In 1992, after much exposure to Eastern literature and ideas, for example in the Tao Te Ching, and after what I began to learn in the Zen books and tapes of Thich Nhat Hanh (and also after a childhood and young adulthood raised on the ideas of Jesus–and let’s not forget my own moral compass of love and compassion), I wrote this, in New York City in marker–on my shower curtain–around a ying and yang symbol I drew:
There is no good
There is no bad
There only is
Of course, I did not mean that there is no benevolence in the world, or that there is no malevolence. I meant that intrinsically, in nature, in living things, there is no actual evil. Evil, malevolence, and good are the results of what is happening in and around living things, which are acting in their own interest and survival–like with species consuming one another, poisoning one another, corrupting or destroying one another’s’ habitats, taking one another’s eggs, etc.
I wrote this poem out of compassion, actually. There have been billions of well-meaning people (don’t catch me up there; I see where you, the reader, could question me on the meaning of ‘meaning well’; let me finish the point). Police, potentates, presidents and politicians–those who want to uphold “justice”–pursue, prosecute, punish and kill those they and we deem “bad”. But this is based on a fallacy, and I was growing aware of this in my teens–in a way… in a manner of thinking, and the more I learned about science, philosophy and love & compassion; indeed, the more I learned about the mind–I realized we are not fully in control, to do good or bad. That doesn’t mean we cannot make changes; that means we are subject to the conditions we are in, the consumption we engage in, the hormonal balance in our bodies and brains, and our brains themselves; it depends on all those things as those things were affected by our mothers and their bodies and brains~and according to Dr. Robert Sapolsky’s extensive work in neurobiology, neurochemistry, biology and the social conditions of humans, our mother’s socioeconomic circumstances.
But let me digress and tell you where my first musings in this area stemmed from–before I tell you what you might already know (if you keep track of the developments in human psychology and neuroscience): When I was a younger man, say in my teens and later twenties, observing my own behavior, I noticed that when I was occupied–say reading, drawing, looking at a book or studying (even when watching TV or fixing something) –or it could have been when I was simply lying on the bed, thinking…. I noticed that when I experienced the urge to visit the bathroom, and I delayed–because I was preoccupied (as we called it when I was young, which also meant “distracted”)–when I finally got up to go to the bathroom, it was exactly like I was experiencing the move to get up. I was not saying unconsciously, in my mind, that I would get up and then doing it. It was “happening” of my own corpus’ accord–and I was “going along for the ride” as it were. In short, I was “watching myself get up to go to the bathroom”. I don’t mean to say that I saw myself in the third person. I mean, my body was finally getting up, and I had not decided to do that.
Over time, when I realized what this meant, which was/is that I was seeing through a keyhole of perception showing me more of the conscious experience than is readily obvious to us usually, I saw that maybe, the human consciousness is not making the decisions–but thinks it is. Take another set of examples which exist in our minds more permanently:
Do we choose:
Our favorite colors?
The activities we like and dislike?
Whom we love?
Our favorite foods?
If you think about it, you can choose the things you need or want in the color you already like.
Or can you?
You can choose the type, place and participants with whom to engage in the activities you already like. Or can you?
You can choose, to be dedicated to whom you “fall in love with”.
Or can you?
You can choose the arrangements and varieties–what recipes–in which the foods you already like, come.
Or can you?
Aren’t all these aspects of your interest and disinterest, predilections, as in pre-oriented? And if you are not deciding these attractions and aversions, who or what is? Your body, you might say. Well, it is, and your body contains your mind. Or, rather, your body and mind are one. The more people accepted that over the centuries, the more they became aware of what Dr. Sam Harris often says: ‘you’re consciousness is not riding around in your head–or in your body.’ And this is a helpful awareness to arrive at, because it leads to all sorts of admissions about whom and what we are–and what we are not. But I am digressing into areas of science that many will demand are really part of what we philosopher-types (not a compliment, an observation, after decades of doing this kind of thinking)–what we call, metaphysics, and for others, religion. So, not wanting to get into too much trouble (yet–because the uninitiated and strict about what they think is true, might not like what is coming–again, especially if you, dear reader, don’t keep abreast of what the pop-big-wigs are saying in psychology and neuroscience–and I barely do, these days, actually, so don’t feel bad). Let’s get back to it.
But before I lay it on ya brothers and sisters–allow me to tell you one more story that might help you understand this better–and soften the blow for the beginners, here:
Beginning at about eighteen years’ old, I started writing Urgent Action Letters for Amnesty International (and political letters and essays for local editorial sections of the newspapers). These letters were designed to help people around the world who were in dire need of advocates, to assist them in getting help, as they were being mistreated and neglected in prison–sometimes not fed, not getting medical attention or legal assistance, and often, tortured and executed at the hands of the state.
At a young age, I felt that people did what was done to them, or something like that; and I found this to be true in the information I received about each case–each prisoner being adopted by Amnesty International. In many cases, these people had been arrested, jailed, prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned for political reasons–or issues involving prejudice, bigotry, xenophobia. But let’s talk about the average criminal situation–and I will make this brief to get back to our topics of ‘good and bad’, ‘good decisions and bad ones’ and what is in control of our decisions.…
In almost every case I learned about from Amnesty International–and they send you a dossier, a report on the life and criminal history of the person in trouble (and I am talking about the death penalty cases of Americans, usually in the South)–they were about men who grew up in terrible conditions–poverty, bigotry, lack of opportunity, criminal gang-infested neighborhoods, child abuse, single-parent homes, drug addiction, and mental retardation. I realized after reading hundreds of these dossiers about people in prison, often unfairly accused–scheduled to be killed by the state–that likely, had I been born into their terrible lives (more than they had “made” them), and more importantly, I thought that were I born into their lives–or rather, were I them, exactly, with their DNA, minds, families, lack of opportunity; if I had their situations of abuse, neglect, pain and suffering… I would have had been and doe the same or similar things. This is where compassion comes from: understanding.
Think of the opposite situation. A rich child, in a well-to-do neighborhood, perhaps a child of a prosperous tradition, among European-descended immigrants in their fifth or sixth generation, with a family business passed on from father to son…. Even if this person does not do well in school, she or he is going to have fortunate opportunity, in school or out, via family connections, nepotism, his or her name–in business and out… most likely. In the very least, this person will have a far greater chance of doing well in life, even if bad habits or over-indulgence cause him or her to have to start over several times.
Of course, in both cases, above, the situations largely decide the decisions a person in each one of them has at his or her disposal, and the outcome in all people’s situations depend on their health–which also depends on their socioeconomic situation.
You might say, ‘Carl, what about attitude?; people “pull themselves up by their boot-straps all the time to great success.” Well, I would say you are exactly right. But why can some do it and some cannot, even if not for want of trying? And why, then, do people wind up like Donald Trump, or Bernie Maidoff, or Sam Bankman Fried? For that matter, how does one become Bibi Netanyahu, George W. Bush, or Adolf Hitler? How does someone become Albert Einstein or Henry Ford? Why did Henry Ford become a Nazi, or Charles Lindbergh? How is it that a moral, patriotic, sacrificing and diligent, sensitive man like Joe Biden supports Israel, as Israel commits genocide? Of course these are not simple situations; if Biden doesn’t do as expected by the Israel lobby, Trump could become President, etc…. Returning to it: For that matter, how did Hamas think massacring twelve-hundred people and kidnapping tens of others was going to turn out for their occupied, beleaguered, Palestinian people, who have been humiliated, tortured, imprisoned, and subjugated in apartheid by their occupiers, the Israelis, since 1948? Why do people make bad decisions–as some very just and wonderful people often ask. I have made bad decisions, you have made them–we all do….
Sit down for this….
The reason is–and this was expounded on in neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris’s Waking Up, in 2014 (and in another seminal work he wrote, which I will name shortly)-as well as in Stanford neurobilogist and neuroscientist Dr. Robert Sapolsky‘s recently published Determined:
We don’t possess free will.
This doesn’t mean we can’t be responsible, or change, or make a better world–or even that we cannot make good decisions–but it does mean, blame makes no sense, and neither does merit-based praise based on innate qualities or abilities. And a little more than that, but you certainly don’t want to hear it from me…. After doing your good-natured due diligence (See what I did there?)–after listening (or reading) about this crucial issue, thoroughly… you may change your mind–if it can and needs to change….
Can you do that? Can you decide to do that? I know people who cannot challenge themselves or their ideas! A few of my buddies simply cannot. They say they can and do, but they only do so perfunctorily. Or they won’t try at all. They only argue. To me–that’s bad, the worst thing! But I do not blame them. Understanding their brain health and circumstances–I know they cannot help it, perhaps, yet. Sometimes we don’t know we are capable of change, or changing our minds–to accept facts or circumstances or people. It takes a life-altering experience to do that for us. And, alas, some are like rocks in certain areas; they cannot change and grow. These people–if we can help it–are not to be hated, no matter how much pain they may cause us; they are to be understood. They are likely doing the best they can….
If you accept the science and evidence, and embrace the full ramifications, this–and this is accepted by the larger world–you and I would see this awareness lead to much more awareness all around us… of ourselves and others, of understanding, compassion, kindness, a far better criminal justice system, better relationships, fewer instances and acts of confusion, guilt, self-hatred, ignorance, misunderstanding, entitlement, unnecessary & unreasonable expectation, jealousy, greed, prejudice, anger, insult, unfair, unnecessary and irrational arguments, breakups, corruption, divorce, crime, war, and inequality.
Now I can tell you that the other book on this subject–a very short one–by Dr. Sam Harris, is called… you guessed it: Free will.
Now, because more people would understand that we can only do what we are capable and enabled to do (with some of us more able than others, to adapt and grow and change), per our brain chemistry, brain structure, brain health and bodily health–as well as on all the factors affecting these aspects of our psychology, which we can change per the same. And, of course, this is all affected by our birth mother and father, their health, the conditions we grow up in, the ideas we are taught and accept and the yes–the decisions we make which depend on all this and more.
Specifically–as far as I understand some of the most important parts of the neuroscientific crux of this (and that is most of it)–the brain issue, in relatively and apparently healthy people (and unhealthy functioning ones) boils down to the per-frontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala. These parts of the brain control–or are engaged in (respectively), decision making/socialization/higher brain function, behavioral control and memory/worry. And the hormonal balance in one’s mother affects the latter two, with the anterior cingulate cortex more or less affected by—-and affecting the amygdala (active in memory and worry), and these affect the prefrontal cortex, where socialization and decision-making emerge and are controlled– but this area also affects the other two–according to how one is taught/inspired/forced to think, lives… per the family, society, environment, health, and more–basically all related to levels of peace and/or stress.
I have much to do, and much on my mind (my amygdala is very active these days)–so I have explained this quickly and roughly–not as well as I could–so, I may come back soon and flesh it out more clearly and eloquently–but why not listen to the experts themselves? They are very learned, moral, educated and well-spoken scientists whose only agenda is making the world a better place. Does that make them good? Their link is below….
Thank you for reading–especially you. I will be back–as always-to write more about the philosophical aspects of this, as I started above… on good and bad and decisions….
CA
New York
Copyright Carl Atteniese II / All rights reserved
