Monthly Archives: May 2014

What is evil?

Myth, Psychology, Religion, ,

This is a re-blog (with a few minor improvements) of a post on my old Middle Way Philosophy blog in September 2012.

Let’s start with a compilation of evil laughs. You’ll probably only need to watch the first minute or so to get the point. What I’d like you to note is certain features of what we imagine to be evil. Note the falseness, the association with a separate universe constructed in one’s own mind, the alienation from others, and the group mentality. All of these are part of our experience of ‘evil’ – but they are not an indication of a supernatural force. Rather they are the features of metaphysics: of fixed beliefs and goals in a super-dominant left brain.

Some people see evil as a supernatural force, whilst others deny its existence or seek to ignore it. I want to avoid either of these approaches and to account for evil, with all its power, in human experience. Just as God can be supremely meaningful without being an object of belief so can evil. The meaning and seriousness of evil seems to be undermined and trivialised in modern culture (illustrated most strongly by the slang use of the terms ‘wicked’ and ‘evil’ to mean conventionally good), but at the same time it is easy to see why this has happened. It demands an absurd level of fraught anxiety to regard ordinary human desire as the work of Satan, when our experience of desire is that it is largely both unavoidable and – up to a point – beneficial. If we have let go of that anxiety and accepted our desires as human, then that is a starting point, but we then need to start taking seriously the need for moral awareness and moral effort. We can only do that with an awareness of what we are avoiding – of ‘evil’ in a broad sense, neither supernatural nor naturalised into nothing.

So what is evil, if it is not Satan outside us, or human desires within us? My thesis is that evil is not a person or a set of feelings or desires, but a type of belief: that is, metaphysics. The integration model explains how we do not have ‘good’ desires and ‘evil’ desires, but rather desires that can be more or less effective as they get more or less integrated. Desires that I may experience as ‘evil’ (say, the desire to be insulting in an argument) are just unintegrated: they are in conflict with my other desires. However, if I then ask what prevents the integration of ‘evil’ (i.e. currently rejected) desires with ‘good’ (i.e. currently accepted) desires, the answer is fixed beliefs. Those beliefs may, on the surface, be about ‘good’ or ‘evil’, but they rigidify and simplify what I understand as good so I can idealise and hold onto it regardless of challenges, and rigidify and simplify what I understand as evil so that I can reject it, regardless of what it may have to tell me. My thesis is that such rigidification tends to occur around metaphysical beliefs – i.e. ones that cannot be incrementally addressed in experience but merely asserted or denied.

So, what is evil, in the broader and more helpful sense, includes metaphysical beliefs about good as well as metaphysical beliefs about evil – along with other metaphysical beliefs such as those about self, fate, freewill, God or nature. It may run against the mental habits of a lifetime to start thinking about the belief in an ultimate good as evil: but we only have to consider the amount of alienation and conflict created by sincerely held ideas of ultimate good to begin to appreciate why this is so. This doesn’t imply that those who hold such beliefs are ‘evil’ or even that they are mainly motivated by evil: only that the impact of such metaphysical beliefs on them is evil, within the context of wider moral development gained by experience. Great saints and religious leaders with strong metaphysical beliefs may often have had a largely good impact – but my thesis is that they were handicapped, not aided, by those beliefs. Their moral objectivity came not from those beliefs, but from the degree of integration created by the other conditions working in their lives, often including the meaningfulness of the symbols (such as God) that they also had metaphysical beliefs about. Similarly, great figures widely regarded as evil (such as Hitler) had a variety of conditions working on them. They were not evil as people, but their rigid metaphysical beliefs dominated their lives to such an extent that their actions strike others as evil. In the case of Hitler it is not only Nazi ideology, but also his beliefs about himself and about the destiny of himself and the Germans, that could be identified as the metaphysical source of this evil.Devil_Goat

But what does this have to do with Satan or with evil as traditionally conceived? The picture here, in Jungian terminology, is a picture of the Shadow: the rejected energies in ourselves that we project outwards onto Dark Lords, villains, evil spirits, unfaithful spouses, bad bosses, evil capitalists etc. The features we normally give to ‘evil’ are associated with narrow left-brain dominance rather than with integration: empire-building, scheming, ruthlessness, and false emotion (as in the evil laughs above). Psychologically, then, it appears that what evil means to us is unintegrated desire.

We allow evil itself to dominate, however, if we project that unintegrated desire outwards and treat people or things as themselves evil. An appreciation of complexity, or of humanity, is an antidote to this. We also allow evil to dominate if we even treat our desires themselves as evil – for they are part of us. Evil instead works primarily at the level of belief. It is the belief in the ultimate truth and completeness of his schemes, and the ultimate justification of his ruthlessness through the idealisation of current egoistic desires, that makes the Dark Lord evil.

 

Devil picture by Rex Diablo (Wikimedia Commons). Picture can be freely reproduced under Creative Commons licence if attributed

The MWS Podcast: Episode 22, Viryanaya on critical thinking as part of spiritual practice

Critical Thinking, Education, Practice, ,

In this episode Viryanaya talks to us about teaching critical thinking as a part of spiritual practice as opposed to a more academic focus. She also gives her thoughts on the perception that critical thinking is somewhat cerebral and a male dominated skill, the value of teaching it to children from an early age and her understanding of the Middle Way in relation to all this.


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Critical Thinking 14: The Principle of Charity

Critical Thinking, ,

The Critical Thinking series has taken a bit of a break recently, but it will continue, perhaps a bit less frequently than before. This time I’m going to deal with a principle of interpretation that’s very helpful for Critical Thinking, though it’s not ‘critical’ in the narrower sense of making a negative point. Instead it suggests a charitable (i.e. loving) response to ambiguity.

Everything we hear, see or read is ambiguous or vague to some degree, and it is an implication of embodied meaning that there will be no precise fit between our words and what we assume is represented by them. Instead we have a physical experience of the meaning of a word that we may associate with a much more definite representation. So, for example if  my partner says “the washing up hasn’t been done*” , I will experience that as a whole physical experience, not just as a disembodied neutral statement of the situation. Any emotions I may have, for example of guilt, will form part of the interpretation. She may not intend to be accusatory at all, but I may nevertheless respond “But I’ve been too busy today!” on the assumption that she meant to accuse me of not doing something I feel I should have done.

The following video gives some good examples of ambiguous situations that could be interpreted in this kind of way. It also mentions the Fundamental Attribution Error, which is the cognitive bias labelling our tendency to assume that other people’s negative actions are their responsibility rather than the effect of circumstances.

The Principle of Charity is that we should interpret ambiguous claims or ambiguous evidence in the most positive way possible in the way they refer to the people concerned. I take this to include oneself, so it involves not only avoiding ‘jumping to conclusions’ about others, but also about what they are saying about me.

This practice is made more complicated by the usual issue that there is a balance of judgement involved (the Middle Way, of course). For the Principle of Charity cannot be practised absolutely. All statements are ambiguous to some degree, and  if we always interpreted them in the most positive possible way, even when they were clearly negative in their implication, we would be living in a sort of positive-thinking cloud-cuckoo land. Some situations clearly demand that we make or face up to criticisms or allegations, which have to be made even though they may possibly be wrong.

Nevertheless, the Principle of Charity may help us to locate the Middle Way, as being some way off from speculative accusations of any kind. This is a very demanding practice, and one I have a long way to go with myself – so I’m happy to have lapses pointed out to me. For example, I must confess that if someone doesn’t answer an email I still sometimes jump to the conclusion that their silence is deliberate, despite years of experience of the whole host of other reasons why people don’t answer emails. There’s nothing quite so ambiguous as non-communication, and it’s incredibly easy to read all sorts of speculative stuff into it.

A prior dislike of someone or something (especially in the sphere of politics) may also prime us to jump to the conclusion that an ambiguous, multiply-caused event is their fault. Here’s an example from the Guardian journalist Suzanne Moore:

Those people who are surprised that David Cameron wants to take away housing benefit from the under-25s have not been paying attention at the back. From tuition fees to workfare to benefit cuts to young parents, to careers stitched up by free internships and temporary contracts, a clear ideological and electoral decision has been made. These young people don’t vote, they don’t pay much tax, and they are superfluous to a Tory win. It is older people who vote.

Moore here observes that many recent policy changes are especially disadvantageous to younger people. She also notices that younger people on average vote less. She then jumps to the conclusion, without sufficient justification, that government policies must be motivated by a deliberate policy of favouring older people because it is electorally advantageous to the Conservatives.

Yes, that’s right – even politicians in government need the Principle of Charity! In fact, I’d suggest that politicians in government especially need it. You may be in power, but if everyone assumes the worst of you regardless of the evidence, you’re likely to end up no longer caring about the justification of your actions, as they’ll be met by public cynicism whatever you do. That’s a bad position to be in when your actions really do matter for a lot of other people.

Exercise: The Principle of Charity and Humour

Here is a video about a controversy over jokey remarks about Mexicans made on the BBC’s Top Gear programme. How do you think the Principle of Charity should be applied to this episode?

Link to other Critical Thinking blog posts

 

*For American readers, this means that the dishes haven’t been washed!

William Wyld. 1806 – 1889. Kersal Moor.1852.

Practice, The Arts, ,

Manchester_from_Kersal_Moor_William_Wylde_(1857)

William Wyld came from a wealthy background, his father was a merchant, it was hoped by his family that William would follow in his father’s footsteps, but William found an interest in drawing, an interest shared by an uncle of his on whose death enabled William to use his drawing equipment. William’s father died when William was twenty, he did not become a merchant but a secretary to the British Consulate in Calais, France, then he served Lord Granville and made friends with the water colour painter Francois Louis Thomas Francia and became one of his students. Wyld’s fortunes changed again when his protector Canning died, Wyld became a champagne exporter from Epernay to England between the years 1827 to 1833. William Wyld made many friends during his lifetime and travelled a great deal in France, Italy, Algiers and Egypt. He set out for Algiers with his friend Baron de Vialar in order to paint and draw there, they settled there for six months, soon  after that he met an old friend, Vernet and together they went to Rome where they also stayed six months. Wyld was soon on the move again, he continued on foot to tour  Italy with another friend. Finally he set up  a studio in Paris and was commissioned to paint oriental scenes and Venetian landscapes, his painting ‘Venice at Sunrise’ was exhibited in Paris in 1839 to great acclaim. He spent more time in Algeria and Egypt. In 1845 he lived in Brittany until the 1848 Revolution, an unsuccessful uprising by  workers in Paris over their working conditions. He returned to England and became a member of the New Society of Painters in Water Colours. Queen Victoria commissioned him to paint scenes of Liverpool and Manchester to celebrate her visits there.

A member of the Middle Way Society, Richard Flanagan, chose this painting for discussion by Wyld,  called A View of Manchester from Kersal Moor, painted in 1852, thank you Rich. In this single work, a water colour, we see two different views, one rural and the other a cityscape. Richard comments  on the extremes  ‘it is easy to view them as being wholly opposed but what must arise from the two is a middle way, of course this a Middle Way that we are still, desperately trying to find.’ A small group of people sit on a hillside overlooking a large bowl-shaped area in the middle distance, a few animals graze nearby, stretched across the horizon is a row of chimneys belching out smoke. What is the significance, if any, of the small group of people compared with the vast expanse of space before them?  Richard wonders what they are thinking and doing, maybe they are out for a short break from working in a mill, although it would have been a long walk for them to reach the moor or, are they agricultural workers thinking that their lot may be better by leaving the country side in order to earn more money in a factory. We are left to guess.

Wyld had managed not to paint an idealised view, he was probably well aware after his many journeys across Europe that all was not perfect in the country side. Other Victorian painters such as Myles Birket Foster painted work full of clichés, with skies being always blue, people and animals well fed and the worker’s homes idealised as comfortable thatched cottages, far from the truth more often than not. These works sold well, perhaps to city dwellers who had never lived a rural existence or maybe it was a longing for the past. Ian Hislop in his television series ‘Olden Days’ said that such unrealistic paintings were ‘a green balm for weary souls… a meditation on things past.’ Many of us escape to the country to live or we go for there for holidays, I went to live in rural north Devon for much needed peace and quiet for many years.

This painting of Kersal Moor has become an icon of ‘Cottonopolis’, due to its subject matter, symbols of what was happening in the country. Cotton mills were built, mainly in northern England, in Manchester and in Lancashire towns like Chorley, where my paternal ancestors lived. Industrialisation covered the years from 1750 to 1914, when cities became large and crowded as rural workers moved to find work in mills and factories or on the railways. Kersal Moor was and is still an area for recreation, it covers eight hectares of moorland and is designated a local nature reserve.

Wyld returned to Paris to live and was awarded the Legion d’Honneur by the French Minister of the Arts. He continued painting until he died in 1889.

Image from Wikipedia Commons.

The MWS Podcast: Episode 21, Claire Kelly from the Mindfulness in Schools Project

Education, Meditation, , , ,

In this episode we are joined by Claire Kelly, who is the Operations Director of the Mindfulness in Schools Project. She’s going to talk to us today about why she feels it’s important to introduce children to mindfulness practices, how the project goes about it and how it might relate to the Middle Way.


MWS Podcast 21: Claire Kelly as audio only:
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