finding our hearts without losing our heads

The global human community faces some complex problems that can’t and won’t be solved with the usual approaches. No amount of expertise, legislation, or market solutions will be enough. And we are not just talking about a few pesky annoyances. Some of the problems represent threats to our very existence as a species. There are those who glibly say that that’s fine because, after all, the world would be a better place without the rogue species known as human beings, but for most of us, there is more at stake than survival as an abstract concept. It’s about the quality of life of our children and our grandchildren. And it’s about our own quality of life. We can avert our eyes when we encounter the abundant evidence of human misery, and while being disconnected from our own humanity might not necessarily lead to human extinction, for most of us, it’s far less than ideal.

Feeling cut off from feelings of being fully alive and from our inmost longings for connectedness and integration extracts heavy toll in the way it dehumanizes us. Being swallowed in a bottomless abyss that dooms us to a permanent sense of inefficacy and learned helplessness robs us of the chance for meaningful, purposeful, and fulfilling lives. Losing touch with the eternally youthful energy that resides in the heart is a bleak development even from the point of view of hardnosed realists who are quick to point out that it is not possible to eliminate poverty, war, and brutal oppression from the human condition, that we can’t ever seem to agree on how to alleviate our self-inflicted collective misery even a little bit, that our loftiest efforts to solve complex problems are misguided and woefully ineffective, and that attempts to make things better sometimes stir up unintended consequences and produce more problems than they solve.

It would be strange if we weren’t bewildered at times. Life comes with a panoply of experiences, impressions, feelings, reflections, and options, which can pile up and become overwhelming. However, how we respond makes a difference. If we are confused, fatigued, and numb, that’s all the more reason to chart a course for ourselves that replenishes our innocent hopefulness, awakens new possibilities, welcomes challenges, anticipates setbacks, and avoids pitfalls – in other words, using our hearts and heads, and not merely by taking up matters of the heart in a levelheaded way, but also by intelligently creating a basis for emotional connections that can bring together conservatives and liberals, the old and the young, the wizened and the spry, enabling us to find common ground and work together. But it’s a complicated endeavor. There is more involved in finding common cause with each other than warm and fuzzy feelings of groovy togetherness, and there is more to being fully actualized human beings than stoking the passions that reside in the human heart.

There are several connotations of the word humanity. We use the word humanity to refer to the capacity for and the inclination toward empathy, compassion, and responsiveness. In addition, there is a group of living beings that goes by the name of humanity, the unruly conglomeration of wildly disparate individuals who comprise the global human community and with whom we share a special bond. But humanity is also a synonym for fallibility, as in “your humanity is showing” or “I was hindered by my humanity”. Being human entails fall short, but it goes even farther. There is a sinister side to humanity. Not all that is within the human heart is wonderful. What makes us human is a volatile mixture of competing urges, impulses, and whims. Human beings are not always loving, kind, and honorable; we can be petty, fickle, spiteful, feeble, cowardly, corruptible, and cruel. Astonishing brilliance, talent, and nobility is interwoven with pigheaded, clumsy, and nasty reactivity. The very same individuals who are capable of exemplary benevolence can at least as easily be driven by fear, hatred, and greed. Paradoxically, our inhumanity is, in the words of Nietzsche, "human, all too human”.

But craven selfishness, individual stupidity, and spineless complicity are not even the worst problems. The best of intentions can be our greatest downfall. Not only can excessive fervor interfere with levelheaded assessment of circumstances and become an obstacle to finding viable and fair-minded solutions, the most high-minded dedication to achieving commendable goals does not always produce the desired results. The greatest willingness to make personal sacrifices and even die for the sake of a worthy cause can inspire and embolden the most dangerous forms of zealotry. What springs from admirable devotion to a spirit of communal togetherness can lead to an unfortunate retreat into an extremist tribal mentality. Whipping up raw human sentiments, latent longings, unfulfilled dreams, and grand aspirations cuts both ways. We need more heartfelt passion, but unprocessed, unrefined, and unfettered emotionalism can be hazardous.

But being smart is not enough. The most thoughtful proposals for solutions can themselves be a source of controversy, conflict, and division. Some of that is due to the fact that we all have different starting points, different values, and different ideas about what constitutes the greater good. Even the most reasonable, evidence-based approaches can support disparate conclusions. But our failures are also caused by human limitations whereby even the most competent and rigorous intellectuals are prone to glaring oversights and lapses in judgment. Even the most painstaking analysis can fall short of the mark due to cognitive biases that are hardwired into the human brain, a reminder that our biological traits are a product of the natural selection process rather than forethought. Not only do smart people who are united around a desire to do the right thing frequently fail to produce wise decisions; outcomes can be disastrous – thus the proverb, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” The danger is even greater when loyalty to the cause is strong, moral fervor runs deep, and passions are inflamed. The worst hatred is fueled by earnest devotion to causes and ideas that seem all important to those who believe in them. Historically, some of the most brutal wars have been fought in the name of religion.

The face value meaning of the heading of this post, “finding our hearts without losing our heads”, is a bit misleading or at least incomplete. It’s not technically true that following our hearts puts us at risk of losing our heads. That would assume that we are already in full possession of our mental faculties, which is obviously contradicted by a stunning plethora of evidence. It is often said that the problem with common sense is that it is not so common, but it is also true that common sense is not always sensibly grounded in sane, sober, and intelligent reasoning, nor is what is commonly sensed necessarily an accurate perception of reality or a sound interpretation of sensory data. The lens through which ordinary sensation of the world passes is clouded by hidden assumptions, by an unconscious importation of biases, and by automatic inferences we are not even aware of making. So common sense does not always lead to sensible beliefs and responses. In fact, most people are unwaveringly committed to what feels true and invoke the spectral power of common sense to defend themselves against having to be stretched by what can be logically deduced through an honest examination and evenhanded evaluation of actual evidence. There is thus more to not losing our heads than simply avoiding the loss intellectual abilities that we already have, just as there is more to finding our hearts than summoning something that was previously available but has been lost.

Putting the words recovering and humanity together invokes a rich array of nuance. If the word humanity has several connotations, so also does recovery. Recovery can refer to the restoration of a state of health that we possessed in the past but has since slipped away from us, or it can be about the reclaiming of an asset that was lost or stolen. “Recovering Humanity” is in great part concerned with the reestablishment of fitness, of important strengths, of beneficial personal attributes, and of valuable human talents that have been lost or buried. It is very much about rediscovering and rekindling our natural capacity for being moved by an innate human urge to help each other out. It would involve recuperating a spirit of hopefulness from a long-gone social milieu, imagined or actual, which was simpler and more innocent and where a strong sense of community was the norm. It is about reawakening feelings of connection we have with each other, revitalizing the sense of feeling like we are part of the human race, and thereby stretching us, deepening us, and broadening our horizons. And it is about remembering and renewing the originating spirit of humanism – an enthusiastically optimistic belief in the basic goodness of ordinary human beings and a willing embrace of responsibility for human affairs (rather than praying for divine intervention).

Yet at the same time, we can’t escape the obvious. There has to be more to it than nostalgic pining for the past. While we need to rediscover and recoup valuable qualities that have been lost, there is a big downside to an effort that would uncritically reinstate previous conditions. One of the glaring features of earlier historical eras was brutal intolerance of certain groups of people. Racism, patriarchy, homicidal persecution of religious nonconformists, and repression of those with different sexual preferences were the dominant norms. If the past seemed less troubled, that is because cultural homogeneity minimized conflict, overwhelming pressures to conform to traditional values maintained stability, and a general spirit of head-in-the-sand denial encouraged people to ignore problems. We can’t go back even if we wanted to. But there is more to recovery than returning to the way things were. If we include within our focus the connotation of recovery that references a therapeutic process, we might acknowledge that healing often involves more than going back to a previous state of health. Those who have recovered from a life threatening disease like cancer or addiction often experience an unanticipated uplift, a qualitatively different understanding of what it means to be alive, a greater appreciation of what matters, and a general sense of gratitude that can’t be put into words. Similarly, anyone who has been through financial ruin, a devastating personal crisis, or the loss of someone close to them and has risen from the ashes knows that there is more to coming back from the brink than the reestablishment of that which has been lost. It is upon this inclusive understanding of recovery that “Recovering Humanity” is based.