Archive for March, 2012
Do We Have Choices or Are They Illusions?
An article on forgiveness in The Times of India appeared today. I base this blog post on the following quotation from the author of this piece:
“Everything we do, while we are identified with body and mind is the result of conditioning and the choices we make are also influenced by this. Also, we don’t choose our parents nor siblings. Or the environment you lived in as a child or teachers at school.
Yet all these elements conditioned you into the person you are today. And they impact your choices. To know this is the beginning of awareness and compassion. The paradox is that real choice happens when we realize that there is never any real choice. So forgive and let go.”
We just had a materialist bomb drop on us. A “materialist bomb” is this: A person reduces human psychology to one and only one narrow area to such an extent that it looks like we have no free will. If we take neurobiology to an extreme, we could say that our brains make us think and behave in certain ways with no flexibility built in for our own innovation, creativity, or choice.
Or, rather than looking within for a material cause of our actions (the brain is an interior material cause), we can look to social conditioning such as positive reinforcement or punishment to explain why we behave as we do. After all, if someone bops you on your head every time you say the words “free will,” for example, you will probably end up cringing whenever you hear those two little words. You have been materially conditioned to cringe at the words “free will.” It is not your choice to cringe. Something in the material world is making you do this.
All well and good until we practice reductionism and make the rather difficult-to-make claim that none of us really has any choices at all. It is our brains and social conditioning that make us who and what we are.
Is that all there is to us as persons? If so, then there is no true right and wrong, no injustices against you because, well, the person’s brain is wired in a certain way and the social conditions of his or her environment have made the person this way.
There is nothing to forgive because no one chooses to hurt you. The person could not help it. Forgiveness is rendered useless. More dramatically, forgiveness is an illusion.
But, is it true that there is nothing but brain structure and social reinforcements to explain who we are? Whoever says “yes” to this, then I have the following thought-experiment for you. It comes with a warning label because the thought is violent.
Imagine that you are a parent. Your daughter was raped in Central Park. You are fuming. At the trial, the defense lawyer says this, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. We all know that our society has perpetuated the idea that women are men’s property. This has fostered an unintended sense of aggression in my client toward women. We all know that our society reinforces men to exploit women, not that they want to do so, but they are taught that. There is nothing my client could do but rape the one woman who happened to be jogging by that day. And let us not forget testosterone. That, combined with negative norms about women and the social reinforcements all ganged up on my client. He could not help himself. Therefore, I strongly request the dismissal of all charges against him.”
A show of hands, please, from anyone who agrees with this lawyer. We all know why we disagree with the request. It is because no matter what the norms are in society and no matter what the accused man’s social conditioning or testosterone levels were on that day, he had hundreds of choices of how to act. To say that he had to act in this and only this way is to deny reality. It is to deny the raped woman justice. It is to deny her the possibility of forgiving because forgiveness is an illusion that we need to guard against, not embrace.
There are no choices? I choose not to believe it.
Forgiveness is alive and well because injustices do happen by people’s freely chosen actions, and sometimes those actions are wrong and punishable, not dismissed for the illusion of an exclusively-materialist cause to our behavior.
Forgiveness as an illusion? No. When someone harms you, he or she could have behaved in many other ways, including choosing—choosing—to be respectful and kind.
If someone hurt you but then says that they did nothing at all wrong, can you forgive? How can you forgive someone who looks you in the eye and denies any wrongdoing?
The question is important because of the confusion that might be engendered in the forgiver when the offending person claims innocence. A central issue here is this: The forgiver is the one exercising the virtue of forgiveness, which includes careful scrutiny regarding the other person’s right or wrong actions. It is part of the forgiveness process to determine this. Once the forgiver has determined wrongdoing on the other’s part, of course, this conclusion is open to revision based on new evidence. So, please try to think of the offending person’s challenge as an opportunity to further scrutinize his or her act to ascertain wrongdoing. The person could be correct, in which case there is nothing to forgive. If, however, you as forgiver once again examine the behavior and conclude that it is an injustice, then you should go ahead with forgiveness regardless of what the other person (or anyone else) says. Do not let a contrary opinion or consensus keep you from the truth of what is right and wrong. Do not let the opinion or consensus keep you from forgiving if you continue to conclude that there was injustice.
Just Checking in Regarding Your Unfolding Love Story
On January 19, we posted a reflection on our blog site in which we encouraged readers to grow in love as their legacy of 2012. We said this:
“Give love away as your legacy of 2012.
How can you start? I recommend starting by looking backward at one incident of 2011. Please think of one incident with one person in which you were loved unconditionally, perhaps even surprised by a partner or a parent or a caring colleague. Think of your reaction when you felt love coming from the other and you felt love in your heart and the other saw it in your eyes. What was said? How were you affirmed for whom you are, not necessarily for something you did? What was the other’s heart like, and yours?
It is now about a month-and-a-half later. Can you list some specific, concrete ways in which you have chosen love over indifference? Love over annoyance? If so, what are those specifics and how are they loving? We ask because 2012 will be 25% over at the end of March. Have you engaged in 25% of all the loving responses that you will leave in this world this year?
Tempus fugit. If you have not yet deliberately left love in the world this year, there is time…..and the clock is ticking.
Finding Meaning in Suffering: I Am Someone Who Can Love Despite Hardship
Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Holocaust and a world renown psychiatrist, made the point that the only ones who survived concentration camp were those who somehow could find meaning in what they suffered. Those who saw their suffering as meaningless died.
In other words, finding meaning in this case meant to find life. What fascinates me about Dr. Frankl’s observations is that finding any meaning seems to count in staying alive. Whether a person saw the suffering as a way to toughen the self, or as a way to reach out to other suffering people was not the main point.
I wonder now, in reflecting on Dr. Frankl’s broad view of meaning in suffering, whether he had it entirely correct. Yes, it may be the case that any meaning can keep a person alive. Yet, what kind of meaning in suffering actually helps a person to thrive, not just to live? Perhaps people thrive only when they derive particular meaning from suffering. Of course, we do not know for sure, and any comment here is not definitive because it is open to scientific investigation and philosophical analysis. With that said, I think that when people realize that suffering helps them to love others more deeply, this is the avenue toward thriving.
How does suffering help people to love more deeply? I think there are at least three ways this happens: 1) Suffering makes people more aware of the wounds that others carry; 2) Suffering makes people more determined to help those others bind up their wounds, and 3) Suffering gives the sufferer the courage to put into action these insights and motivations to make a difference in the lives of others.
As people love in this way, there are characteristically two consequences which help them to thrive: 1) Those who deliberately love in the face of suffering grow in character, each becomes a better person, and 2) The recipients of this love-in-action have their well-being enhanced. As those who suffer see the fruit of their loving actions, this increases satisfaction with life, increasing thriving.
When we have been treated unjustly by others, this is an occasion of suffering. Let us cultivate the habit under this circumstance of finding this meaning: I have an opportunity now to love those who have hurt me. The one avenue to loving the unjust is to forgive them. Let us remember this meaning to forgiveness: “In my forgiving, I am someone who can love despite hardship.” As we say this routinely and come to know it is true, we may find that we have been given an opportunity to thrive as persons.
says to you, ???I do not deserve to be forgiven. I do not ask for forgiveness. I do not want forgiveness. Please do not forgive me. It will be an injustice to me if you forgive me.??? Now what? Can the person forgive or should he or she respect the person???s wishes?
This question is asking what is more important: to stand in the truth of what forgiveness is or to honor a person’s own idiosyncratic notion of what forgiveness is. We should opt for the truth every time regardless of another person’s reaction. Surely, we are aware that it is not an injustice to forgive anyone. If we put it in a different context, what if some says, “Please do not be fair to me. I do not seek fairness. I do not want fairness from you.” Would you refrain from being fair to that person? Of course not. Why would it be any different with forgiveness? Stand in the truth that forgiveness is good and true. At the same time, you do not have to announce to a reluctant person that you, in fact, have forgiven him. You can demonstrate that without words, with a smile, a warm gesture, and similar overtures of forgiveness.
