HAIDT

 

I am just rambling this morning, nothing special to process or share. I’m reading a book now that I find disturbing. The word ‘disturb’ can be taken to mean several things. In my case it’s not about anxiety or displeasure, rather, about the ordering or arrangement of things or ideas. If you rearrange the room, you have to relearn its new order or you collide with chairs and tables until you do. When old, familiar, trusted ideas are challenged, you can dismiss the challenge for the sake of comfort and convenience or you can pick it up to see where it goes. 

The link between psychology and philosophy is necessary. Philosophy presumes a credible understanding of how and why people behave as they do = Psychology. So they lean on each other until one or the other moves its feet and the relationship wobbles. We all dabble with both disciplines, some with intent and others by default but few make it a life’s work. I am a dabbler. What I’m reading now is challenging and I need to follow it through. 

Jonathan Haidt is a psychologist. Some psychology majors end up selling insurance or used cars but Haidt is the real-deal researcher. His book, “The Happiness Hypothesis” is about how the mind works. Through the early to late 1900’s, researchers had been content to think of the mind as a complicated but singular construct. In the age of technology, the computer became the metaphor for the brain, the mind and how it all works. It was all about processing information.

In the past 25 years, that model has lost its mojo, across the board. Haidt just happens to be the one who wrote this book. What is emerging is, a model where the brain is divided, sometimes competing with itself. With MRI’s and other noninvasive research tools, we can observe the brain at work, all of it. Metaphor: Imagine a man sitting on an elephant. The man represents the part of the brain/mind that is accessible; we have control over it. The elephant is the part that is unavailable. Not only can we not control it, we can’t even perceive it. It is the, always working, automatic function. According to Haidt, the man (conscious-available brain) believes he controls the (unconscious-unavailable brain) the elephant. But any time the elephant wants, it can refuse to be controlled and the man is simply a passenger. The updated metaphor changes from a data processing computer to a committee of share holders, each representing its own particular concerns. The man supplies important information but the committee (the elephant) decides on which behavior to act out.

Giving up the old computer metaphor is not going to be easy. Haidt’s book is to me, like preaching to the choir. I have been inclined to think and wonder in the same direction for a long time. The path he follows feels good and in the end, that’s more powerful than anything we can prove or understand. Die hard moralists, idealists, free will addicts will cringe and dismiss such stuff; after all, what do researchers know? We are truly addicted to believing we are in control. But if that control is corrupted before the decision is made, then the Dalai Lama was ahead of his time when he said, “Relax, no one is in control.” 

It is good to keep things in perspective. In spite of religious push back and human hubris, evolution is! It’s a reaction first, then a mover. Without a stimulus, evolution would stop in its tracks. Like a car, racing through the darkness, in reverse, with its headlights on: you only see where you’ve been and what you’ve left behind. You don’t get to see where you are going. The perception of control is intoxicating, it’s the stuff hubris is made of. I’m only three chapters in and I can’t put it down. Whatever I learn, whatever I can’t get my head around, it’s not going to be the last word on thinking or behavior. Life is short. Work! Play! Rest! Try to learn something.