup that is pretty decent and accurate, the actual attention we give to that process is crucial.  Without an ongoing attitude of care and attention towards whatever we are experiencing moment to moment, our psychological conditioning will naturally continue to drive our relationship with reality. 

Okay lets pause, rewind and revisit some of the claims presented above to check if they actually make sense.  

We were saying that an inquiry into the human experience begins with the realisation that such an inquiry is possible, meaningful, and even essential.   

This may sound obvious, even tautological – but the correlation between our mental attitude and the reality we are living isn’t immediately apparent to a child, or in fact to anyone who hasn’t thought about this stuff.  It’s not supposed to – our experience is meant to feel fixed and unquestionable.  We are meant to dedicate all of our energy into avoiding the tiger, not waste time wondering about the nature of the experience.  

Another claim was about the relationship between self-concern and harm.  Wellbeing demands that we be cautious about the self-centered dynamic driving our behavior.  

The suggestion here is that our ego is some kind of problem.  Which is also a claim that can sound counterintuitive : isn’t self-concern all about avoiding harm?  If I’m paying attention to my desire for cake by going out and buying some cake, surely I’m improving my wellbeing?   

This is a category error – understandable, but nonetheless a cause of confusion – between the content and the process.  

Let’s put a pin in this and move on; it’s important but we should avoid addressing too many concepts at once.  Basically by content we mean all the stuff (aka the contents of consciousness) : you, me, the cake, my feelings, my thoughts, dinosaurs, Elvis Presley etc.. The process refers to the neurological Rube Goldberg machine driving me to go out and buy the cake.  The process is what we are calling : the structure of harm (aka evil), the authority of self (aka suffering).

The final assertion was about the power of awareness.  That it was somehow capable of freeing us from the Rube Goldberg machine.  That being attentive to our present reality somehow transforms that reality.  How does this work?

Easy (in theory).   If we care about something we automatically, effortlessly pay attention to whatever that might be.  For example, If I care about my safety and notice something scary my reaction is immediate.

If I notice a tick or a spider crawling up my arm I’ll react right away.  There’s no need to try and pay attention, no need to force myself to act.  There’s no gap between the awareness and my jumping out of my chair, or grasping the culprit with surgical precision – depending on the degree of my phobias.

Now add the fact that being aware of something is very different from being ignorant about it, and voila! – awareness transforms reality by definition.  If I find out that my best friend is trying to harm me, that relationship is no longer the same, it has instantly been transformed.

So in the model that I have described above (ie. if I care about x I will automatically pay attention to x) a lot hinges on “if I care”.

In order for me to reconsider my behavior, especially if what I’m doing feels important, any new information I become aware of must carry a lot of weight.

The balance of power that we are looking at is between my beliefs and aspirations vs. a certain model of harm.  

Figuring out the source of harm and suffering in the world may sound like a worthwhile endeavour.  But it also sounds pretty complex, kinda theoretical, philosophical, intellectual.  Whereas, my visceral wants, needs and beliefs are tangible, immediate, real and powerful.  

My felt sense of reality cannot be ignored; intellectual ideas about human psychology are merely potentially interesting.

Millions of years of evolution have made me who I am, I have powerful biological and psychological drives.  My body, my brain and my beliefs define how I see the world, and compel me to act accordingly.  

Thus since my desires and beliefs outweigh any vague ideas about the nature of suffering, any awareness of whatever my current situation might be, just becomes grist for the mill.  Any new information is immediately interpreted from the perspective of self concern.  Everything is automatically valued strategically in terms of my overriding motivations.  Data is judged in terms of my pleasure, my security and my comfort.  

And this description isn’t meant as a guilt trip, but as a statement of fact.  We weren’t given a choice in the matter, we are simply born as particular human beings in particular settings.

When Conan the barbarian claimed that the best thing in life was “to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women” he was expressing who he was in that moment.  At that moment he was the accumulation of a certain set of physical, emotional and intellectual conclusions.  Which would in turn affect all his further decisions and actions and help define who he would eventually become. 

Conan was an orphan child surviving against all odds in a world of violent trauma.  The other guy, who claimed that the best thing in life was the “open steppe, a fleet horse, a falcon at your wrist and the wind in your hair” was probably some Tibetan prince born with a silver spoon.

We don’t choose our reality.

So we don’t choose our genes or our cultural environment.  But let’s assume that circumstances have somehow compelled us to look at ourselves.  Be it the violence and stupidity we see in the world around us, like war or the damage done to our life sustaining planetary systems.  Or our own emotional pain and the harms expressed in our own families. Or simply an introductory class on Mindfulness.

We’ve said that the transformative power of awareness requires that we feel a deep sense of responsibility towards what we are seeing.  

For an awareness of what we are going through to suddenly free us from the emotional and psychological state that we are in, there must be at least some wariness of our subjective “realities”.  This wariness must outweigh the authority of my primitive self-concern, it must outweigh the imperative of my discomfort ie. my need to protect my self image, to defend my convictions, the persuasive power of my fears and desires.   

All of which is beyond my control.  I don’t have a choice about my instincts or insights – or even over my beliefs and preferences.   So even if transcending my own fears was a weird goal of mine, it’s not a state I am able to conjure up at will.

The transformative power of awareness requires deep care and insight into the nature of self aka suffering.  And by deep we mean something like the deep relationship we have with sharks and spiders, not just some intellectual assent towards a theory.   And this is not something we can will into being.  We cannot force Conan to see the world through the eyes of his friend the Tibetan prince.  As a philosophy bro might say : Doxastic voluntarism is bogus. 

So let’s drop our expectations for impossible outcomes.  In this case any hope of magically transforming ourselves or our friends into awakened beings, forever free from suffering and harm.  If we see that the possibility only amounts to a waste of time and energy, it should drop automatically.

It’s probably best to just concern ourselves with baby steps, and to take advantage of any innate characteristics that could encourage our capacity for insight.

I’m referring to our innate tendencies towards curiosity, benevolence, imitation and prosociality.   We can lean into the fact that we do want to understand how stuff works, we do want to improve our lives.  Better outcomes for ourselves and the world are actually deeply appealing.

As a human, I tend to value what the people around me value.  That might mean that I love soccer, or baseball, or Jesus, or money etc… as inspired by whatever culture I’ve been steeped in.

If my parents, teachers and friends are inquiring into what it means to be human, then I will naturally adopt the question as worthy of consideration.

If the correspondence between self-concern and suffering; or belief, identity and violence are pointed out, then we will naturally begin to suspect the necessity of the question.   Because we are instinctively wary of violence and suffering.  

And the relationship between the self and suffering can be highlighted by asking simple questions : 

• Is there a correlation between the 2? 
• What are the basic components necessary for the expression of violence?

I’m pretty sure that any exploration of these questions will eventually include the concepts of ego, identity or self-image.  But let’s look at a more leading, harder hitting question together : is the harm that we impose on the world always an expression of our ego?   Which is not to say that no good can ever come from self-concern.   What we are asking is whether self-concern is the root of all evil? 

It’s a strong claim – always means more than just quite a lot – but is it true?

The Structure of Harm

The strongest argument I could make for such an absolutist claim would be to demonstrate that the terms were somehow synonymous.  That the concepts were close to identical or at the very least they described strongly overlapping phenomena.  

Of course our normative use of the words doesn’t really help my cause – we don’t mean to conflate these notions, and it is useful to be able to tell them apart.  I do still think it is possible to make my case.  Especially if I’m allowed to use the words : self and suffering.

I would probably try to assert that the sole function of the self was to allow for the possibility of suffering.  How the notion of suffering is literally meaningless without the concept of a self (aka the subject that suffers).   And thus that they were inherently linked as a kind of integrated phenomenon, that they must be understood as a whole, as one system or process.

Another strategy in defense of the affirmation – that self-concern was harmful – would be that the effects of one would inevitably lead to the other.   

In which case I would argue that the whole idea of self was a self-defeating error.  That it was some sort of necessarily harmful delusion.   That the impression we have of being this all important agent at the center of experience was just that : an impression or a sensation.   That the sensation of being this uniquely precious, independent entity cannot help but affect our behavior.  

Now consider the practical impossibility of an independent entity existing in isolation from the rest of the universe.  And that to base one’s behavior in opposition to one’s environment would be necessarily deleterious.  Because our wellbeing and even our survival or existence was inseparable from that environment – that these too should realistically be viewed as part of one interdependent, ecology.

We’ll be covering these points again through the eyes of some well-known thinkers in the coming chapters.  Let’s end here with some objections.   Surely there are cases where our acts of aggression are entirely void of any self-interest?  

For example : psychopathy can lead to harm.  Harm can be the result of sheer malice or sadism which could be completely detached from self-interest.

Okay, but we’re pointing at outliers here, which forces us to speculate on medical issues that are outside our purview, beyond our competence.  We could just as easily claim that sadism or psychopathy are in fact highly obsessive or disturbed forms of self-concern.  So we’ll do ourselves a favor and drop that line of inquiry.

Structural and systemic inequality is often cited as a source of harm, surely that is also different from selfishness? 

Perhaps, but the statement isn’t that we are the sole source of harm; volcanos, asteroids and atomic bombs exist.  It’s merely that when we are the initiators of conflict and aggression it’s ultimately in defense of our self-image.  

And moreover, when it comes to societal inequality, we could reasonably argue that society is ultimately a reflection of its members.  That we are the ones that built those structures.  That the system is an expression of the assumptions and attitudes of those that created it.

Another objection is that violence is often committed in the name of a cause like an ideal or a religion.  

True – in which case I’d point to the fact that our ideals, beliefs, tribe or nation are a part of our identity.  What we identify as : I am a Christian or Muslim or Atheist; I am an American; a Socialist etc..

I realize the matter is far from settled – which is fine by me.  That the claim self-concern is the root of all evil still stands after reasonable objections is impressive enough, considering how dogmatic and counter-intuitive it sounds.