Why ‘IMAGINING
OTHER’?
These notes may
help to explain my web pages!!!
1: what is
‘imagining other’?
Back to index page for this
website: Imagining
Other Index Page.
Other Links: Imagining
Other 2: New Ways of Seeing.
Imagining Other 3:
alternatives.
Books
for Why 'Imagining Other'?
Contents:
A.
Summary: 1. # Why 'imagining other'?
2. # What is meant by 'imagining
other'?
B. Further
notes: 1. #
Imagine! 1.1 # Creativity 1.2 # The social basis 1.3 # Imagination and the arts
3. # Society
4. # 'Other' (4.1 language 4.2 society. ‘Others’: 4.3 women; 4.4
race; 4.5 Jews; 4.6 stories/fairy tales/myths; 4.7 refugees)
5. # Imagining other: two levels
6. # Conclusion.
Other topics bookmarked:
#altruism #Baggini, Julian #Bloomfield (Leonard) #Christakis and
Fowler (‘Connected’) #consumerism #cynicism #de Saussure
#Earls, Mark (school of life) #empathy (and sympathy) #epigenesis #Foucault #Hoggart, Richard #nature or
nurture, genes, IQ etc #neuroplasticity #Amos Oz #populism
I use the
word ‘imagine’ deliberately (see below). Imagining is not ‘thinking’ but using
a non-verbal skill we have to ‘picture’ new things.
As Tom Paine [Political Philosophy notes on Paine] said, (of
politics, but I believe this applies to all the ‘social sciences’): the science of government is “of
all things the least mysterious and the most easy to
understand”, but it has been “enveloped... [with]
mystery, for the purpose of enslaving, plundering and imposing upon
mankind”.
Note
(i) – everything is inter-connected...
For example, ‘corporate
social responsibility’ – as I treat it – involves an awareness of: the history
of the development of business, an understanding of different perspectives on
economics,
the phenomenon of power (a ‘political’ concept), the sociology of inequality,
ethical notions of responsibility etc.
The study of the history
of political thought should be – in its essence – ‘critical’ as it should raise
questions about current regimes and ideologies, as well as examining notions of
‘justice’
‘law’ ‘power’ and ‘the good’...
The study of social
movements clearly involves a number of ‘disciplines’ – sociology and politics
especially; whilst each social movement raises a specific set of issues that
need
to
be dealt with in their own terms (feminism, ecology, work, war etc). An article
in New Left Review 108 (Nov/Dec 2017) demonstrates how in the 1960s the
different strands were
inter-woven...
1.2.
Another difficulty in thinking ‘outside the box’ is due to the fact that we
live in an age that is dominated by a belief in science, and although the best
scientists acknowledge that their ‘knowledge’ is always provisional (until
disproved) too many people have a simplistic, unquestioning view of scientific knowledge. For this kind of ‘believer’
science has found, or will find, the answer to everything. So long as they can
quote a ‘scientist’ they believe there is no need for further discussion [note (ii) below].
This naivety only serves to reinforce the power of the
already most influential – since their ‘authority’ is likely to go
unchallenged. Of course, the most influential people will almost certainly have
wealth behind them, and although science should be used to determine facts, too
often it is twisted by vested interests – especially those of large
corporations. The so-called differences of opinion over global warming are a
powerful example of this. Global
warming - causes and disputes.
I would also argue that most people have a very narrow
view of what is meant by ‘reason’. This has been the case since the so-called
Enlightenment, but it has been exacerbated recently by the neo-liberal agenda
supported by the Thatcher/Reagan axis, and continued in this country by Tony
Blair. This agenda is based on a particular view of human nature - the idea
that we are all self-interested
individuals trying to make rational
calculations over what is best for us. This ideology of course only serves
to reinforce the self-centred pursuit of wealth and power by those who already
have more of both than the rest of us!! It also makes those who do not succeed
blame themselves for not trying hard enough, rather than seeing the inbuilt
limitations imposed by the economic system.
For more thoughts on science & reason see How enlightened was the
'Enlightenment'? Part 3 - science.
Note (ii) Some scientists, we are told, deny climate change [notes here and here] – some deny we ever put a
man on the moon!
2.
What is meant by ‘imagining other’? Why ‘other’?
= imagining “other” ideas, than the accepted
“norm”…
= imagining “other” ways of life than our
individualistic, consumer-oriented society …
=
imagining “other” ways of thinking than cynicism and selfishness, and the
passivity that follows from these…
…
that is, imagining ideas, institutions and practises
that liberate and empower. See: New
Ways of Seeing and Alternatives.
I want to use the
word imagine in a particular way - perhaps not the everyday usage.
I hope that these
notes will go some way to explaining what I mean:
To
imagine, in its most commonly used sense is: to form a picture or image of
something; this is an act of creation.
We can imagine things that do not exist
(unicorns) or have not happened (the end of the world).
We can conjure up in our presence
things (or people!) that are not really there.
We
can create images (symbols) that convey meanings beyond what they immediately
represent (icons, flags, works of art, logos; but also words themselves: see
below).
1.2 The social basis of the
imagination:
To imagine,
in this sense, is to create, and imaginative
creation is an essentially collective or social ability. Is it possible
for me to imagine something that has meaning only to me? This is very unlikely,
because the picture, words, symbol or
whatever that I use has a meaning that society has given it – or if I am
genuinely creating a new meaning, this will disappear with me unless I
communicate it or share it with others.
I nearly said
to create is an “essentially human” ability, but we do not know whether animals
imagine in the way we do… and we have often found that what we thought was an
exclusively human ability is also shared by animals! But we can be fairly sure
that animals do not share their
imaginary creations - nor act on them
- in the way, or to the extent, that humans do. They do, of course, learn
from each other – sparrows are more successful at the moment, because they
flock together, and they share knowledge of how to retrieve food from
bird-feeders; while tits are more solitary and as a consequence, it is
believed, are not succeeding so well. (2017/18 RSPB bird
survey).
Update (October 2016): in a book –
‘Are we Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? – Frans de Waal argues that some animals (e.g. capuchin
monkeys) are ‘inequality averse’: if two are not rewarded in the same way for
something they have done, then the one with the least good reward gets angry.
‘All human societies have the same moral basis’.
(Matthew Cobb, reviewing this book Guardian Sat ct 8th 2016)
Children are acutely averse to inequality – not just when it affects them
negatively, but also displaying generosity toward the have-nots’. De Waal takes
this insight back to German biologist Jacob von Uexcull,
who argued that before we can understand an animal’s behaviour we have to
understand its ‘Umwelt’ or ‘surrounding world’ – i.e.
its ecology... An approach that is ‘holistic and empathetic’
contrasting strongly with the ‘arid dead end of BF Skinner’s behaviourism’.
Has other interesting points e.g. about teaching – which humans do, but not
(yet?!) animals (who watch and learn but do not actively teach each other).And
touches on consciousness/self-consciousness (recognising oneself in a mirror).
Susan
Greenfield, a scientist specialising in the brain, argues that what makes us
human is not simply a desire for status, but the ‘expression of that status
through symbols dependent on a cultural context, which is in turn dependent on
a personalised, individual brain’ (New Statesman, 28th June – 4th
July 2013). It seems to me that there are many other human traits or behaviours
– fighting and loving for example! – that we carry out
using symbols (flags – and flowers).
There are
many ways in which we share and act
on our imaginary constructs,
of which two are most basic, or
fundamental:
- meaning,
or language, and
- society, that is through social
institutions – anything that is socially instituted (as Castoriadis
would put it). An important aspect of this side of imagining is how we are
encouraged by society to imagine others (see below)…
And, of
course, these two - language and society - are inseparable.
1.3 Isn’t imagination mainly to do
with the arts?
The above
argument might seem controversial, since it is more common to associate the
imagination with the arts, or
culture.
Of course
these are manifestations of a particular kind of imagination, but I am
arguing that there is a deeper level of imagination that underpins even art,
literature, culture etc.
At the same
time I believe that the experience of art, literature etc, is valuable, and
does “exercise” our imagination. In particular, through the arts we get
insights into other peoples’ ways of thinking and living. This, of course,
means approaching the arts with a sense of seriousness and not simply as a form
of entertainment!! As Jeanette Winterson said: “art asks people to be more than they are,
better than they are; it asks for intensity, concentration and effort….”
I also like
Daniel Barenboim’s account (Guardian 13.12.08) of the West-Eastern Divan
orchestra, whose role is like that stated in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights: all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, endowed
with reason and conscience, and should act towards one another in a spirit of
brotherhood…
“Music, unlike any other art or
discipline, requires the ability to express oneself with absolute commitment
and passion while listening carefully and sensitively to another voice which
may even contradict one’s own statement. This is the essence of musical
counterpoint… Without equality one cannot speak of dialogue but only of
soliloquy… “
Barenboim is
a United Nations Messenger of Peace…
“The human
being does not want to be dependent, but knows that complete independence is
unattainable; therefore the only constructive way of life is one of
interdependence.”
When we give
something (an object, a feeling, a person, a concept) a name, we use our collective
imagination in choosing to identify that thing with a collection of sounds
and/or visual symbols that
become its name. “A rose is a rose is a
rose…” and, as Paul Ricoeur said: “The symbol sets us
thinking.”
This is an
act of the imagination, since in naming we are making a connection that is not “really” there - between the object
and the name, between the object and the image (iii). I am largely following
the ideas of Cornelius Castoriadis here. (** See the references and links below, on the work of Castoriadis)...
More
recently, anthropologists have noted that there was a crucial stage in human
evolution when the ability to symbolise arose – thus Lauren Laverne (in an
article on the increasing power of Google to store and shape our collective
memories) refers to refers to ‘symbolic
capacity’ of humans which sounds to me very much like Castoriadis’s
contention:
- in the text there is a reference to the radical anthropology
group (Chris Knight, Nina Power – alongside whom I used to work at UEL!!): http://radicalanthropologygroup.org/pub_knight_power_watts_big.pdf
And in
another article, a review of a book by an Israeli writer:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/21/sapiens-brief-history-mankind-review-yuval-noah-harari
Harari organises
humankind around four different milestones. About 70,000 years ago, the
cognitive revolution kickstarted our history, and
about 12,000 years ago the agricultural revolution speeded it up. Then came a
long process of unifying mankind and colonising the Earth until, finally, the
scientific revolution began about 500 years ago. It is still in progress and
may yet finish us all off.
The first of these – the cognitive
revolution – was the real game-changer; a genetic mutation that altered the
inner wiring of Homo sapiens,
enabling them to think in unprecedented ways and to communicate in an
altogether new type of language which could not only convey information but
also create imagined worlds. It was this ability to forge common myths that
enabled H sapiens
to cooperate flexibly in large numbers, and thus to see off rivals such as
the Neanderthals, wipe out hostile animals and cultivate crops. Similarly, says
Harari, it was by building pyramids – in the mind as
much as on the ground; imagined orders and hierarchies – that
humanity advanced.
The philosophy that emerges, however, is not what you’d necessarily
expect from an Israeli with a background in medieval military history. History,
for Harari, is largely made up of accidents; and his
real theme is the price that the planet and its other inhabitants have paid for
humankind’s triumphant progress. There are indicators of this in an elegiac
passage on the destruction of the megafauna of
Another
aspect of this phenomenon/ability (to symbolise) is that whilst there is a real
thing there, (and a real name) the connection or association between the thing
and its name is arbitrary (“A rose
by any other name would smell as sweet”). This is a point made by linguists
such as de Saussure and Leonard Bloomfield.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_linguistics
Once we have
named things we can share our understanding of them. (If I have a name for
something that no-one else knows or uses, how can I talk to anyone else about
it?). We can then act together, or not,
as we choose (“global warming”).
Note
(iii) It is interesting that the concept of ‘metaphor’
is being used to understand how the internet works and the effects it is having
on society (see John Naughton in the Observer
Discover pages – e.g.
www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/14/china-great-firewall-put-out?
The
importance of ‘conceptual metaphors’ is explored by George Lakoff
and Mark Johnson, in Metaphors We Live By (1980) – these are ‘pre-linguistic’
such as the idea that one ‘explodes’ with anger, or that whatever is ‘ up’ is
good and whatever is ‘down’ is bad... Metaphors like these – and those used in
speeches etc – affect how we do things (says Sarah Bakewell,
author of How to Live, a Life of Montaigne, in Guardian (7th Sep) p
54).
As we build
up communities of shared meanings
- using language - we create societies.
Since we are so deeply involved in our society (*), and since we have no clear
picture of how it came about, in all its complexity and richness, we tend to
think of it as “natural” or “God-given” or the “product of history” – but it is
none of these, it is our creation.
In Castoriadis’s terminology we have ‘instituted’ it
– society is an ‘institution’… This means, firstly, that we made it, and we can change it. We can change
it all, or part of it.
Mark
Earls, of the
Therefore we can create another society. Other people
have (already) created other societies. Change is possible.
However,
again, the basic problem, and what leads us away from this realisation of our
own responsibility and power, is our tendency to see the ‘institution’ that we
have created (religion, the law, the state, custom/tradition etc) as something ‘given’,
something ‘natural’, and therefore
something that ‘determines’ how we
live (and think!).
Deterministic views and theories
take many forms:
-
much religious thinking (we cannot avoid ‘sin’),
-
Marxism (in many of its incarnations... despite the fact that Marx argued that we are most human and most fulfilled, when we are free to create, and
that we need to in control of the things we have created: this is ‘communism’),
-
and surely there is something deterministic (or
fatalistic) in neo-liberalism (the market cannot be regulated – a view which
tends to go with the statement that it should
not be regulated).
I
reject determinism, since it works against our ability to free ourselves.
Moreover,
contrary to Julian Baggini [see below, #note (v)], I would say that cynicism also is a kind of
determinism (or fatalism) – if you expect nothing better, how will you ever get
anything better?
Finally, it is important to stress
that these (social) institutions do not control us by themselves, but that some
people (politicians, religious leaders, bureaucrats...) will use the fact that
it is easy to convince us that these institutions are out of our control in
order to hide the reality that they themselves are in control!!
(Or are they? Existentialists, drawing
on Hegel, have argued that neither the master nor the servant is free...)
It is easy to
come to feel that once a society, or an event, or history,
is imagined in a certain way then it is very difficult to change it... However,
see Fintan O’Toole’s piece in Guardian
4.1 Language as a social/shared
phenomenon:
“No man is an
island, sufficient unto himself”… The existence
of language indicates shared understanding – when I speak or write in
English, other English speakers will (hopefully!) understand. Of course, many societies
use more than one language; but the point remains, as pointed out above, that language is a social phenomenon.
Societies,
then, are formed on the basis of shared understanding and co-operation – though of course there may also be conflict!
Each individual acknowledges the existence of “others” and, consciously or not, acts as part of a collective. The collective protects the
individual, and we can go further: without
conscious and deliberate co-operation with
others we would not have survived as a species. (See my notes on Kropotkin).
4.2 The other as a threat:
Yet, for some
people some of the time, “others”
seem to be a threat or a danger.
Many - perhaps all - of the conflicts between people (especially within and
between societies and nations) necessitate
some people seeing others as so different
and distinct from themselves that they must control or exploit,
remove or destroy these “others”.
A recent book
that warns of the danger of this, when politicians indulge in ‘populism’ is: Twenty-First Century Populism, edited by Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonell –
populism, they say, appeals to voters because it ‘pits a virtuous and homogenous people against ... ‘dangerous others’
who together are depicted as depriving the sovereign people of their rights,
values, prosperity, identity and voice.’ The Observer cited this in its
editorial (
Sub-groups
who become the ‘other’: Charles Shaar Murray (former
NME journalist) also writes about this (Guardian 05.04.13) and ‘hate crime’ –
quoting Frank Zappa’s late 1960s song: “We are the other people”... at the
time, supporters of the Vietnam war “routinely repressed and intimidated [...]
war protesters, radicals and the visibly identifiable cultural dissidents then
classified as ‘freaks’ or ‘hippies.’” In
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/03/ukcrime.sophielancaster).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/05/goths-emos-punks-we-all-same?
There are many examples of
groups becoming ‘other’ – and much that could be said about each... Here is
just a sample, with little further comment:
4.3 Women:
As
Simone de Beauvoir pointed out: to most men, “women” are the “other” – with the consequence that they are not
accorded the same status or respect.
(See my notes
on Simone de Beauvoir: Political
Philosophy part 21 - feminism also the notes on Fritjof
Capra at Imagining Other 2: New Ways
of Seeing).
4.4 Race:
In race
conflict, another race is seen as a threat or an obstacle to one
race’s happiness, or even to its survival. As Amos
Oz argues: to Israelis, Arabs are the
“other”. Toni Morrison
(Guardian
4.5 Jews:
For the
Nazis, Jews - as a category - were “the other.” And this enabled the Nazis to cease
to regard them as even human…
(See notes on David Grossman at Imagining Other 2: New Ways of Seeing).
4.6
Stories (fairy tales, myths) and ‘othering’:
A theatre piece at the Edinburgh Festival 2016 deals with the Cechen attack on a school in Beslan
in 2004. By presenting two children’s
views of what happened, the play (Lyn Gardner says in the Guardian
I like the comment by Laura Jane Grace, transgender member of punk band Against Mel – when she realised
Donald Trump had become President of the US – ‘’I wrote about the election
mainly. Writing is the radical act of not losing hope.’ (Guardian Guide
There was also a piece in Saturday Dec 3rd Guardian on
writing: Amanda Michalopoulou says that ‘In an era of
fear and division, fiction plays a vital role in dramatising difference and
encouraging empathy.’ ‘Nothing that is human is foreign to literature’.
‘Fiction teaches us to think creatively about difference’ and ‘...the more education falls into decline
because of a lack of imagination (not to mention funds) the more literature is
called upon to serve as another form of education.’ ‘When we read the
emblematic works of the European tradition we begin to trace the outlines of a
coded, radical understanding of the other. Unconsciously we begin to accept
that the other is always a mystery and that easy characterisations lead
nowhere.’
4.7
Refugees/migrants:
In the last few years (writing in 2016), the world has seen the worst
refugee crisis since the second world war.
5.1 At the first level: empathy, altruism...
5.1.1 Imagining (again).
At this point
I do not want to try to go further into all this question of “the other”. I
simply want to argue that we can only break down the barriers between people
and their “others” if we can encourage
the use of the imagination.
What
would it be like to be that other person?
5.1.2 The main barriers to being able
to do this are: consumerism,
individualism...
The modern
materially-driven, consumerist, and individualistic
world stops most people from actually asking themselves to use their
imagination at all (as Grossman points out in his writing).
Richard
Hoggart pointed out half a century ago, in Uses of
Literacy, how the old working-class culture with its sense of “decency” (which
implies an imaginative sensitivity to the effect of one’s behaviour on others,
as well as “standards” or shared values) has been eroded and replaced with a
“mass” culture. Hoggart’s basic argument, in The Uses
of Literacy was that ‘thraldom at the hands of the Means Test and the Public
Assistance Committee was about to give way to thraldom at the hands of mass
entertainment’ – as DJ Taylor puts it. It seems to me that nearly all “culture”
has in fact now been replaced with “mass entertainment”! (See Saturday
Guardian, 24.02.07, DJ Taylor on Hoggart as “Working
class hero”). See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/feb/24/society?INTCMP=SRCH
Despite the
abundance of communications media, bringing us so many images and sounds, it
has all become a “spectacle”,
for our passive
entertainment.
“Choice” (once a key issue for
existentialists) is reduced to a
question of consumption and “life-style” and not of values.
We are urged
to ask what we would do with our Lottery winnings, not:
How
would I live on $1 each day, as millions do?
We are
encouraged to be “trendy”, “Fashionable” etc, not to ask:
Can
I [a white male in an advanced society] imagine what it would be like to be someone
else, somewhere else [a woman, or black, or a refugee….]?
We spend
(collectively!) millions of hours watching listening to and thinking about
“celebrities” – I guess we are supposed to envy these people? After all,
although the aim of a consumer society is to make us all feel satisfied by
buying things, at the same time we have to be convinced that we could have
more. We must be dissatisfied – and temporarily satisfied at the same time.
(See my notes on John Berger, in: The Consumer).
But I am not
pessimistic: interestingly, Adam Smith (economist who laid down the rules for a
market economy!) argued (and I agree!) that we all have the ability to “sympathise” – to imagine how another
feels (whether they are happy or sad, etc). Notes on Adam Smith are at: How enlightened was the 'Enlightenment'? part 6 - Adam Smith. Smith’s views on ‘human nature’ are
compared with those of Rousseau and Kant at: How enlightened... part 6 - Smith,
Rousseau, Kant.
I am also
impressed by the Buddhist approach to empathy – through an awareness that we
all live in a condition that is insecure and challenging, we need to have
compassion both for ourselves and for others. Matthieu
Ricard is a powerful exponent of this: www.matthieuricard.org/en/
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/culture/2013/06/what-makes-us-human-each-other%E2%80%99s-shadow
Update October 2016: Rafael Behr in Guardian Weds 12th
Oct describes an experiment: imagine a scene in which a man stands in front of
two haystacks; an assailant appears (an ape or a man in an ape costume) and the
first man hides behind one of the haystacks, in full view of the assailant.
When the assailant goes off to get a stick, the man hides behind the other
haystack. When the assailant returns, an adult observer knows that he thinks
the man is behind the first haystack, but children up to age five impose their
knowledge on the assailant (i.e. don’t realise he doesn’t know what they
know). This ability to empathise is a
result of our being social – needing to be able to know what another thinks.
(Some other primates can also do this...)
Update, January 2013: The Observer ran an excellent article
on ‘empathy’ by Mark Honigsbaum, citing Adam Smith
but also exploring what some modern neuroscientists tell us:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jan/04/barack-obama-empathy-deficit?INTCMP=SRCH
This article
raises a host of issues, and includes some fascinating information – for
example, that rats will open a cage with another rat in it even if they gain no
reward; that when Buddhists meditate their levels of empathy are increased...
However, the main point I would draw from it is that ‘empathy’ (in the sense
that Adam Smith used the idea of ‘moral sentiment’) has two components:
an ability to imagine what another feels; and a sense of morality,
fairness or ‘right and wrong’. This is borne out by the article’s discussion of
psychopaths and people with autism: the former may identify what another feels,
but not care about it; the latter may not understand at first what another
feels, but can come to understand and then feel strongly (sympathise?).
It is also
argued, in a recent book on autism (The
reason I Jump, by Naoki Higashida, trans. K.A.
Yoshida and David Mitchell (Sceptre 2013) is written by an autistic young man,
and explores the apparent absence of empathy in autistic people.), that
autistic people do have the same feelings as the rest of us, but they lack the
ability, the language, to communicate what they feel.
I believe that the capacity for
empathy – or moral sympathy – is a basic human trait (and it seems it is shared
by some animals...). I would go so far as to say that it aids our survival as a
species, since it leads to justice and co-operation.
This idea was
explored by Kropotkin (see Kropotkin and Anarchism)…
It forms the basis of an anarchist
ethics.
Simon Baron-Cohen: Zero Degrees of Empathy (Penguin). Empathy is always a leap of the imagination
(says psychologist Dorothy Rowe, reviewing Baron-Cohen’s book, Saturday Guardian
26.05.12) since we have no way of knowing precisely what other people think or
feel – our guesses come from our experience, but no two people have the same
experience... so we have to imagine what that might be. Baron-Cohen (expert on
autism) believes that empathy can be taught, and it is ‘like a universal
solvent’ the way to resolve all interpersonal problems.’ Rowe has spent decades
trying to get those who are not sympathetic to people with mental health
problems to be empathetic – we are always more than our miseries.
Our natural instinct for altruism: Graham
Music (consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist at the Tavistock and Portman clinics in London) has written a
book: The Good Life: Wellbeing and the New Science of Altruism, Selfishness and
Immorality, in which he argues that our culture – and especially the rewarding
of altruistic acts extrinsically (which undermines our natural intrinsic
pleasure at doing things for others) – is making us more selfish cold-hearted
and mean. ‘A very monetised western world is going to make us more and more
lose touch with our social obligations.’ http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/may/04/how-babies-turn-into-selfish-monsters
Tanya Gold
(Guardian 7th May) quotes more points: ‘The higher up the social class ranking
people are, the less pro-social, charitable and empathetically they behaved...
consistently those who were less rich showed more empathy and more of a wish to
help others.’ And: ‘Those with more materialistic values consistently have
worse relationships, with more conflict... This is significant if the perceived
shift towards more materialistic values in the west is accurate.’
Tanya Gold
also points out (based on work by Tim Kasser, a
psychology professor at Knox College Illinois), that if you love material
objects you are less likely to love people and the planet.
See also: new ways of seeing #babies (how babies
become selfish).
5.2 At a higher (societal/global)
level:
However,
imagining what it feels like to be exploited or abused or discriminated against
is one thing: imagining that things could be different, and that
exploitation, abuse and discrimination could be removed, is another. This is
where the very first point made above comes in: the societies we live in are
our creation and we can change them.
5.3 There are many
theories, and points of view, that discourage us from feeling able to change
ourselves and the world:
This is where
I take a stand against cynicism:
too often nowadays people feel that there is no point in trying to change
anything. Those who try to do something are often attacked – for example by
being accused of “hypocrisy”. As Mark Lynas
points out, (Guardian G2 01.03.07) Al Gore was picked on for taking a number of
flights to promote the idea that we should fly less! Opponents can undermine
your message this way, by making you look ridiculous. But “at a deeper level, the effects of this blame game can be even more
damaging… [since] each time a potential “green hero”
is shot down in flames, we all feel a little bit more cynical about
politicians, leaders and society in general. Cynicism breeds selfishness and a
de facto acceptance of the status quo – no cynic ever led a movement for
positive social change.” (v)
I agree with Lynas that Gore was justified in flying round the world
since he has shifted public opinion – and the potential savings in greenhouse
gasses should easily outweigh his own contribution! I like Lynas’s
further point, that if you as a campaigner are “totally pure and virtuous, then
that is seen as just annoying.” We can’t win!
The
philosopher Julian Baggini
has come out in favour of cynicism... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/10/in-praise-of-cynicism.
However, I think his argument is weak and woolly!!
For a start, he
takes what seems to me to be a very narrow definition of a cynic (from the
Oxford Dictionary): ‘distrustful or incredulous of human goodness and
sincerity’ – and then says ‘what’s not to love about that?’ After all, a
certain amount of cynicism is needed for satire and critical, investigative
journalism. And of course, if we all trusted all people all the time, those who
want to manipulate us would be free to do so.
Now I may not
be much of a philosopher, but there is surely a difference between being ‘distrustful
or incredulous’ of all people all of the time and having ‘a certain amount of’
distrustfulness etc!? And it is absurd to suggest that anyone would never have
any inkling of doubt about anyone else’s motives!
In response
to the accusation that cynicism leads to pessimism he admits that there are
‘lazy’ forms of cynicism where this happens - so, again, we are not talking
about cynicism per se, but about varieties and shades of mistrust etc. And of
course, as he goes on, we need to be ‘realistic’ – and we find that his
argument is in fact about excessive pessimism or optimism, not about (‘pure’?)
cynicism. And cynics are realists... so why use the word cynic in the first
place? Oh but cynics reject the idea that there are only two poles, optimism and
pessimism (how clever they are!).
He then has a
go at Elaine Fox, whose studies in neuroscience suggest (he says) that our
tendency to make optimistic or pessimistic judgements comes from our
Enough,
already! Baggini concludes by – again – advocating
realism and being critical. (There’s a whole school of philosophy called
critical philosophy he might like to look at!) And he concludes in defence of
‘intelligent cynicism’. If he’d started the article this way he might have
convinced me of something!!!
5.3.2 The Hidden Persuaders.
Of course,
advertising, marketing and branding are powerful influences on our behaviour. What
makes me angry about them all is their method of working on us at a
sub-conscious level. My chapter The Consumer
(in my corporate social responsibility notes) discusses this further, and has
useful references.
5.4 On the other hand, some recently
developed theories lend weight to the idea that we can change (change ourselves,
and hence our beliefs and practices).
5.4.1 A relevant debate is over whether/how
much we are determined by our genes. Although it might seem a tangential
debate, I believe it is very important and have included it here.
The
‘nature or nurture’ argument has
been going on for a long time... Clearly, if we are shaped by our genes then
there is little we can do to change ourselves – whereas if it is the
environment that plays the major part in making us what we are, then something
can be done about that environment (up to a point!)
Dec 2003: There are disputes over the role of
the environment in relation to genes. The professor of molecular biology Johnjoe McFadden as written a book and a number of articles
on ‘system biology’ – the argument
that our genes operate within a larger system (both the cell and the body), and
there are hardly any genes with a single function:
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/dec/18/highereducation.uk
Jan 2010: Here is Oliver James, in an article
entitled ‘Nature v nurture – what are the latest genetic findings?’
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/23/oliver-james-genes-environment-adhd
As scientists
are learning more about the human genome, the emphasis is now on what traits
(if any!) genes affect or determine.
Aug. 2012: Tim Spector’s
new book ‘Identically different: Why You Can Change Your Genes’ sounds
fascinating (review by Peter Forbes, Saturday Guardian review section) – the
old nature/nurture argument is superceded, and
genetic determinism is out of date, since we now know that only a small
proportion of genes (about 2% of the genome) are ‘for something’ – ‘gene
expression’ is the term for how the genes produce proteins primarily, and
thence the phenotype (I looked this up online); only a very few ‘single-gene
disorders’ exist (e.g. muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis) and ‘the genetic component
of some multi-factorial diseases is exceptionally low’; and as Ken Weller used
to say (perhaps he still does!) “It’s more complicated than that!” Spector claims that ‘personal experience can change our
genes’ but also (more controversially) that genetic acquired characteristics
can be inherited, although the characteristics only last a few generations. All
this is down to epigenetics...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/08/identically-different-genes-spector-review
Sep 2014: Here is a link to an article on ‘epigenetics’
which is the theory that our genes are shaped by our experience...
– and the
experience of one individual can be passed on to their offspring... when acquired characteristics are inherited,
this must be through genes being switched on or off, without altering the
sequence – as I understand it, (drawing on the Wikipedia link in this article).
June 2016: Steven Shapin
reviews a new book: The Gene: An Intimate History, by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Guardian Saturday 28th May – Review p
7). Genes are not us – they respond to both the internal and the external
environment. ‘The scientific jury is still out on the various versions of epigenesis.... [but] It would be as
foolish to deny what our genes do as it would be to assert the sufficiency of
our genes in making us who we are.’
Steve Jones
also reviewed Mukherjee’s book (New Statesman 17 – 23
June 2016): ‘The term [epigenetics] was coined by one
of my own teachers at Edinburgh, C.H. Waddington... He found that a sudden heat
shock to the embryos [of fruit flies] led to the appearance of a few flies with
abnormal wings among the adults. By breeding from these, he could obtain stocks
that in time produced such flies with no need for a shock, proof that
environmental stress could uncover hidden genetic variation (*). Unfortunately,
the term has been hijacked and turned into a universal bridge between chemistry
and biology. It is even used to revive the discredited idea that an organism
can pass on characteristics acquired in its own lifetime.
That bridge
goes too far. The idea that genes respond to external stresses can be traced to
the first days of molecular genetics...
Quite why there has been such a fuss about a concept invented 70 years
ago is not clear and is made no clearer here [in Mukherjee’s
book].’
May 2017: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/may/22/scientists-uncover-40-genes-iq-einstein-genius
By Ian Sample, on a study by Professor
Danielle Posthuma, a statistical geneticist at the
Free University of Amsterdam, who led the study
published in Nature Genetics. This is specifically dealing with genes and
intelligence
Crucial
points here:
“It is thought that hundreds, if not thousands, of genes play a role in human intelligence, with most contributing only a minuscule amount to a person’s cognitive prowess. The vast majority have yet to be found, and those that have do not have a huge impact. Taken together, all of the genes identified in the latest study explain only about 5% of the variation in people’s IQs, the scientists found...
Eventually, the work may reach a point where the genomes of IVF embryos could be used to rank them according to their intellectual potential, even if the difference is so small as to be insignificant...
“Maybe one day we can say that based on your genetic makeup,
it could be easier for you to use this strategy rather than that one to learn
this task. But that’s still very far off,” she said. “I don’t think what’s
written in our genes determines our lives.”
April 2018: an article in New Statesman, by
Philip Ball, has revived the old nature/nurture argument:
https://www.newstatesman.com/2018/04/iq-trap-how-new-genetics-could-transform-education
I found this
article utterly confusing! Here is my
letter in reply Letter
Here is a
link to the Guardian’s editorial (!) on this, which seems much more sensible:
Robert Plomin, a psychologist
at King’s College London. His latest paper claimed “differences in exam
performance between pupils attending selective and non-selective schools mirror
the genetic differences between them”. With such a billing the work was
predictably greeted by a raft of absurd claims about “genetics determining
academic success”. What the research revealed was the rather less surprising
result: the educational benefits of selective schools largely disappear once
pupils’ innate ability and socio-economic background were taken into account.
It is a glimpse of the blindingly obvious – and there’s nothing to back strongly either a hereditary
or environmental argument.
Shades of the Bell Curve!!
At best there is a weak statistical association and not a
causal link between DNA and intelligence. Yet sophisticated statistics are used
to create an intimidatory atmosphere of scientific
certitude.
if genetic testing forewarned us of our fates; would the
load be shared differently? Almost certainly so – and to the
detriment of the poor. If intelligence is largely
inherited and the reason for failure then attempts to remedy it are doomed.
This is what is so pernicious and incendiary about these ideas: they conceal a tendentious opinion about compensatory
social programmes
January 2015. A new theory: neuroplasticity: here is a
book review by Jonathan Ree, of The Brain’s Way of Healing by Norman Doidge:
But note that Ree is
critical, saying: ‘the neuroplastic revolution is
part of a contemporary stampede towards the moralization of medicine: patients
are encouraged to blame themselves for their sufferings, and to think that
their chances of recovery depend not on the luck or good judgement
of their doctors, but on their own will power.’
Ree has a point about the excessive
emphasis on the individual’s supposed ability to be ‘whatever they want’ – but
I think this criticism of neuroplasticity is unfair,
since the processes that have led – according to Doidge
– to remarkable changes in peoples’ brains are not quick and simple, but
require a lot of time, and, it seems, guidance...
So, by imagining other:
We can change the way we think:
Consider how
beliefs and attitudes have changed (in a positive direction) over time (but
note: I am not suggesting that all we
have to do is to think differently! Obviously many - though not, as some
Marxists would argue, all - changes in thought came about as a result of
changes in circumstances):
*
women, and children have, at least in theory, “rights”
that at one time they never had. Much of political history and philosophy
ignored women (see my notes: Political philosophy
part 21 - feminism) – but this has now changed, as far as philosophy goes,
though women are still far from fully engaged in politics.
*
language has changed: abusive terms such as nigger are no longer the accepted
currency; and, despite the myths put about (by those who really want to stop
political correctness), most people are sensitive nowadays to how the
use of language can be hurtful
*
there have always been “dreamers.” Many social
experiments with greater democracy, the abolition of money, or of the family,
may have been short-lived: and yet there are still dreamers, still experiments,
and there is still hope – see for example: 'imagining
other' part 2 - new ways of seeing.
And, things can be other!
*Despite
their many shortcomings, democracies are a step forward compared to ancient
tyrannies, and ongoing practical international co-operation in the shape of the
United Nations would have been thought of as utopian a couple of hundred years
ago
*the rules of war are often honoured
in the breach, but there are such rules, and we are beginning to find ways of
subjecting war criminals to legal process
*throughout the world there are
countless radical and progressive social movements and groupings pressing for a
better world
- see for
example: 'imagining other' part 3 - alternatives.
But, what kind of
“other”?
The final
point to make is that if we accept the above, then only in a world in which
people are free to use their imagination, and free to act collectively to
construct the kind of world they want, would we be free of exploitation, abuse,
discrimination, poverty and suffering.
So we can go on as now:
*we
can continue to tolerate “fundamentalist” attitudes that say “my beliefs are
the truth, yours are wrong and/or evil, and you must either change your views
or be eradicated”…. And then, of course, many of us will continue to live in
fear of persecution and death.
*we
can continue to allow powerful minorities to impose their “realities” on us –
spin-doctors, public relations experts, corporate marketing manipulators,
authoritarian experts who do not give us the information we need to argue
against their so-called knowledge… And we will go on doing just what benefits
the powerful rather than what benefits us.
*we
can be fatalistic, and opt out of it all, saying: “I can’t change anything…”
And nothing will change: millions will continue to die of hunger, whole
categories of people will be denied their rights as human beings, wars will
continue to claim thousands of lives every day, the rich will get richer (since
they don’t believe they can do nothing!) and the poor poorer, and quite possibly
global warming will make the world uninhabitable in large parts – who knows,
the human species may even disappear!
Or:
*
we can remember Martin Luther King’s words about the
civil rights movement: “We all have a task to do and let us do it with a sense
of divine dissatisfaction. Let us be divinely dissatisfied as long as we have a
wealth of creeds and a poverty of deeds.” And Clarence Page (American
journalist on the Chicago Tribune), looking back on the civil rights movement,
added: “We may never achieve a perfect world, [King] told us, but we must never
stop trying.”
The choice is ours.
***************************
(**) Note: I owe a debt to the late Cornelius Castoriadis for “sparking off” some of the above ideas –
see:
- my essay on Castoriadis: Recommencing Revolution
- and the informative
website: www.agorainternational.org
see also:
- Biographical
Background to the author of these pages
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