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Discover .Your .Mind New .Ideas .in .Psychology .and .Idealism

Values

Ethical debate has been out of fashion for some time, though it is emerging again within some medical issues. The main factor that contributed to the decline of ethics was that it was only a rational debate, without any psychological considerations. Rationality is no longer sufficient as a means of establishing values, especially those that relate to character.

Nowadays, establishing good and bad values of character is done through trial and error, that is, through conflict. My view of evolution is that it is conflict-driven. Why should this be so? Why is conflict necessary? Why is a rational analysis of values not sufficient for us?

I highlight three themes

1). Consider a person who is perfectly balanced, emotionally and mentally. His evolution will be steady and continuous. His progress chart will be a straight line with a positive gradient. Wherever evolution is taking us, he will arrive there sooner or later. He will have a moderate understanding of life, but little depth of understanding (because he faced and overcame very few difficult problems).

Some time ago I read a biography of a British member of the Baring family (diplomats and bankers). He was born in the 1890s, and entered the 1st world war as an army major (if I remember correctly) and a translator for the British army expedition in France. As a translator he was involved in most of the high-level discussions between the British and French militaries. He was also a pilot in the newly-formed air force. After the war he came a successful diplomat, in various British embassies. He was also a good musician, a world traveller and explorer, and later in life turned to writing. All-in-all, a very accomplished man, a highly cultured one. His life was very successful, where all efforts turned easily to gold. This was the life of Maurice Baring (as I remember reading it).

He had only one fault. He could not understand why most of the world was a world of suffering. The prevalence of suffering completely baffled him. What he demonstrated is that a rosy path through life does not generate deep understanding of life.

2). How does a deep understanding become possible? The way that seems to have become the norm is that each person is always off his centre of balance. Figuratively, as a person aims to find his balance, he always overshoots it ; as he tries to return to the centre, he again overshoots. So he is perpetually oscillating around his centre, never permanently achieving it for any length of time. More accurately, he follows a dialectical movement, where his values keep needing modifications. Therefore, he is regularly out of his depth in his various situations.

Sometimes he is successful, and thinks that it is due solely to his own efforts. This produces values for him, mainly positive ones. Next time a similar situation occurs, he applies those values, but he fails. He has to make re-adjustments and re-evaluations.

Sometimes he fails, and blames himself. This produces values, though they are mainly negative ones. At sometime in the future, the situation occurs again and he applies those values. This time he is unexpectedly successful, and so again he has to make re-adjustments and re-evaluations.

This conflict-driven zigzag path through life ensures that he has to question both his good values and his bad ones, since both good and bad values change as he encounters higher levels of responsibilities. The vast majority of people fight shy of this personal questioning, and when it occurs they keep it as superficial as possible. This is the reason why people change very little in a single lifetime (but they still change faster than a person who has few conflicts to face).

3). There is an aspect of values that is not appreciated very much in therapy ideologies and in ethical debate. We can easily recognise that the replacement of "bad" values with good ones is a difficult process, and involves a period of re-adjustment. What is just as difficult is the replacement of our "good" values when they become "out-of-date".

When we are replacing bad values, we know what we want to replace them with. But when we enter a new level of experience and find that some of our good values are restricting us in that field of experience, then what do we replace them with? When we are in the unknown, we can only resort to trial and error in developing new qualities of character. And this is just as stressful as ordinary psycho-therapy.

For example, in a previous life I was involved in feudalism and chivalry. The ethics of this usually revolve around camaraderie and honour to one's equals, and amorality towards the peasants. This life I have kept the camaraderie and honour, but have had to learn to respect any person, no matter where he is on the social ladder. I now accept that a tramp and a prime minister have equal value (though different abilities).

Ian Heath
London, UK

www.discover-your-mind.co.uk/

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