For my final post I wanted to share a favorite topic of research I believe we all seek on our individual yet collective/connected journeys. In the TED Talks attached below Jonathan Haidt covers religion, evolution, and the ecstasy of self-transcendence, allowing a connection between the individualism and collectivism theories. Even though the theories hope to cancel each other out, attempting to show greater significance towards the individual’s self-interests, using society to further their individual needs – the contrary point of collectivism emphasizes the individual’s interdependence to obtain those needs. I hope you see the correlation in how both need each other.
To summarize, by stating how “the capacity for self-transcendence is just a basic part of being human” and, using “the metaphor of a staircase in the mind” to suggest how “we are Homo duplex and this staircase takes us up from the profane level to the level of the sacred” – “when we climb that staircase, self-interest fades away, we become just much less self-interested, and we feel as though we are better, nobler and somehow uplifted”, Haidt is illustrating how as individuals we might have our self-interests in mind but once we reach a place in our lives, perhaps as experiencing parenthood, that changes. As a family, we seek to provide and protect, nurture and love someone other than ourselves.
In discussing what takes place when we transcend ourselves, as a social psychologist Haidt raises some interesting topics. He makes us aware of a “breakthrough” in scientific research, and a relatively “new” area of study. This assignment also allows me the opportunity to reflect an importance to understanding “faith”. This discussion couples sciences (Psychology and Biology) to emphasize an importance to decode how humanity seeks “morality”, and would assist Aristotle’s “virtue ethics”, and Aquinas’ concepts of the general principles of “natural law” being applicable to all.
From the very beginning Haidt suggests how most people are spiritually inclined to search for some sort of “transcendence”. This concept would address our fascination with death and overcoming mortality, among many other areas of interest. He also states how all “faiths” share this idea of “evolving” from an individual “self-will”, to seeking a “fellowship”, where we operate in a “sum of its parts” society, intricately moving as “one”. Through transcendence, or physical rebirth, a feeling of mortality is replaced with a collective unity that, in essence, is “immortal”, belonging to something “bigger than ourselves”.
In referencing Durkheim’s “homo-duplex”, Haidt says the “capacity for self-transcendence is a basic part of being human”, to go from the “profane level” to a “level of the sacred”. He offers “the staircase of the mind” as the “transcending doorway” we can “walk through”, or “climb”. This is an individual effort we choose in order to experience enlightenment. At this “higher self” we join the “source” at the “level of the sacred”. This “energy” that we search for, through spirituality, propels us. Once enlightened, this creates a “new” us, through a form of “rebirth”, “where self-interest fades away”, and the morality of not being “self-absorbed” is “activated”.
Haidt also asks if this “staircase” is a “feature of our natural design”, something we are born with, a “God gene”? Or is it a “bug”, “a mistake in our system”? He follows that up with the thought provoking notion that if indeed the “staircase” is an “adaptation”, and not a “bug”, “then the implications are profound”. If so, “then we evolve to be religious”, not as some form of “denomination”, but to see the world as it really is – seeing “sacredness” all around us, and developing “moral ideas”. This is what allows us to identify “good and evil”, and by believing ourselves to be “good”, joining “forces” with the “good team” to battle “evil” through a developed morality.Interestingly enough, he even goes as far as specifically calling the world we live in a “modern society” that is built to satisfy the “profane human”. Only reaching one’s potential, “self-actualization”, can we contribute to something outside of ourselves and “be fully alive, and find meaning in life”, and not be restraint to “only being able to sustain one’s basic needs”.
Ever watch the Matrix (Part 1)? How about the movie Constantine? “There’s a door behind a door, and a window behind a window.”
There is an incredible “movement” in studying the “psyche”, as morality, and/or “faith”, is becoming (and has been) an area of scholarly interest in more areas than just in philosophical and psychological arenas. If proven, wouldn’t this confirm the eerie “we’re all connected” – “collective unconscious” Carl Jung coined, and Buddhists and Christians share in “interconnectedness”? If proven to be “true”, Haidt’s “staircase” metaphor being a possible genetic human adaptation, in line with natural selection, would actually prove an existence of a “God” we are “in tune” with, and quite possibly always have been – hence calling Him, “Father” for passing on His controversial DNA?
References:
Schneider, F., Gruman, J., Coutts, L. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.
http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/undergraduate/introsoc/durkheim5.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivism