I guess this post follows on thematically from the recent one claiming that we are what we do, as well as from Friday's on growth mindsets, but here I'm looking here at how we have to be active participants in choosing what we do.
I don't completely understand Sartre's term 'bad faith', but I think it's something like this: a waiter, instead of being himself working as a waiter, defines himself by and becomes a concept of 'waiter'. He acts out a role and believes that that is who he is, but in fact he has just adopted a social structure like a uniform.
This idea of being one's real self seems to be a concern for a lot of philosophers. Kierkegaard felt it was a sign of ignorant immaturity to think oneself a Christian just by professing to believe. You have to go through despair, find yourself in all your particulars, and stand as yourself, not as a member of a society or a religion, in front of God. Nietzsche thought obeying rules rather than being your own powerful, willed self was an abnegation of life. For Spinoza, ‘power’ (potentia) refers to a thing’s capacity to be what it is and to act from its nature. I've probably got this a bit wrong, but the jist is fair enough.
The key idea is a personal responsibility for who you are. Taking your self by the scruff of the neck and dragging it from its lazy sojourn in socialised acceptance and instead making manifest, in the best and strongest way possible, its unique particuliarity.
Even religious traditions fall into these schema in a sense - the Buddhist path to Enlightenment, which may be defined as the abnegation of the self, and the Christian's path to sainthood both involve considerable self-focused work, in denying impulses, retraining instincts, meditation, fasting, prayer, learning and so on.
In no case, though, is this process related to going down the self-indulgent rabbit-hole of 'finding oneself': it's more about becoming oneself in the fullest sense by transcending the perceived limitations of selfhood. Nor is it the 1960s ideal of self-actualization outside society, which has transformed into the narcissistic cult of authenticity.
Indeed, I don't believe there is a 'real self' inside us. What I believe is that through the course of life, especially if we are able to read, study or listen to a lot of different views and have diverse experiences with different people while retaining an open-mind, we can start to see what beliefs and behaviours might be most suited to alleviating suffering in ourselves and others. We can then choose to inhabit those beliefs and enact those behaviours. We find who we want to be by looking outside ourselves.
The freedom being sought is not a freedom from responsibility and toward pleasure or glory; but a freedom to see critically, act morally and make the most of what nature and nurture have given us. Happiness is not guaranteed, nor is success. What we are hoping, by accepting responsibility, is to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.
It is a social activity with a pro-social end, rather than a quest for personal fulfilment.
Of course, I'm influenced here by Susan Neiman's work on growing up, which I continue to explore, but I'm also considering something I found inspiring in Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue. This is his analysis of 'practices'.
MacIntyre is talking about the idea of a class of skills entailed within a socially co-operative system. Hmmmm. how can I put this better? Well, he says kicking a ball is not a practice, but playing football is. Chopping vegetables is not, but being a chef is. Laying bricks is not, but designing and building a house is. Practices have both internal and external 'goods' (rewards). Examples of external rewards might be payment or honour. The internal rewards are extending one's knowledge and ability and particular skills; bringing new riches to the system of the practice as a whole and the specific good of inhabiting the world of that practice.
So, if a person paints portraits, say, they might sell them for money and gain respect and even influence. Those are no doubt beneficial, but are of no intrinsic value. On the other hand, the painter might also develop an understanding of perspective, tone and colour. One might find an innovative way of using paints and textures. One might develop a means of expressing the sitter's character in particular and remarkable fashion. These rewards show the progress of the artist, but they also help to advance the practice itself - offering other artists greater richnesses to inspire their own creativity. Within the practice, there is a communal benefit through the excellence of the individual. All are pulled forward by the genius of individuals. Within that community, the person who has expressed, with the most dedication and effort, her talent, is an inspiration to others and is to be encouraged. She may be admired and lauded outside the community too, but that is a secondary boon.
In addition, it is the internal rewards which truly motivate the struggle to outdo oneself. Money and honour can just serve to encourage one to repeat oneself, and can make one wary of taking risks. One will always learn from a risk taken for the sake of creativity; but if one is focused on the external rewards, a risk is just a risk. Further, a person who is not exceptional within the practice will still get the internal goods of inhabiting that practice and developing oneself within it, even if they don't get the external goods. Thus, it's the internal goods that ensure the practice continues.
MacIntyre is in part interested in practices because to be involved in a practice demands (at least) three important virtues: honesty, courage and justice. There is no point in the painter cheating - by getting others to paint her works and signing them to gain maximum sales value, say - because that way she is not developing her skill. She has to honestly see where she can learn and from whom she can learn; she has to fairly value the skills of others. She must have the courage to take the risk of investing her time and energy into the process of development and education. It's hard at first, but given honest work, the process brings joy and many of the elements of skill become habitual.
But he is also, I think (though I've not got to this section yet), aligning the concept of practicing a skill with that of practicing virtues. In just the same way, we seek heroes to emulate. We invest work, which demands courage, justice and honesty. We come to relish our growing skill and insight. (You can see here how the concept of phronesis is relevant - there's a brief account of that in this post.) We begin to act habitually in virtuous ways. The internal goods of being in a community that values virtues ensure the practice of virtue continues.
Timothy Wilson, in Strangers to Ourselves, promotes precisely this path to improve character. Action shapes us. At the beginning, we may, for example, feel impatient and frustrated listening to a friend's tale of woe. We may want to offer platitudes thoughtlessly by letting our minds drift onto our to-do list or our plans for the evening. We may want to sneak a peak at our Twitter feed. We may wish to cut the conversation short or just shut him up by a sharp comment or a change of subject. But if we act out a sense of the importance of compassion, as a virtue that we wish to develop, and maintain concentration enough times, then such behaviour will become secondary - and, crucially, such attitudes will begin to become part of our nature. We can reshape our very brains by our behaviour. And, after this process, we indeed are what we do.
But wait! you say, Surely this is bad faith? Our thoughts at the time are frustration and impatience - aren't be being inauthentic? But wait! I say, are we not, in a crucial way, most importantly what we do? Most of the time, intentions don't really matter to others: what matters to them is how they are affected by us. In addition, the attempt not to be frustrated and impatient is a deeper intention, showing the profound authenticity of who we intend to be, rather than how genetic, biological and social forces have made us. This striving to develop beyond that which chance offered us is what makes us human. And it is precisely that which can help to make us virtuous.
We are not born a portrait painter; we do not become a portrait painter by intending it; we become a portrait painter by practicing portrait painting. In the same way, we are not born virtuous. We are born with capacities for both good and evil. Through the random absorption of social mores we can enact some version of morality, but it is not enough to be virtuous. For the values we have assimilated may not be the values that align with the values that would enable all beings to live 'a good life'. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that, all societies being some way off perfect, one can safely assume that the inherited structure is some way off ideal. Nor is there any guarantee that through our efforts and investigations we will strike upon the best conception of a universal moral structure. In fact, that, I think, is an ideal and no more than an ideal. However, I do believe that it is our personal duty, if we are to accept the responsibility that comes with being grown up, to seek to stretch closer. We have to be able to look at our inherited patterns with a critical and judicious eye. We are not children. We are not robots.
Of course, we are often lazy. And we are also beset by the cognitive bias that seeks to maintain the self-regard of our ego by assuring us that we are already 'right'. That 'this is as good as it gets' and that we are perfectly placed to judge others but do not stand in need of judgement ourselves.
The want-to-be artist who starts from that place will never contribute to the practice and will never attain either the internal nor the external goods. And our cultures have the means to offer an alternative: watch stuff, buy stuff, look good, have influential friends or earn money from a job that is focused entirely on external goods. We risk losing the internal goods, their value, entirely.
Those who achieve celebrity and fame through athletic or artistic endeavour (sportspeople, actors and the like) are revered for their fame and wealth: it is the external goods that society acclaims. But it is more than likely that the internal goods are what originally inspired those we now respect, and respect for the wrong reasons. By failing to value what they valued, we have no hope of achieving what they achieved. Because by failing to value internal goods at all, there is little incentive to work in practices - including that of the virtues - which are not guaranteed to lead to external rewards. Instead, we post on Instagram, create worthless trash, accumulate wealth or just sit in judgement, static and unredeemable, without finding in life the real worth that comes from an investment in skill and knowledge.
Rightly we deem ourselves unable to have any influence over the seemingly corrupt or at least amoral powers that be. Of course we can't influence them: influence comes from those very few among the relatively few who do strive within their practice (of which 'running a nation state' is one) to attain excellence.
When the concept of striving for internal goods is devalued, we can be sure that nothing can ever improve.
I am a long way from it. I still want my pleasures rather too much and tend to be far too critical of others. It's not easy - for me at least.
I've just been re-reading your post. I suppose it's where I'm at with life but the points you raise all feel important to me. Heaven only knows that it's way past time for me to work on learning more and especially "doing" the adult" thing! Thanks, Crone.