I Hate, Therefore I Am

A recent email exchange with Hanno got me thinking more about self-deception. In particular I was thinking about how we tend to construct the narrative of our lives very differently at different stages in our history. What I mean by this becomes clear, I hope, when you think of how you tend to reevaluate your own life history in the face of someone that you despise. Let's say you despise someone--if you are being really honest--not because they are evil, bad, hurtful, or any other good reason, but because they have hurt you/you are jealous/or you feel rejected. I think these latter psychological processes are more interesting in relation to self-conceptions and self-deceptions (again, something Nietzsche was quite brilliant on in The Genealogy of Morals).

Back to my hypothesis. So you despise someone because they are a threat to you and the first thing it seems you do is redo your self-conception in a way that maximally highlights the ways in which you are different from the despised one. An example might make this clearer. Let's say that I despise Jane because she has successfully won the affections of a man who I have been pining over for months. I have never confessed my feelings to--let's call him--Dick. I was passive, waited for Dick to notice me, etc. But, Jane seduced Dick. I am hurt that Dick has chosen Jane rather than me and I grow to despise Jane.

Perhaps one of the first things I do is represent Jane as a big ole' Ho. She has no decorum, is unladylike, and requires male affection and attention to feel better about herself. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that there is some truth to this view of Jane. However, a more compassionate person might find a way to relate to Jane's behavior and acknowledge her own weaknesses. But, a person hurt by Jane can only see these traits in the most negative light and then quickly work to build a self-conception that sees herself as the antithesis of Jane. I either omit, delete, or forget the parts of me that are like her and/or I trump up the moments in my life where I behaved better than Jane.

The reason I have been mulling over this is because Hanno suggested to me that perhaps our entire self-conception is nothing but fiction (or lies). We reinvent ourselves all the time given new events, challenges, or losses. My sense was if this is true, then we are likely to find relationships to others almost impossible and a downright miracle when they succeed. The capacity for truth-telling that is required, in my view, to foster needed compassion to approach people without fear and loathing is either non-existent (which I think is Hanno's view) or only certain angels can have this kind of moral courage and intellectual honesty.

Thoughts?

On Charity

Money is tight--really tight. Every pay check is dedicated to living expenses, debt, mortgage and insurance. There is always a little left over, but not much. I have to remember, however, that I am fairly privileged. I am not rich--not by a long shot--but I have a home, retirement, insurance, and very steady employment. Still money is tight.

Given this reality, I feel torn each time I am presented with a request for charity. There are lots of organizations to which that I like to give money. I get regular requests to do so from those same organizations almost daily. And, given the tight money situation, I am not giving. I couldn't help but really analyze how sincere my wish to be charitable was given my behavior.

There are lots of ways to give, to help others who or more needy, who are in a tough spot, or who want to build an organization to improve conditions for others. But, what I find is that most of us give only when it is convenient for us. So much about charity is about the self. Think about the dreaded pledge drives on NPR. How to the fundraisers motivate us? They tell us we can get a tax break or that we will get a membership or gifts. Or, take another example, fundraising for a college. How do you do it? You appeal to the vanity of those with money. You figure out what they want to give and tell them you will memorialize them by naming a building after them or a endowed chair or a scholarship prize. The point here is to get those with a great deal of money to give, you have to convince them that there is something in it for them.

But it seems that true charity hurts the giver a bit. Maybe it means you give up things you want to give to others--you have less money for entertainment, travel, clothes, or even food. You realize that it is more important to help someone in need or an organization you care about than it is to spend that money on yourself or family. Moreover, it seems that true charity is to give without expectation for a return or glory or even thanks.

In fact, true charity really exposes what the whole point of a gift is or should be. A gift. But how often do we ever really give to others without some expectation of thanks, or reciprocation, or acknowledgment of our greatness. Too much of giving is about power or self interest. This is what is concerning. And yet, let's face it, the only way so many charitable organizations can function is to appeal to vanity and self-interest.

I think a lot about the whole Republican view that we should shrink government and let charitable organizations do the work of a large, inefficient, unwieldy bureaucracy. Why should not be coerced to pay taxes, so the argument goes, but rather we should be free to choose who we want to give to and how. Hell, in theory this sounds great. But that is the whole problem with the "party of ideas"--sounds great on paper, but never works in practice. Why? Because people need incentives to do what is not immediately in their self-interest.

Very few of us are truly capable of charity. In fact, I would argue that charity is almost impossible in such a highly driven consumer culture like ours. For example, I caught a bit of the Extreme Home Makeover television show last Sunday. The purported motivation of the show is to give back--in the form of a luxurious home--to people who have struggled and scarified for others. Again, on paper, a good idea. But, I was haunted by the episode I saw where the gift to a young girl suffering from cancer was to build her a room that was like a shopping spree. They gave her a huge closet filled with clothes and shoes and accessories so "she can finally be a kid who can play." So, charity is giving a shopping spree to a young girl--giving her an addiction to material goods. Maybe I am being too harsh, but it seems to me that with so many people unable to feed their families across the world, we can do better than conceive of charity as giving people luxurious homes with the top of the line consumer goods, right?

In any case, this is my preoccupation today. What do the rest of you think?

Self-Conceptions are Often Just Self-Deceptions

I discovered that I can download podcasts of Fresh Air from iTunes and this has been my savior on mega walks with daughter. I was listening to Terry's interview with Jeffrey Toobin about his new book, The Nine. The book sounds utterly fascinating, especially to someone like me who is obsessed with the direction of the Supreme Court. But, this is not really what I want to write about. What really got me thinking was something he said in his long discussion of Sandra Day O'Connor. He suggested that after she cast her vote in the Gore v. Bush case, on the side of Bush, that the public outcry really challenged her self-conception. O'Connor, Toobin argues, prided herself on her "fairness" which the public outcry really pushed her to look at honestly.

The idea that our self-conceptions are often self-deceptions really stuck with me for the rest of the day and into the night. I kept thinking about how much of our political and ethical judgments are both an expression of and justified by what we think our self-conception is. I think this insight is really the key to understanding those who seem so full of shit to us. We listen to people whose politics couldn't be more widely divergent from our own and they say things that seem so wholly disingenuous when you compare them to what they actually do--what causes they support, who they vote for, and how they live their lives and treat others--that it is hard to make sense of them. The problem is always assuming that what they say about themselves--how they fashion their self-conception--is in fact true or, better yet, honest.

As someone who has spent many years teaching both ethics and feminism, I have heard a lot of bullshit in the classroom. I have listen to young women talk about themselves as tough, empowered, and independent, while they wore the uniform of their sorority, giggled like flirty school girls when a man spoke up and said something inane, and put themselves in risky and dangerous sexual situations. I have also listened to students champion the "boot straps" myth of selfhood and success, while knowing full well that everything they currently have was a gift from very rich and indulgent parents. I witness a lot of self-deception in students' self-conception.

And for me, what you really need to do to teach ethics or political philosophy well, is get at peoples' self-conceptions and get them to be honest with themselves. This is not only ridiculously hard work, but it is downright draining. No one likes to have a mirror held up to them and the defenses against taking a good look are mighty powerful. But, this is what good teaching is. I reject any notion that the idea behind teaching philosophy--especially ethics--is to help students clarify the right principles and apply them consistently. This is just a game and doesn't really get at the more important question: what kind of person am I? What do I really value? And, how do my actions match those values? This is a lot tougher and not something that can easily be achieved in a semester or even four years for that matter.

I am constantly evaluating my self--wondering how credible criticisms against me are and taking them too painfully to heart. I am sure that I am not a good example of what you should do to achieve intellectual honesty. But, I will say that I try damn hard to keep it real.

And yet, what really haunts me about the powerful ways that our self-conceptions are really self-deceptions is that we are unable to ever fully be honest about who we are. In fact, I wonder if we could really live without a lot of self-delusions; perhaps they are even healthy? But, if it is the case that we can't be fully honest about who we are, then to what extent can we ever live without hypocrisy?