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Faith, Love and Something More

Posted by Joseph Riggio on Thursday, August 10, 2006

There’s more to human evolution it seems than just what happens on an evolutionary basis “for real” ... the stories we make up and tell ourselves are just as telling about us and meaningful to what we’ve become and are becoming.

Maybe what’s going on right now in the Mid-East between Israel and her neighbors has been a story about ourselves we ‘ve been telling for centuries ... and maybe, just maybe, it’s time to update that particular one, eh?

Mornin' All,

As usual I scan the news and the ole'blogoshpere before I pick up pen in hand (or rather put hand to keyboard these days). I spoke with a colleague yesterday and I have to agree that I pretty much find I don't have to keep up with the news if I'm reading around the blogosphere. If it's an important or popular story, pretty much everything gets reported in some blog, at some point.

Anyway back to our story ... I came across a blog I hadn't read from "One Cosmos" which is an exchange between "Siegfried, Carl and Alfred" and "One Cosmos" (Gagdad Bob) - this particular one is called: "The Crack and the Crock at the Foundation of History (Updated)" ... HEY ... I didn't make up the title I'm only reportin' it!

What Gagdad Bob (a clinical psychologist I believe) is on about is child sacrifice, especially as he sees it occurring in the Islamic world. Talk about explosive, controversial topics, eh? Yet, he states that this obvious point is virtually completely overlooked or disregarded for all intents and purposes (rightfully, IMO). Essentially, Gagdad Bob recounts the history of pagan religion, the ties of Islam to pagan religion and the advent of Judaism and subsequent birthing of Christianity. And, he does this through the perspective of the history of child sacrifice..

I've given you the links above so I won't go there myself (start with, "The Crack and the Crock at the Foundation of History (Updated)" ). However, it's an interesting perspective to consider for at least a couple of reasons I will get into a bit here.

  • mythology, description and narrative
  • values and values sets
  • neurology, perception and behavior/response
    •

    That should be enough to get us going. Essentially, what I'm reading about - both in this exchange with Gagdad Bob and also in the popular press as they attempt to cover the events in the Mid-East - is the story of culture.

    More precisely it's the story of cultures as they evolve and in the process go to war over the current positions they hold. What's interesting is that so often they don't see it this way - they only seem capable of "seeing" the positions they currently hold ... and not the ones they have held. This also definitely precludes "seeing" any positions they haven't held yet ... even as their neighbors who once held the exact same positions have moved to other positions themselves.

    So it seems, we're unable to see either backwards or forwards for the most part beyond the boundaries of the current position we hold. Some folks would call this a perceptual or "epistemological" (I have to use that word every once in a while just to keep it well polished) consideration. However, it seems to me to much more of an "ontological" consideration. In other words these are considerations of identity, the fundamental way we perceive ourselves to be.

    And, I offer you that it's our mythologies that keep these identities intact - it's how we sustain who we perceive ourselves to be. We do this via the stories we tell ourselves and others about who we are - these are our "identity stories". Every individual has them, every family, every business/organization and every society/culture as well. It can be well argued that it is through these identity stories that we know ourselves to be ... a function of both descriptions and narratives. The posting by Gagdad Bob about Judaism and Abraham is a narrative that informs the society/culture - especially the one who tells it to and of themselves.

    So we tell ourselves "our story" over and over and it becomes who we are - as we know ourselves to be - regardless of any and all evidence to the contrary.

    Yet, the ability to act in spite of all evidence to the contrary based on what we want to be true of us, and for us, is the basis of acting in a truly "ontologically well-formed way" ... that is "teleologically informed".

    This is the basis of choosing our lives, choosing our destinies, choosing who and what we will become ... as individuals, as organizations, as societies/cultures - as a species. This ability to choose based NOT upon what has happened, NOR even where we currently find ourselves in this moment of space-time ... but to choose based on what hasn't happened yet that we desire to be so seems to be a unique human prerogative and privilege that comes with the potential prize and penalty of being able to change the world.

    Some scientists would argue that this ability - to change the world - is not uniquely human. That many species change their micro-environments and in so doing "change the world" - but no other species has the ability to, or history of, changing the world so dramatically as we do as a species. In terms of the impact and speed of change, we have no equals in this domain.

    The ability to choose based upon a story about what could be and isn't yet also seems to be a uniquely human prerogative and privilege. This is the "teleological bias" - our ability to construct futures that haven't happened yet and to allow those futures to inform our present.

    Our ability to literally create (or destroy) the world as we know it to be carries with it an obligation as well as an opportunity. As I see it so far, we as a species have mostly aligned ourselves on the side of opportunity and only now may be coming to realize the obligation that goes along with this hand in hand.

    However, it is becoming ever more evident to cognitive scientists like myself that we have the opportunity AND the obligation to evolve our own neurology and the behaviors and responses that emerge from us as a result. What a world this will be when we move beyond the impulse to consumption towards the desire for contribution - that would take a completely new story about ourselves. Then I believe that we will have formed the first truly human community, a rejoicing of and by the species at large ... hey, we can all have a dream, can't we?

    Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
    Princeton, NJ

    For a bit more about the biases of the Mythogenic Self Process take a look at my updated article The MythoSelf® Process - Exploring the Reality We Create

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