It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this
Bertrand Russell
It was Aristotle who first defined human beings as rational animals. Without getting too deep into what Aristotle meant when he wrote this we can see how the idea informs the popular understanding of how education can help people undergo change.
For instance, when it comes to issues like environmental crisis, animal abuse, persecution of minorities etc. it is often said that what we need to do is get the truth out to as many people as possible. There will, of course, always be some who don’t care. But those who seek to be kind and loving individuals will be challenged by what they hear and endeavor to change. In this way documentaries like An Inconvient Truth, Food Inc, and The Lottery help to positively impact society.
There are two basic reasons why such a view is held. Firstly, such documentares do generally tell us something that we don’t already know. Secondly, to a greater or lesser degree they seem to make a positive impact. However I would like to argue that this explanation misses something vital and, as such, fails to explain the phenomenon of resistance. Namely the situation in which people refuse to watch such documentaries (or engage in conversation about the issues they raise) by offering lame excuses, a host of unformulated arguments and/or visible bodily discomfort at the mere suggestion (it is often all three).
Of course there are many things that we are genuinely ignorant of. But by the time a major film or book is released on some ethical subject it is generally the case that there is some knowledge about the issues among the general population. So, while such documentaries do indeed offer us information that we may not have known before, perhaps understanding their real power requires a more subtile reading.
Difficult as it might be for us to accept, what if we already know that our desire for cheap food and clothes feeds gross cruelty and suffering? What if we already know that the way we live is excessive and that there are ways to consume that minimise our damage on this earth? What if we already know that some of the things we desire are not worthy of our admiration?
It is difficult to deny that offering information to people concerning ethically disgusting practices can faciliate change. But rather than this being connected with the idea that we now know something that we were previously igniorant of we must ask whether it might actually be because we can no longer pretend that we don’t know.
At a basic level we might, for instance, wish to pretend to those around us that we don’t know about something that would require us to change because we don’t want them to witness our more callous nature. However, at a more fundamental level, we are often attempting to pull the wool over our own eyes. Pretending to ourselves that we don’t know what we know. In this situation we want to maintian a certain self-image and thus seek to supress anything that would challenge it. The difference between not knowing and not wanting to know that we know is evidenced in the psychological phenomenon called Resistance.
Resitance is seen when, as mentioned above, people emotionally react to something that does not, in itself, need to be responded to in that kind of way. For instance there is a huge difference between someone not seeing a film on some challenging issue because they are genuinely busy and one who offers up a range of lame excuses and half-baked arguments for why they are not attending.
To take an example of resistance I recently witnessed a conversation about hybrid cars in which one of the people took visible pleasure in pointing out that the enviromental impact of driving a new hybrid was much greater than that of driving a large, previously built, SUV. What was interesting was not the information itself but the way that the individual delivered it. The information was not given as a means of seriously forwarding the discussion concerning how we minimise our negative impact on the enviroment, but rather as a means of shutting down a conversation that was making that person feel uncomfortable about their own desires and lifestyle.
We witness a similar logic happening when, after the Second World War many civilians in Germany said that they did not know what was happening to their Jewish neigbours. This is no doubt true in the sense that they would not have known the full facts. However there were enough hints around to point to the reality that people actively tried to avoid finding out what was happening for fear that they would then need to act. Something most of us would have done if we had been there (because it is what most of us do today concerning all kinds of injustice).
So the issue here is not that we fail to know something, but rather that we don’t want to know that we know. For when we know that we know then we are forced to change our behaviour, offer embarrasing counter-arguements that make it obvious we don’t really care or simply admit our lack of concern (which is at least to be respected more than pretending that we do care).
This also has its corollary in religious issues. Many people avoid reading books that question their ideas on scripture, sexuality, the afterlife etc. because there is a part of them that already knows that their views are wishful thinking or unfounded. While resistance, with a little training, can be easy to spot in other people, it is more difficult when it comes to ourselves. However, when confronted with something that challenges us we must be sensitive to our own reactions, working out whether we experience emotional resistance and, if so, what it is we are hidding from ourselves.
‘It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this’ Bertrand Russell
It was Aristotle who first defined human beings as rational animals. Without getting too deep into what Aristotle meant when he wrote this we can see how the idea informs the popular understanding of how education can help people undergo change.
For instance, when it comes to issues like environmental crisis, animal abuse, persecution of minorities etc. it is often said that what we need to do is get the truth out to as many people as possible. There will, of course, always be some who don’t care. But those who seek to be kind and loving individuals will be challenged by what they hear and endeavor to change. In this way documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth, Food Inc, and The Lottery help to positively impact society.
There are two basic reasons why this view is held. Firstly, such documentaries do generally tell us something that we don’t already know. Secondly, to a greater or lesser degree they seem to make a positive impact. However I would like to argue that this explanation misses something vital and, as such, fails to explain the phenomenon of resistance. Namely the situation in which people refuse to watch such documentaries (or engage in conversation about the issues they raise) by offering lame excuses, a host of unformulated arguments and/or visible bodily discomfort at the mere suggestion.
Of course there are many situations that we are genuinely ignorant of. But by the time a major film or book is released on some ethical subject it is generally the case that there is some knowledge about the issues among the general population. So, while such documentaries do indeed offer us information that we may not have known before, perhaps understanding their real power requires a more nuanced reading.
It is difficult to deny that offering information to people concerning ethically disgusting practices can facilitate change. But rather than this being connected with the idea that we now know something that we were previously ignorant of we must ask whether it might actually be because we can no longer pretend that we don’t know.
Hard as it might be for us to accept, what if we already know that our desire for cheap food and clothes feeds gross cruelty and suffering? What if we already know that the way we live is excessive and that there are ways to consume that minimise our damage on this earth? What if we already know that some of the things we desire are not worthy of our admiration?
At a basic level we might wish to pretend to those around us that we don’t know about something that would require us to change because we don’t want them to witness our more callous nature. However, at a more fundamental level, we are often attempting to pull the wool over our own eyes. Pretending to ourselves that we don’t know what we already know. In this situation we want to maintain a certain self-image and thus seek to surpress anything that would challenge it. The difference between not knowing and not wanting to know that we know is evidenced in the psychological phenomenon called Resistance.
Resistance is seen when, as mentioned above, people emotionally react to something that does not, in itself, need to be responded to in an emotional way. For instance there is a huge difference between someone not seeing a film on some challenging issue because they are genuinely busy and one who offers up a range of ridiculous excuses and half-baked arguments for why they are not attending.
To take an example of resistance I recently witnessed a conversation about hybrid cars in which one of the people took visible pleasure in pointing out that the enviromental impact of driving a new hybrid was much greater than that of driving a large, previously built, SUV. What was interesting was not the information itself but the way that the individual delivered it. The information was not given as a means of seriously forwarding the discussion concerning how we minimise our negative impact on the environment, but rather as a means of shutting down a conversation that was making that person feel uncomfortable about their own desires and lifestyle.
We witness a similar logic happening when, after the Second World War many civilians in Germany said that they did not know what was happening to their Jewish neigbours. This is no doubt true in the sense that they would not have known the full facts. However there were enough hints around to point to the reality that people actively tried to avoid finding out what was happening for fear that they would then need to act. Something most of us would have done if we had been there (because it is what most of us do today concerning all kinds of injustice).
So the issue here is not that we fail to know something, but rather that we don’t want to know that we know. For when we know that we know then we are forced to change our behaviour, offer embarrassing counter-arguments that make it obvious we don’t really care or simply admit our lack of concern (which is at least to be respected more than pretending that we do care).
This also has its corollary in religious issues. Many people avoid reading books that question their ideas on scripture, sexuality, the afterlife etc. because there is a part of them that already knows that their views are wishful thinking or unfounded. While resistance, with a little training, can be easy to spot in other people, it is more difficult when it comes to ourselves. However, when confronted with something that challenges us we must be sensitive to our own reactions, working out whether we experience emotional resistance and, if so, what it is we are hiding from ourselves.
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July 13th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
“So the issue here is not that we fail to know something, but rather that we don’t want to know that we know.”
A great, self-reflective question along these lines that I often ask myself is “What am I pretending not to know?”.
Thanks for this post.
July 13th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Good one Peter. I sometimes wonder if our obsession with self delusion is not always intentional but part of the survival instinct that shoves its way to the fore before any real thinking takes place. Then the problem becomes how does a human backtrack with dignity and before the media tears us to shreds, when we realise what an idiot we’ve been!
July 13th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
I once had a teacher that told us a story about when she was talking with the other teachers in the teacher’s lounge and one of the other teachers said that she never went into the cafeteria because she didn’t want to have to implement corrective action against the students who were doing wrong things.
July 13th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
So very true. One of the most common responses I get to my book Everyday Justice is anger. Not anger at the injustices in the world, but anger at me for making people aware of those injustices. People are more angry that they can no longer eat chocolate without feeling guilty than they are about the kidnapping, trafficking, and child slavery that taints most of our chocolate.
July 13th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
It is extremely optimistic to believe that a person educated on any certain matter will choose to react in a manner that will improve the situation, resulting in why aristotle called us “rational animals”. The ability to choose what is right and wrong makes us reasonable, rational, but not disposed towards doing what is right.
The Nazis, undergoing prosectuion, lied about not truely knowing what was going on to avoid incarceration/ jailtime. Even those who knew what did happen tried to lie and hide the truth, saying that Jews embelished to turn nazis into the enemy, and use them as a scapegoat. For this reason the concentration camps have been left out in the open. They have not been dismantled because individuals with all the world’s information at their fingertips, still choose what they want to believe.
I do agree that emotional resistance is a force to be reconned with. there are any number of psychological issues which could prevent someone from acting on what they know is “right”.
July 13th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
This is FANTASTIC and very, very true.
July 14th, 2010 at 12:56 am
Powerful and challenging as always, Pete. In many ways, this mirrors many of my personal thoughts lately, as I often speak out about injustices – both obvious and subtle – yet do nothing to subvert these acts. I suppose that my hypocrisy is par for the course, but when will we, as a united humanity, truly care about the well being of all?
July 14th, 2010 at 2:12 am
Yes Peter, and Fox News is evidence of the echo chamber of self reinforcing belief. What if we returned (metanoia) to the Creator, the One who is the Way, being open to the movement of the Spirit, surrendering all? Pray for the Church.
July 14th, 2010 at 3:12 am
Thanks for this, Pete.
This is one of the things I think might be going on in the phrases ’seek and you will find’ etc; they’re not just an exhortation to be sincere, spiritually hungry, etc, but a challenge. Because truth is not hard to find, it’s hard to want to find.
July 14th, 2010 at 3:44 am
Thanks for this, Peter. I found it a helpful and challenging reminder of how important it is to constantly reflect on my own chosen “blind spots”.
It raises an important question for me, and I’d love to hear your thoughts: How then do we engage with others who are choosing not to know that they know when dealing with some of the massive crises in our world? Your post would seem to suggest that attempting to change people’s minds through some rational or discursive process may be counter productive. How then do we engage people in truly transforming processes? (I recognise that there are all sorts of implications in my question – is it right to try and change someone else’s mind etc. – but, if it’s possible, maybe we can lay those aside for the moment) Any ideas?
Thanks again
July 14th, 2010 at 5:09 am
is there not a little more to the SUV conversation? was mr suv not trying to point out (rightly/wrongly) some futility, and/or misplaced faith ,self pacification and self righteousness?
July 14th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
[...] poem was inspired by this post by Peter Rollins. Please read it before you read the [...]
July 14th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Good stuff, brother.
It prompted this poem: http://www.borrowedbreath.com/2010/07/14/know-2/
Shalom
July 14th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Your anecdote reminded me of a time when one of my high schoolers, from a very conservative family who had trained her to be resistent to anything “green,” smugly rattled off some facts about how recycling hurts the environment.
It was then that I pointed out her sudden concern for the environment.
July 14th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
I just watched “Shutter Island” and wondered if there is a continuum of insanity and self-deception that some experience with an intensity that renders them incapable of functioning in society. Along the continuum the “normal” people actually function in much the same way without the same intensity of insanity or consequences and are therefore deemed “sane.” I don’t want to ruin the film for anyone who hasn’t seen it but the examples in your post Pete fit that film well.
On another string, I think that if the narrative constructed for Lucifer’s fall is true, and even if it isn’t, the narrative shows that Lucifer would have had to be self-deceived in order to make the decision that was made, a decision that any “sane/normal” angel would have known was impossible.
Fear sucks
July 18th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
My father was a smoker from age 14. Two years ago, in his mid-sixties, he quit.
All those years in between he knew the facts: smoking is bad for you; lung cancer is a terrible thing; secondhand smoke harms your loved ones.
So what did it take? While in the hospital recovering from a near heart attack, a friend brought him some clean clothes from home. Clean, yes, but they reeked of old smoke. “This is how I smell?” he thought to himself, and never smoked again.
I believe there’s something to an embodied, physical experience that is sometimes the switch to effect change.
(Being a non-philosopher, I realize I’m probably getting the terminology incorrect, but I’d love to learn more about this bodily connection, as it were, if anyone can point me toward resources.)
August 23rd, 2010 at 1:29 pm
I’ve been thinking about this post for awhile now, and I agree with Gibby that many people who “suppress” the Truth are responding to self-righteousness or glibness in others.
That said, Peter, I found an analogy to your thoughts in Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats, a novel that features two women–one American, another Japanese–who encounter the dark side of the American meat industry. The narrator here is a documentarian:
“Information about toxicity in food is widely available, but people don’t want to hear it [. . .]. Coming at us like this–in waves, massed and unbreachable–knowledge becomes symbolic of our disempowerment–becomes bad knowledge–so we deny it, riding its crest until it subsides from consciousness. I have heard myself protesting “I didn’t know!” but this is not true. Of course I knew about toxicity in meat, the unwholesomeness of large-scale factory farming ,the deforestation of the rain forest to make grazing land for hamburgers. Not a lot, perhaps, but I knew a little. I knew enough. But I needed a job. [. . .] “Ignorance.” In this root sense, ignorance is an act of will, a choice that one makes over and over again, especially when information overwhelms and knowledge has become synonymous with impotence.
“I would like to think of my ‘ignorance’ less as a personal failing and more as a massive cultural trend, an example of doubling, of psychic numbing, that characterizes the end of the millennium. [. . .] We are paralyzed by bad knowledge, from which the only escape is playing dumb. Ignorance becomes empowering because it enables people to live. Stupidity becomes proactive, a political statement. Our collective norm” (334)
Great post!