the inescapable uneasiness of being human

The dreaded yet inevitable future has arrived, and I, along with all the other baby boomers who are fortunate enough to have survived our own excesses, am indisputably and irrevocably a member of the much maligned older generation, but elderhood, at least to me, feels curiously different from what I envisioned it would be like. Somewhat surprisingly, like most of my peers, I didn’t end up being nearly as stupid and insensitive as I feared I would become. I might not be as wise, as open to new ideas, as loving, as engaged, and as responsive as I wish I were. My passion has often come out sideways even after I was long past the point where, having reached a certain chronological age, I should have become more even tempered. I haven’t always practiced good sense, even after I had accumulated enough experience to be guided by lessons I should have learned. Getting burned and feeling foolish has often left me discouraged, disheartened, and reticent. But while I might have lost touch with my heart at various points along the way, I’m not dead yet, and I have a deep understanding of the words that were written and put to music by one of the icons of my generation, “I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now.”

Much of what I have learned along the way has been agonizing, often mostly due to the embarrassment and sorrow that came with the inescapable recognition that the worst of what I was a part of or witnessed was utterly preventable, but the pain has also been tied to a death of innocence and an ensuing recognition that the human condition is inherently bumpy, jarring, and unrelenting. Civilization might have come a long way toward softening some of life’s harshest edges for some, but for many denizens of the planet, life is still, to borrow from Thomas Hobbes, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” and is haunted by “continual fear” and “danger of violent death” without any of the refuge provided by the refinements of art, literature, or social institutions. It is a problem that is complicated by many layers of difficulties. It’s like peeling an onion. Before we can get to the heart of the matter, we have to come to terms with perilous potential pitfalls that could doom our efforts or thwart our best intentions before they even see the light of day. 

Even if we could clearly identify the problems that need to be solved and realistically assess the challenges, even if we had a robust political culture with vital traditions upholding free speech and free press, even if we could even the playing field and include those who are systematically marginalized, even if undistorted information was readily available and verifiable, even if more of us would diligently pursue objectivity and resist confirmation bias, even if what was most in the forefront were ideas based on an examination and well-reasoned analysis of the best evidence, even if creative approaches to problem-solving were the norm, even if we were to hammer out a clear vision for achievable objectives, even if we recruited an army of idealistic and spirited optimists who want to have a positive impact on the world around them, even if we were committed to work together and overcome our animosities, even if we were to break the solution down into bite-sized tasks that can be delegated to specific individuals, even if we were to hatch a concrete plan with a complete set of marching orders, even our execution was flawless and all our little efforts effective, and even if our patient perseverance paid off as significant incremental gains accumulated and turned into tipping points, actually achieving viable solutions would still be maddeningly elusive.

There are considerable obstacles involved in overcoming the fear of change and achieving critical mass, but those obstacles are not the only challenges we face. Actually reaching viable solutions involves resolute trudging through unfamiliar territory that is full of unanticipated disorienting difficulties. Life is challenging not only because of the sheer size and complexity of the problems, not only because of the obscurity of the leverage points, and not only because of how unclear we are about what will even work and how muddled our efforts tend to be, we also are faced with realities like competition for scarce resources and unintended consequences.

Usually, a sufficient number of small benevolent deeds can be counted on to swell into a rising tide that lifts all boats, but ultimate outcomes are always unpredictable. Sometimes even when we pursue our highest and most widely agreed upon ideals, our well meaning efforts morph into unfortunate twists and turns and aggregate into unforeseeable social realities that are unexpectedly more disruptive than the sum of their parts. Most of our worst social problems are the consequence of wounds we inflict on ourselves and each other, but assigning actual responsibility and doing something about the situation is difficult because the blows are mostly administered with “elbows rather than fists”. Some of the worst historical occurrences have been set in motion by good or innocuous motives on the part of basically decent people pursuing their best moral instincts and making what seemed to them to be virtuous choices on behalf of their families, their religion, or their ethnic group. Unfortunately, the most vulnerable members of society and the greater social good got elbowed in the process.

Large, complex social problems are tricky because their solutions are counterintuitive. What would seem to be the obvious and most natural responses can be way off base even to the point of being counterproductive. We are often in danger of making things worse. Every move we make sends ripples throughout our entire ecosystem, sometimes amplifying themselves in startling ways. A classic, though perhaps hyperbolic, illustration of how seemingly insignificant activity can become magnified within complex systems is the theoretical possibility that a flutter of a butterfly wing in Brazil can set up air currents that will accelerate and intensify to produce a tornado in Oklahoma. Contemporary society is an especially volatile, complex system. Industrial capitalism has fostered economic development and created prosperity for unprecedented numbers of people, but our affluence has come at a cost. Our enhanced lifestyles have caused an alarming depletion of natural resources, thereby disrupting the increasingly fragile ecosystem of which we are inescapably a part.

And the modern sensibility, a culmination of millennia of striving toward the advancement of civilization, has led to a weakening of cultural traditions and social institutions that formerly afforded a measure of stability and restraint. So besides the utterly predictable byproducts of our consumer society like climate change, there have been some regrettable ricochets from efforts that were aimed toward fostering a society that would be more rational and measured. We no longer burn heretics at the stake or brutally torture common criminals in public, but the very social currents that so called enlightened attitudes set in motion have awakened and unleashed some disturbing upsurges of human inhumanity that provide glimpses into what members of our species are capable of. Current and recent generations have witnessed the rise of fascism, two world wars, genocide on an unprecedented scale, heartbreaking deluges of war refugees, and the mass incarceration of groups of people who have conveniently been deemed human refuse and scapegoats. And instant global interconnectivity provides recruits for all manner of groups driven by hatred and propagates mob behavior that is larger in scope and, at times, even more dangerous than the angry crowds with pitch forks that terrorized earlier generations.

From a purely psychological point of view, it is eminently understandable that so many resources are invested in the construction of well insulated cocoons. Some of what drives the retreat from meaningful engagement is what Martin Seligman named learned helplessness. Learned helplessness refers to an outlook on life that is a natural response to being ground down by situations in which all efforts to achieve any gains are futile. The concept was prompted by a lamentably cruel experiment involving dogs that was staged against the back drop of the famous experiment with dogs by Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov discovered that dogs can be conditioned to react to certain stimuli in specific ways. Pavlov’s discovery was developed into a psychological concept that came to be called classical conditioning. In order for classical conditioning to be operative, the stimuli have to be consistently linked to the delivery of tangible rewards or punishments. The experiments that prompted Seligman to come up with the concept of learned helplessness explored what would happen if the reward system was arbitrary and contradictory. Eventually, the dogs became despondent, resigned, listless, and defeated to the point of being reduced to a virtual state of paralysis.

It is not difficult to extrapolate the findings of the experiment and find a similar pattern among human beings. Many of us find ourselves in baffling circumstances that can lead to an attitude of resignation and to beliefs that are alternately darkly fatalistic and dangerously delusional. The human experience is characterized by bewildering unpredictability and arbitrary outcomes. Participation in modern society, in particular, is fraught with snares. The common tendency to attribute life’s events to capricious forces is unsurprising, as is the irresistible trend toward retreating into submissive acquiescence, silos of isolation, mistrust of outsiders, impotent rage, or kneejerk blaming of convenient scapegoats. As Thoreau wrote, “the mass of [humanity] lead lives of quiet desperation. What is calledresignation is confirmed desperation.” And it is a vicious circle. Learned helplessness only worsens the plight. Fearful and anxious hordes of ordinary people who are overwhelmed by free-floating feelings of helplessness create fertile soil for systemic injustice and all manner of atrocities.

The crux of the cure is a prescription that is unapologetically uncomfortable, not because medicine ought to taste bad, not because suffering and struggling are good for us, not because people need to be humbled by experiences of powerlessness or shamed into submission; instead, unease is the only honest response to what is going on. Talking about modern global realities honestly and comprehensively visits upon us a considerable degree of anguish, especially if we are fully awake. Not only is it agonizingly difficult to pay attention to what is going on, to empathize, to honestly face the depth and the breadth of social and economic injustice, to be besieged with feelings of impotence and frustration, and to somehow summon a human response regardless of how difficult it is; plotting a course is complicated. Being human is unavoidably untidy and unwieldy. To quote the common paraphrase of a passage from a poem by Robert Burns, “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Human history is full of unintended consequences that turned into tragic turns for the worse. Not only is life untamable; we often make things worse when we try to get it to settle down. Even the most well thought out and carefully designed remedies proffered by those who want to shape reality to their own views, rather than the other way around, are inevitably shortsighted. They miss subtle but crucial nuance and are out of touch with concerns about pragmatic viability.

It is not hard to understand the impasse that led an exasperated D. H. Lawrence to write to BertrandRussell, in the aftermath of their intense but short-lived friendship, “Get back to mathematics where you can do some good; leave talk about human beings to alone.” Some of the problem has to do with what we might call the nerd factor. With notable exceptions, the smartest people aren’t typically the best at achieving the kind of success that involves irrational leaps toward prioritizing the bottom-line, thus the quip sometimes used by those who feel intimidated by someone’s intelligence or education, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” It is impossible to both conceptualize reality in a way that totally makes sense and be effective. Russell embodied the relentlessly systematic pursuit of consistency that characterizes many modern intellectuals, and consequently, he underestimated life’s complexity and unwittingly trampled on delicate realms that are greater than what he could envision.

So while Russell, Lawrence’s feelings notwithstanding, actually did make some significant contributions to philosophy, his blind spots exemplify the overconfidence that comes with classical conditioning. It is not surprising to find out that Russell was an enthusiastic fan of Pavlov and, by extension, subscribed to the modernistic understanding of the universe upon which classical conditioning is based, a well-behaved and orderly mechanism that is governed by Newtonian laws. Classical conditioning in its varying forms is arguably the bane of modern existence. Lawrence was not alone in his scorn toward the kind of thinking that Russell epitomized. Classical conditioning has provided inspiration for dystopian fiction. Dissatisfaction with modernism in general characterized much of twentieth century philosophy.

Russell’s point of view and the simple, innocent desire to make things better have their appeal; nonetheless, frequent disappointment, frustration, setbacks, backlash, and outright defeat are unavoidable. Even our most worthy efforts lead to suboptimal outcomes. And that’s on our best days. Nonetheless, concerns about the inefficacy of many of our efforts are mostly moot. The fact is that we usually don’t make it to the point even of being able to make hopeful stabs in the dark. Learned helplessness is commonplace, not just because of insurmountable obstacles, overwhelming difficulties, elusive leverage points, and unpredictable outcomes, and not just because the opposition to the greatest good for the greatest number is so well-funded by deep pocket special interests. Most of the time, how to go about finding common cause is hardly clear because of inherent moral ambiguity, honest conflicts around life’s thorniest questions, radically different starting points, wildly divergent guiding values and tastes, competing priorities, and colliding differences in style.

There are no right answers to the most central ethical dilemmas human beings face. Life is full of hard choices and a lot of gray area. Ethics usually comes down to a question of priorities rather than whether we want to do the right thing. For example, if I encounter someone who is in distress, do I stop to help her? There is no universally applicable correct response. My decision will be informed by a number of factors. What is the context? Is the person a close friend or member of my family? Or is she a stranger or even an adversary? How much trouble would helping her be? How risky does it feel? Most of us like to see ourselves as basically good people, but preserving our positive self image often comes at the expense of a coherent ethical rationale. How do we reconcile our lofty stated values with our actual choices? What is the ethical justification for caring more about whether our own children have braces than we care about whether another child has enough to eat or has a safe place to live? Most people have an intuitive sense about that, but few can articulate it in a way that doesn’t get sidetracked by cognitive dissonance or sound like a rationalization for selfishness.

The desire to block out any evidence of moral ambiguity or anything that would disturb our tidy little worldview is perfectly understandable, but at the end of the day, few of us actually want to be the kind of people who are completely indifferent to the fact that huge numbers of our fellow human beings are deprived of any opportunity to achieve a decent human existence, nor would we deliberately choose to live in a world where systemic injustice is never challenged. We can’t be expected to solve all the problems associated with insatiable human need, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t do anything at all. But whom do we choose to help? How do we ration our compassion? We need to find a way to practice some sort of triage, focusing our efforts where we can actually do some good, but knowing how to do that is hardly easy or clear.

Our only chance to overcome learned helplessness and reclaim our dignity and self-respect as human beings would start with doing what we can to rekindle passion, rediscover innocent hopefulness, and renew our resolve to pursue the dreams of who we can be. Lawrence’s chiding of Russell was justified. He further elaborated his point in another letter, “Even your mathematics are only dead truth: and no matter how fine you grind the dead meat, you’ll not bring it to life again.” Finding our hearts might involve more unlearning than learning. We can’t respond humanly unless we let go of the need to have everything neatly fit into a well-ordered set of explanations. However, the disturbance doesn’t stop there. Not only does the edgy verve of the heart wreak havoc on the logically consistent castles in the air that are imagined in intricate detail from within the sterile realm of the pure intellect (Lawrence was hardly the first right-brained aesthete who has deployed the language of the heart to wage war on the abstract precision and theoretical soundness that left-brained intellectuals are so fond of), challenges can also originate on the other end. In fact, we need large doses of critical thinking to uncover what is hidden from casual observation, to connect the dots, and to question complacent intuitive heuristics and overly confident snap judgments.

Back and forth communication between the idealistic zealotry of our hearts and the measured pragmatism of our heads complicates things, but it is indispensible. Sometimes what the heart produces is raw and reckless youthful energy that, like a bratty, rebellious, and impetuous child, is brimming with uninhibited urgency, rampant restlessness, unbridled agitation, and dangerous excess, and is in need of a calm adult response and a gentle but firm guiding hand. In other words, the likes of both Russell and Lawrence bring something important to the table. And they need each other. Neither can afford to become smugly insulated from the unsettling interactivity that is an inevitable feature of being a member of the human race. To be human is to, sometimes pointedly, sometimes tentatively, sometimes desperately, clamor for solutions that are both compassionate and effective.

Responding to the most challenging demands we face usually begins with an emergence of a restless and agitated mood that is enflamed by youthful dissatisfaction with the status quo and goaded by an edgy sense of urgency, and then, if the mounting rumblings find some resonance within the mainstream, a more emotionally detached contingent join the cause, and the nascent movement becomes a focused, strategically effective, concerted effort by virtue of being restrained, pruned, shaped, and channeled by intellectual discipline. Thus the complex and disquieting intersection of, the heart and the head, two incommensurable points of view, each informing and challenging the other, brings unforeseeable variables into the equation and intensifies ethical dilemmas. But in addition to the intense tug-a-war between the passionate, impatient heart and the cautious, cool head, there is an even more unsettling drama that stirs things up and upends the orderly diagrams, graphs, charts, and blueprints that are tirelessly turned out by the would-be architects of a more satisfactory world.

The dynamic interplay of the two contending dispositions that vie for our allegiance doesn’t play out in a vacuum. There is also a natural and inevitable cross-pollination between personal and collective arenas. The main problem with conceptually neat approaches and overly simplistic solutions (especially if there is moralistic agenda) is that they are fundamentally anti-democratic, and as a consequence, they tend to crash and burn or never even see the light of day because of their inherent frailty, a lack of buy-in, frontal opposition, passive-aggressive foot-dragging, and outright sabotage. Solving real problems entails keeping our eye on the ball, somehow finding common ground amidst jarring upheavals, the disorientation that comes with change, the intractable controversies, the pummeling antagonism, and the rough and tumble process of negotiating and building consensus. The verb “compromise” is frequently disparaged because of the way it is used to refer to acts that reduce, weaken, corrupt, erode principles, undermine integrity, sacrifice quality, or endanger chances for success; nonetheless, our only path to sanity entails working with each other in spite of abundant examples of bad blood and insurmountable differences in a long history of frequent failures to reach any agreement regarding some of life’s most central themes.

Even kindergarten children understand the concept of playing well with others, but what it takes to find common ground and how to get there so we can work together relies on a myriad of tacit understandings that have to be acquired along the way and on an adult perspective that grows out of the experiences that come with showing up for life, many of which are painful – the mixed results of good-faith hit-and-miss efforts, picking up the pieces and moving on, letting go of false assumptions and expectations, being seasoned by a deep acceptance of imperfect outcomes and inalterable givens, winnowing the disappointments and the surprising successes of trial and error problem solving, ripening, fermenting, maturing, mellowing, gaining stability and flexibility, learning how to optimize, and falling into a sustainable marathon pace, loping along with relentless steadiness and with an eye toward the future and abundant new possibilities. Words that would adequately articulate the extraordinary wisdom, subtle insight, and deft discernment of ordinary human beings elude our grasp because so much of what makes even the most commonplace perception possible is ineffable or intangible.

Truth with a big T is of no use. In fact, it gets in the way. If there is any such thing as universal truth that can be glimpsed by actual human beings, it is a moving target. There is disconcerting irony in the recognition that, however excitable and volatile the heart might be, it provides our only way into the eye of the storm. When we say we need to get to the heart of the matter, that we need to identify and advance that which is most central and essential, we are talking about finding something that is located smack dab in the middle of a tempestuous dynamic that is disorderly, disturbing, and ever-changing rather than reasonable, customary, predictable, and respectable. How to deal with that is not something we can figure out and nail down. The only way to build a stable basis for true understanding is to reach deeper, to go beyond the limits of cerebral comprehension, and to plunge forward along a path that involves trust, vulnerability, intimacy, unguarded acceptance of radical uncertainty, and a thorough immersion in our deepest and most passionate yearnings. What the heart knows is eternally new and full of promise. Our best response to challenges is to honor what we know but don’t necessarily know we know, and as Lawrence put it at the end of one of his letters to Russell, “Stop working and being an ego, & have the courage to be a creature.”