Читать книгу How Science Can Help Us Live In Peace - Markolf H. Niemz - Страница 7
ОглавлениеLife is giving.
Most of our institutions separate us: We have a currency that makes us compete with one another; we have countries that fight one another; even our religions separate us—from others and from God! All of this makes us believe that we could also shut ourselves off from nature. We fool ourselves into thinking that we could exploit her at our convenience. Nature wouldn’t be the same as us anyway. Gradually (and hopefully not too late) we’re learning that we were wrong. Whatever we do to this wonderful planet, we do to ourselves.
What can we do? We must wake up and change our self-awareness. As soon as we discover that we are one humanity that yearns to live in unity with nature, we will become mindful. We will discover life again as a precious gift—a gift from the earth, from nature, to us. We are not here to take, but to give. Life is giving.
Self-Delusion
SELF-DELUSION IS THE PRIMARY CAUSE
OF ALL SOCIAL CONFLICTS.
A few years ago, British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins published a controversial book: The God Delusion. 4 He treats religion as a profound psychiatric disorder that has inflicted many negative effects on modern society. Dawkins not only sees religion to be directly responsible for inciting fear and terror,5 but he also blames religion for the spiritual traumatization of children and youth in families who follow religious beliefs.6 No matter how disputed his points are, it is to Dawkins’ credit that he takes damage to our society seriously and that he looks for solutions.
But Dawkins as well as his critics are overlooking an important point: People, not religions, wage bloody “holy wars” and traumatize other people. Religions are not living beings that could take responsibility for anything. We alone are responsible for all misdeeds in our society. But who are we? Most of us view ourselves as persons—with bodies and minds—separated from others as we struggle through our lives. Today more and more people consider this life to be their one great chance to find and “to realize” themselves. This way of thinking gives rise to many questions: Who or what is the self? Isn’t it just the same thing as me? Could a self—if it were actually real—still realize itself?
The main point of this book comes from my conviction that individuality has developed to such an inflated state that it is the primary cause of all conflicts our society suffers from today. I don’t mean “God delusion” like Dawkins, but self-delusion. People just can’t see things through the hearts and minds of their fellow man, nor does it seem that they have any interest in doing so. In almost every case, they focus on themselves at the expense of others. I separate self-delusion into four types and combinations:
– interhuman self-delusion,
– economic self-delusion,
– political self-delusion,
– religious self-delusion.
Interhuman self-delusion is the cause of all suffering that human beings inflict on each other, and consequently it is the cause of the other three types of self-delusion as well. It has likely been inherited through evolution—from power struggles that we also see in the animal world. But there is one significant difference: Animals fight with each other for food and procreation. Food and procreation are vital for continuation of its own kind. When human beings face each other, there are almost always other predominant and selfserving factors at play: greed and power. Economic selfdelusion comes from greed; political and religious selfdelusion come from greed for power and control. In the pages ahead we will look at all four types of self-delusion, put a finger on the breeding grounds that cause them, and give each of them a specific name.
Interhuman Self-Delusion
It’s easy to see that the role of the self—the ego—continues to expand. In earlier times the tribe or local community was still the center of life, but today, with few exceptions, it revolves around the individual, and this tendency continues to increase. Yet this tendency has its limits. We are bound by a finite space on this planet. We now face a very different world that had ever been before: Virtually in every sphere of our lives we are influenced by the presence of our fellow man. Throughout the day we have to consider views and opinions of people whom we know and whom we don’t know if we want to get along with others. Freedoms that we can give to each other must get smaller and smaller. Whoever thinks that he or she can flourish freely as a member of a society without consideration or deference to its other members, destroys the very same society to which he or she belongs. It starts at the most basic level when two people are not in the position of appreciating each other’s point of view (see figure 3). They only see themselves and not the good things that a society can offer.
Fig. 3: Interhuman self-delusion
Where do we encounter interhuman self-delusion? It can spread wherever relationships among people exist: in a partnership, in the workplace, or in public life. It typically comes with physical or mental intimidation or force—for example, spousal violence or bullying at work. Whoever thinks that he or she is the sovereign judge in any situation, has the tendency to stifle others and consciously or unconsciously may wish to apply force. The fact that television industries broadcast their violent programs during the very best broadcast times is inconceivable to me—whoever is responsible must be suffering strongly from self-delusion. The same is true for the makers of computer games where violence is downplayed and young minds are consumed with the thrill of killing and spreading mayhem for joy. Our doctor from a distant galaxy would think we are mentally ill or deranged: We prefer entertaining ourselves with violence rather than promoting non-violence among all of us.
Where does interhuman self-delusion come from? The answer is overwhelmingly clear: It all starts with egotism. Egotistical behavior is inherent in all of us when we come into this world. Without a reasonable share of egotism, we would quickly lose our zest for living. But egotism becomes a destructive threat when it takes control and turns into an addiction. This addiction leads to interhuman self-delusion. It is tragic for affected people to have no idea that they are shooting themselves in the foot. They cannot fathom that they must rely on others and their environment.
How can we stop interhuman self-delusion? The best medicine is thorough general education for all of mankind. It’s really the key that we need to be able to get to the heart of how complex things relate to each other. An ego that is constantly centered around itself will never understand the subtle interrelation that exists between itself and its environment. It will not see how its behavior changes its environment and how this environment reacts in turn to it.
But history teaches us that education alone is not sufficient to turn us into social beings. Understanding must be added—understanding that the concept of the self as an individual is just an illusion. How to acquire this understanding? Well, for example, through books like this one! I make the proposal that every scholar be required to complete a project before graduation in which he has been acting positively on his environment and has experienced the feedback himself. It will be present all of his life. This project should be graded like major subjects. Today we often grade the performance of a scholar only—not his contribution to the well-being of others. Performance-oriented education promotes egotism: Children are groomed to compete with each other instead of supporting one another.
These experiences continue to affect adults as they grow older. Whenever we learn in school that everything in life depends on asserting ourselves, we will do much the same thing in a partnership. Failure has already been preprogrammed in such a partnership. Partners who are serious about living together know that it’s not about asserting oneself, but it’s about discovering new freedoms together. The success recipe for a happy partnership between two human beings is simple: You must always value higher those things that you can achieve together than what either one of you can achieve alone! This is how to seize self-delusion.
I don’t know how things are where you are, but I feel that our society today is colder and more anonymous than what it had been 20 years ago. I’m not alone in my beliefs. Many people share this experience. How can it be that the warmth between all of us continues to fade more and more by each day although we are all the more interconnected to each other with computers and mobile telephones? Do we still perceive each other with hearts and minds whenever we communicate on media like facebook or twitter? We face a clear and present danger, and the danger is ourselves: If we only care about ourselves, no one will care about us!
Economic Self-Delusion
The greatest challenge that we face in the struggle against self-delusion is that it is able to change its outward appearance. As it camouflages itself, it escapes the power and jurisdiction that we have over it. This activity strongly resembles a virus. Human control is very similar to an immune system and it is supposed to protect us from harmful influences. Whenever physical or mental force is prosecuted in many countries, self-delusion quietly spreads in economics. Who of us is aware that stock-market reports brought to us in numerous news magazines are nothing more than subtle propaganda for economic self-delusion?
Shares and equities originally served to provide a corporation with fresh capital so that it could invest in its own infrastructure. But nowadays they have become juggling acts used for business speculation. In the markets money is used just like gambling in a casino. It does not make any difference anymore whether future investments are being put on the progress of companies (see figure 4), on foreign exchange rates of currencies, or on the price of rice in a foreign country. The last thing that speculative markets think about is that food might become unaffordable for millions of people. Markets have no feelings. All that matters is that the achieved profit is as high as possible. Our world—a self-service outlet?
Fig. 4: Economic self-delusion
To profit upon the misfortunes of others is one of the worst examples of economic self-delusion—and it is contagious. Countless advertisements flurry back and forth on the internet where people try to rip off their own (!) species. I am getting spam emails every day that guarantee a fortune or that ask me to match my bank account information. What kind of human beings are wasting their precious life time trying to exploit others?
Unfortunately, politicians are not immune to economic self-delusion either. Corruption is still the first order of the day in many countries. Hush money is never for the common good. Only a few egos make profit on decisions that do not suit most of us. A white-collar trick that is always in bed with corruption is the lobby: Interest groups from the industry set up personal contacts with politicians to influence the making of laws in their favor. Did lobbyists get their way when politicians agreed to new emission control systems that take place in laboratories only? An automobile manufacturer has intentionally manipulated software in his diesel cars to shade harmful effects from their exhaust into the environment.7 My jaw dropped. A renowned international corporation pays its own engineers so that it can scr… its loyal customers and mother nature. You know what word I mean here! A doctor who intentionally poisons his patients would never be allowed to practice again. But mother nature won’t defend herself—yet.
The last example shows that self-delusion doesn’t only affect people, but it also applies to enterprises. Economic self-delusion can act more comprehensively than any interhuman self-delusion. An enterprise that gives itself its own identity and assures its share-holders that it will deliver high dividends, appears like a human ego. The prime concern of most enterprises is profit. Every little perk is accounted for with maximum profit, and every competitor is treated as an enemy. But if all competition is annihilated, who can offer a hand or make a contribution?
Competition is the buzz word taking us to the motives of economic self-delusion. It’s as with egotism—a healthy measure of competition keeps us all alive. Without competition all of the conveyor belts would come to a halt, and life would fail to evolve: A species will live longer the better it is in harmony with its environment. This concept fits natural selection far better than short-sighted formulas like “survival of the fittest” or “better adapted species will survive”. Life is not about showing strength, nor is it about adjusting: What matters far more than anything else is to live in harmony with cosmos. We will expand upon the meaning of this powerful theme together in this book.
But competition will always become a dangerous threat when it mates with greed. Its breeding ground is capitalism. The common practice to increase prices on rising demand demonstrates pure greed. Why does a cozy accommodation cost more in peak season than in any other season of the year? The service offered remains unchanged. I have never been a friend of capitalism—it is robbing our humaneness day by day. I am well aware of the achievements of industrial progress, but the rabid open markets and the unbridled accumulation of private property make me angry. They both are excesses of our striving for individuality. Too few people care enough to give something in return to their society if the economy is slowing down.
So, social rules are what we urgently need now. Social market economy is much fairer than free markets as long as the social component doesn’t fade away. But I’m sorry to say that politicians increasingly shirk their duty to regulate enterprises and markets. The result is disastrous: The gulf between poor and rich has become wider and wider. Whoever is rich becomes even richer; whoever is poor becomes even poorer. Excessive top-level salaries and harsh wage dumping threaten to break humanity apart. It will only be a matter of time before the dam collapses.
Political Self-Delusion
There is another form of greed which is even more threatening to humanity: greed for power. Politics has one primary purpose—make sure that too much power does not fall into the hands of a privileged few. Concentration of power leads to monotony and standstill. But unfortunately, many politicians focus on their own re-election instead of taking effective actions against any people, companies and nations that abuse their powers. Both world wars were fueled by human greed for power. In the First World War, 40 nations took part and 17 million people were killed.8 It caused the homelessness and dislocation of countless orphans and widows who were forced to face a shattered wartime economy. More than 60 nations were involved in the Second World War and over 60 million human beings died.9 A third world war would most likely be a nuclear war that is fought on all continents. It could bring about the end of humanity.
Our doctor from a distant galaxy would flip out and shout: “What a delusion!” Of course, we are assuming that he has a voice in the first place. He would hit the nail on the head in spite of his galactic distance. What happened during the years 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 came from a fixed idea: the delusion of a nation’s need to impose its political power thereby threatening the life of others. Political self-delusion is very short-sighted because life flourishes only in peace when all forces are balanced.
Political self-delusion also spreads domestically, especially in dictatorships. There is no separation of powers in them: Legislative, executive and the judiciary are united in one, that is, a dictator or a party. Dictatorships pursue ideologies that are not allowed to be questioned. Their delusion makes them fearless to suppress their own people. The largest dictatorship is presently in China in spite of the fact that it calls itself “the peoples republic”. Chinese people have very little to say about their government: Whoever criticizes the regime is locked away. It’s shameful to trade with a country that tramples on human rights so blatantly. By doing this we alienate the basic rights of humanity.
Political self-delusion infects rulers as well as political parties and entire peoples. The threat is just as great for humanity. Politics is always concerned with protecting own interests. That makes good sense as long as equal rights are preserved. Decisions have to be made in case there is any conflict of interest. Political self-delusion thrives whenever human rights are disregarded during this process—if, for example, a government suppresses its own people or a nation wages war against others. In either case, human beings identify themselves with their own nation and masquerade personal interests for the “good of the nation”. The breeding ground for this behavior is nationalism.
Thank God that the atrocities of the German Nazis are over. But nationalism is still part of the political landscape. Populists are very much part of this landscape because they promise their people the things they want to hear. The political dialogue has become harsher—not only in the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany. It is in vogue again to be against anyone who’s not part of “your group”. With regard to Russia, I completely understand that—since the fall of the Soviet Union—it feels increasingly threatened by a West that grows stronger and stronger. If a political foe becomes weaker, it is always up to humanity to meet him eye-to-eye and uplift him so that he won’t lose face. Deescalation and keen foresight as during the days of Mikhail Gorbachev are history, unfortunately. We need politicians who keep an eye on both their peoples and all of mankind including this planet—politicians who think and implement democracy globally.
Today when humanity is becoming more and more compressed and interlinked because of the population explosion and globalization, political self-delusion is finding new victims: Hatred of foreigners is active. Many people reject the idea of sharing their belongings and their alleged “own country” with others whose lives are being threatened. The most recent wave of immigrants into Europe illustrates this missing compassion. Some people are ready to help, but many countries shut themselves off against immigrants even though they agreed to the Geneva Refugee Convention. Of course, every human being knows from experience what all people need in order to live: something to eat, something to drink and a roof over their heads. Whoever is not prepared to grant even these basic needs to “foreigners”, doesn’t deserve living on earth that is home to all of humanity.
A wall between the United States and Mexico? This would be a serious setback for humanity. Europeans have felt and had to endure for more than 40 years a wall that gashed their continent. They know what it means literally and symbolically: If you shut yourself off, you are going to fall! The fall of the Soviet Union and the fall of the German Democratic Republic serve as evidence. Barbed wire (see figure 5) has never been a solution. Shutting yourself off is destructive and against our nature. Separation always comes from ignorance, greed or envy, and fear. It is greed and fear in the United States today; it was envy and fear in Eastern Europe. As we will conceive soon, nature takes the opposite direction: It seeks understanding and love.
Fig. 5: Political self-delusion
Political and economic self-delusion often go hand-inhand as can be seen in Great Britain. A close majority voted for the “BRitish EXIT” (BREXIT)10 to break away from the European Union. Catalysts for the split were not only political issues, but also economic issues. Many British citizens had grave concerns about their supposed independence, and the refugee crisis increased the number of BREXIT supporters even more. We see a dark specter of poverty where human beings and entire nations think about themselves first. They forget that the European Union was conceived primarily to be a community of shared values. Now, instead of taking these shared values to heart, they demand “special terms”. If these are not granted, nations move apart.
War, dictators or hatred of foreigners—at the political level people also cause harm to themselves again and again. The loser is and will always be humanity because it’s humanity that will be weeded out if it doesn’t come to terms with the problem. We can’t count on nature to help us. Her eye sees horizons far beyond what we can understand, and she will lead evolution onward with other species in case we botch it and don’t cherish life. Is humanity ready enough to learn from the past? I don’t think so. Or better: not yet. Aggression is festering in so many places and among so many nations that a new escalation of trouble seems unavoidable. Whether a third and possibly final world war will develop remains to be seen. The future of humanity will depend chiefly upon political diplomacy. It’s never power, but good diplomacy that can defuse political self-delusion.
Religious Self-Delusion
Dawkins wasn’t entirely incorrect when he certified religion to be an explosive force in itself. I strongly suspect that religious self-delusion has the greatest overwhelming power of all four types of self-delusion. Many religious followers are very fanatical when it comes to defending their faith. “My own God” holds far greater rank than “my homeland”. Fanaticism—the irrational zeal of being possessed by an idea—leads to delusion if people are silenced and can’t speak out. Religion is useless if people have no freedom to ask questions and to scrutinize!
Religion is and has always been the most important “revelation of truth” for many human beings even though science has claimed the right to that throne. But the truth is that religion has provided a great contribution to our consciousness of self. Whether you believe in God or not—now or later you will have to ask yourself questions: “Why am I here?” “What is my place in this universe?” And precisely these questions, for which science has no answer, are deeply religious. Their theme is the self and its relationship with the world. The answers religions give us vary widely, but all of them strive to isolate the self from the rest of the world and arouse great hope even to that of achieving immortality. Reasonable hope gives assurance, but blind hope stupefies. Whoever promises his followers immortality shouldn’t be surprised if they intensify this belief and live in its delusion up to the point that they fight for “their God”.
It isn’t scientifically correct to speak of a “God delusion” because no one knows—not even Dawkins—whether a God exists or not. A delusion is always about something that doesn’t correspond to reality. If we try to talk about God, we’re groping in the dark. It even adds more difficulty that the concept of “God” isn’t clearly defined. Many people conceive of God as a person, others (especially scientists) view God as a causal force of nature11 or as the primal order of cosmos.12 Even if a personal God were a delusion, an abstract God could still be real. The delusion that’s really happening here is that many people think they know how God feels and thinks. They live on in their delusion serving “their God” whether they do missionary work or call for a “holy war”. But all of these people are only following their own projection of God. So, what Dawkins is fiercely criticizing isn’t really God delusion, but religious self-delusion. Its breeding ground is fundamentalism.
Abdel Rahman al-Rashid, the director of Television Broadcast Al Arabiya, sums the situation up quite well with regard to what the Western world is facing at this moment: “It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.”13 It is important at this point to carefully differentiate between Islam and Islamism: Islam has been a religion of revelation for more than 1400 years where peaceful togetherness is valued very highly. Islamism is a radical restriction of Islam. Islamic fundamentalists strive to establish a “theocracy” where sharia law rules— Islamic law that severely restricts freedoms of mankind and punishes apostates with death.
The root of conflict between Islamism and the rest of the world is the clash of an archaic way of thinking with freedoms that humanity had never experienced before: easy access to alcohol, drugs, gambling and sexuality. Any man who is not permitted to see a woman unless she is fully covered will easily feel provoked with tantalizing clothing, but it’s not up to him to forbid the wearing of such clothing. Any civilized man should be able to control himself and not hit on every woman he sees. The only peaceful solution is to let anyone decide how she/he would like to dress. Men who lack foresight will eventually die out as women will walk out on them—provided that humanity supports these women and protects girls from the cruelty of mass rape.
But self-control is frequently a problem with the other kinds of freedoms that I have just mentioned: alcohol, drugs and gambling. Consumption of them is strongly addictive. Regarding these temptations I consider Islamic approach—not Islamistic methods—to be exemplary: Addictive drugs should be regulated more strictly than today or even outlawed. They are not good for humanity. Producers, dealers and casino operators are the only ones who make a profit with them. Alcohol, drugs and gambling make our perception of reality even worse—and it is already distorted. Many criminal acts occur while under the influence of drugs or alcohol—not to mention drug-related crimes. Young people especially cannot foresee how their character is changed by alcohol, drugs and gambling. Whoever lets young people engage in these things if they choose to do so, will drive future generations into addiction and criminal acts. Again the lobbyists did humanity a great favor by acting on politicians to bring about lax gambling laws: Lotteries, casinos and bookies are booming in our cities and on the internet, and they skillfully drain the pockets of our citizens. The cause of this fatal development—social responsibility is just an embarrassment—is Western capitalism. This fact is nothing new, but we could make much better use of it: With less capitalism and more social justice we could deflate greed and hatred among young people and thwart the will to organize for the sake of terror.
Nowadays the numbers of the worst kind of fundamentalists are growing: fundamentalists who just won’t tolerate opinions of other people and who are prepared to fight. We have two questions: 1) Why is this radical fundamentalism so popular? 2) How do fundamentalists get their weapons? Whoever wants to stop religious self-delusion in the long run must face both of these questions and find a remedy to the problems that they present. Now more than ever, young people feel drawn to fundamentalism. There are two reasons for this: One is, again, they lack a thorough general education. Whoever hasn’t learned very much can be manipulated and can easily fall prey to questionable causes. The other reason is increasing lack of perspective, especially among young people. As they face a world with rising unemployment where money is needed to “fit in”, fundamentalism offers an attractive alternative. Whoever can give frustrated people the vital feeling that they are needed, will find it easy to win them over to their cause. And then, whoever promises them “paradise” on top of everything else can make them even enjoy going out and blowing themselves to bits “in the name of God”.
The answer to the other question is a lot more complicated. Violent fundamentalists acquire the majority of their weapons either from war booty or in exchange for crude oil that they have also captured or stolen. The weapons themselves come from countries that have no interest in supporting terrorism at all. Even if there are strict guidelines from the Western world that regulate to where and to whom these weapons are allowed to be sold, it is never for sure that they won’t fall into the hands of fundamentalists. So they all profit from economic self-delusion (specifically because of arms manufacturers’ greed for profit) that in this case gets in bed with political and religious self-delusion. Since power breeds desire for more power, we have only two options: We either permit the spiral of violence to escalate further and further until weapons of mass destruction fall into the hands of fundamentalists, or we finally put an end to all greed for power and profit and …
… focus on enlightenment: Fundamentalism dominates our media, but there are jihadists not only in Islamism— Christians waged bloody wars during the Middle Ages “in the name of God”. People fight one another time and again for their religion. We can draw only one conclusion from all of this: Freedom of religion is a basic need for all of mankind— just like food and water. Whoever doesn’t respect this need is waging war not only against people of different faith, but also against humanity. This war cannot be won because mankind would be waging it against itself!
No religion nor any nation has ever been chosen by God. To see this, we just need to behold things through the eyes of our fellow man. How divine would a God be who would take sides? Why would God do such a thing if God created all life? We need enlightenment—to understand! It is the only medicine that can stop religious self-delusion. Understanding might truly succeed with a simple piece of wisdom shared from the perspective of the Indian enlightener Mahatma Gandhi: “God has no religion.”14
Egotism, capitalism, nationalism, fundamentalism—the breeding grounds of self-delusion have now been identified. These steps will remedy them: a good general education as medicine to protect us from interhuman self-delusion, social rules against all economic self-delusion, diplomacy against all political self-delusion and enlightenment against all religious self-delusion. And since this medicine does not seem to be sufficient (self-delusion is spreading faster than ever), I add something very special on top: spiritual medicine— individually wrapped in the chapters that follow.