Our Common Humanity by BahaiBookstore.com

Our Common Humanity Reflections on the Reclamation of the Human Spirit

Michael L. Penn

GEORGE RONALD OXFORD

George Ronald Publisher, Ltd Oxford www.grbooks.com

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-0-85398-649-2

Cover design: Steiner Graphics

CONTENTS Preface Acknowledgements Introduction

vii ix 1

Part I: Unique Powers of the Human Spirit 1 2 3

The Capacity to Know The Capacity to Love The Nature of Will

23 43 61

Part II: Alternative Conceptualizations of Human Identity 4 5 6

The Psychoanalytic Perspective 83 The View of Evolutionary Psychology and Neuroscience 96 Discourses on the Problem of Evil 102

Part III: The Human Spirit and the Social Order 7 8 9

The Journey Out of the Racial Divide Ideological Arguments that Seek to Justify and Sustain the Practice of War Neo-Liberal Obstacles to Addressing Universal Human Needs

119 132 145

Part IV: Care of the Spirit 10 11

The Inner Life The Logic of Prayer and Meditation

157 165

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12 13

Consultation: An Instrument of Personal and Social Transformation A Final Word: Humanity’s Spiritual Heritage

Bibliography Notes and References Index About the Author

179 187 219 231 247 253

PREFACE Every historical epoch, noted the Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, ‘is characterized by a series of aspirations, concerns, and values in search of fulfillment . . . The epochs are fulfilled to the degree that their themes are grasped and their tasks solved.’1 The themes that animate the present age flow out of the profound implications of the oneness and interdependence of humankind. The oneness of humanity is a biological fact affirmed by more than a century of study in the natural sciences; it is a moral truth upon which all claims to human rights rest; and it is a feature of social reality that the integrative forces of history will no longer permit us to avoid. As an ontological truth, the oneness of humanity is reflected in those universal moral and intellectual capacities that define the nature and needs of the human spirit. This book provides a rational, Bahá’í-inspired account of what might be meant by the human spirit, explores its relevance to our effort to meet the challenges that define this historical moment, and links the development and refinement of the human spirit to the realization of that which is most noble in each of us. In previous works I have sought to define, in consultation with the works of others, the capacities that animate and define the human spirit. In a Human Rights Quarterly article, published in 2010, Aditi Malik and I suggested that a government’s ability to create the conditions that foster the development of the human spirit ought to be the primary standard whereby its legitimate right to govern is evaluated, and I have drawn upon material from that article in framing the discourse that animates the present volume.2 Earlier, in 2007, I co-authored a paper for the United Kingdom’s Royal College of Physicians that ix

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demonstrated how the proliferation of psychopathic behaviour, and other extreme forms of moral disengagement, may arise, in part, from neglect of the conditions required for the healthy development of the human spirit;3 and in ‘Mind, Medicine and Metaphysics: Reflections on the Reclamation of the Human Spirit’, published in the American Journal of Psychotherapy in 2003, and co-authored with one of my students, I outlined the history of the eclipse of the concept of the human spirit in psychiatry and psychology and suggested why the notion of the human spirit may be making its way back into these fields.4 The current project – undertaken on the heels of a conference I sponsored on the nature of human dignity in collaboration with Hoda Mahmoudi (holder of the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace at the University of Maryland) – draws upon some of the ideas that were shared at that conference and that have inspired many of my earlier works. In preparing for this collaboration, I drew upon the corpus of writings that constitute the Bahá’í teachings on the human spirit. This work, however, makes no effort to impose a Bahá’í point of view. I offer the novel perspectives contained on this theme in the Bahá’í writings alongside the perspectives of other traditions of thought that have contributed to our understanding of the nature, needs, and development of the human spirit across the ages. The desire to prepare such a work began during my years of undergraduate studies, first at Brandeis University where I studied philosophy, and later at the University of Pennsylvania where I studied psychology, history, and religion. I went on to graduate school in clinical and experimental psychopathology in the hope that my study of these varied fields might provide insight into the nature of the human spirit, but found in these academic encounters no mention of it. Indeed, the sense that I got from my very able professors was that discourse on the human spirit is both antiquated and unnecessary, and that everything that had once been associated with the human spirit is best understood today in terms of neurobiology and cognitive science. Having been drawn to the insights into human x

INTRODUCTION A significant discovery of the twentieth century is that many of our actions are governed, not by reality, but by our fundamental beliefs about reality. These inner models of reality have been variously labelled ‘theories of reality’, ‘structures of meaning’, ‘social imaginaries’ or ‘worldviews’. A worldview provides the lens through which we perceive and understand the experience of life. It determines, to a significant degree, what we hope for, how we spend our time, how we relate to the natural and social environment. Worldview provides the overarching conceptual matrix within which we come of age. It determines, to no small degree, the trajectory of our individual and collective development and provides the visionary material out of which is formed the kind of human beings we aspire to become. Worldviews are not created anew with each individual but are transmitted from one generation to another via the mechanism of culture. A worldview is designed to provide answers to some of the most fundamental problems or questions of life. But reality will not tolerate just any conception of it. Some inner models of reality, some worldviews, will prove more useful, more in harmony with well-established truths. Some will facilitate the achievement of human prosperity and development. Others will provide moral justification for bigotries, violence and destruction. An ideology is the most destructive expression of a worldview. When social, political or religious systems function as ideologies they conceive of morality as the belief in and defence of particular doctrines. These doctrines are viewed as the supreme value and morality is conceived as their propagation and dissemination by all possible means. From this perspective, an ideology 1

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may be understood as any philosophy or worldview that holds that certain doctrines, ideas or propositions are more important than human beings. Since any moral system affirms that lesser values may be sacrificed to obtain greater values, an ideology sanctions – at least implicitly – the deliberate sacrifice of human beings if it is deemed necessary for the propagation of the doctrines of that ideology.1 The nearly 250 million people who were sacrificed in the wars and violence of the twentieth century were sacrificed principally in the name of one or more ideologies – communism, racialism, or nationalism. If the twenty-first century is to be any different from the century just ended, it will be so, in part, because ideologies will have lost the power to justify acts of brutality, terror and violence. In addition, if human security and development are to find a firm and stable foundation, the protection and development of the human spirit will have to emerge as an appropriate focus for adjudicating the moral legitimacy of any human act, any social policy, or any cultural or religious practice. This book seeks to explicate and justify these claims. By ‘human spirit’ is meant two things: first, a capacity of consciousness that enables the human species, as distinct from all other known species, to consciously strive to attain that which is perceived to be true, beautiful and good; and second, a set of psychological and spiritual faculties that generate a psychological sense of ‘self ’ and ‘community’ with hopes and aspirations that transcend the struggle for mere existence and continuity as a biological organism. As has been argued in various ways by H. B. Danesh,2 Julio Savi,3 William Hatcher4 and others, we suggest here that the human spirit consists of three basic capacities: the capacity to know, to love, and to will. When awakened and nurtured, the capacity to know stirs humanity in its ceaseless search for knowledge and wisdom; the capacity to will motivates us to pursue that which is thought to be good; and the capacity to love animates our attraction to beauty and our longing for connection to nature, to one another, and for many, to that which is sacred. 2

introduction

The development of the human spirit results from the maturation, cultivation, and refinement of these universal capacities. As these capacities unfold and express themselves in the life of the community, we see the emergence and efflorescence of the sciences, arts, and systems of ethics and law upon which civilization depends. We also witness the appearance of those virtues that redound to human honour and dignity, and which give order and harmony to the social world. Inasmuch as the human spirit is that one aspect of identity that transcends race, class, culture, and religion, the capacities that animate the human spirit provide the ontological basis for the oneness of humankind. I begin in this introduction with a brief overview of a Bahá’í-inspired perspective on human identity, and bring this perspective into greater discourse with other schools of thought as the book unfolds. •

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries psychiatry emerged out of neurology as a new branch of medicine. This new field, which made possible the emergence of novel approaches to understanding and treating mental illnesses, required reconceptualizations of the human mind. If they were to prove useful, theories of mind had to be liberated from the superstitious ideas that had, for centuries, hampered the development of a science of psychopathology. And while the new conceptualizations of mind that grew out of psychiatry during this period would be effective in rendering the mind an appropriate object of empirical study and clinical concern, the assumptions that these theories embodied would also divest the discourse on mind from consideration of those unique features of consciousness that distinguish human minds from all other phenomena in nature.5 During this same period, however, a unique view that sought to recover the mind from the materialistic philosophies of the 3

1 THE CAPACITY TO KNOW In its capacity to know, the human spirit seeks knowledge of reality. As Noguchi, Hanson, and Lample note, an innate desire for knowledge motivates each human being to acquire an understanding of the mysteries of the self and of the universe. An individual motivated by a thirst for knowledge, they observed, approaches life as ‘an investigator of reality and a seeker after truth’.1 While the Bahá’í teachings are in harmony with the postmodern observation that truth is always relative rather than absolute, the Bahá’í perspective departs from postmodernist thinking in affirming that the relativity of truth results, not from its state, but from ours. Truth is always relative to us because we necessarily approach it with the limitations of human consciousness, human maturation, and human needs and concerns. As human consciousness matures, and as our instruments for investigating reality advance, we naturally come to recognize that what we once regarded as true requires modification, and sometimes even outright rejection. In addition, as the number and diversity of truth seekers who are given voice expands, what we understand as truth is also likely to expand. Nevertheless, it is our striving to attain an apprehension of truth that has inspired our scientific, philosophical, and religious quests throughout the ages. The hunger for truth is reflected in our disdain for those who wittingly distort the truth for personal gain; it is reflected in our dissatisfaction with our own selves when we fail to be truthful; and it is manifested in the vast personal and collective resources that we expend in the search for truth as we explore the natural, social, and spiritual dimensions of life. The Bahá’í 23

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writings suggest that the longing for truth is also a reflection of the human longing for God. And while God is described as essentially unknowable, the human spirit can grow in its capacity to appreciate the signs of God which are reflected, to varying degrees, in all the phenomena of life.

The search for truth Humans are unique in the capacity not only to think – but also to think about our thinking. When the power of human thought takes as its object thought itself, this capacity, as noted above, is known as the capacity for meta-cognition. Meta-cognitive abilities distinguish human beings from all other known species because they enable us not only to acquire knowledge and beliefs about the world and ourselves, but also to reflect critically upon our knowledge and beliefs. Thus, we may ask ourselves whether our thinking is internally consistent or logical; whether it is in conformity with what we observe through our senses; whether our inner convictions conform to our outward behaviour, and so forth. Humanity’s unique intellectual capacity for use of language and complex symbol systems thus enables the acquisition of two distinct but interrelated types of knowledge: knowledge of those things which can be perceived by the senses, and knowledge of intellectual or abstract realities (such as thought, gravity, justice, beauty, etc.). All other animals are limited in their mental manipulations to observable phenomena. Consider, for example, humanity’s capacity to engage in scientific investigation. By careful observation, accompanied by critical reflection on that which we observe, humans are able to discover the operation of forces that are not themselves directly observable. Thus the human intellect brings forth from nature her hidden secrets (e.g. nature’s laws) and enables us to harness natural forces for benefit or harm. Consider an example. Astronomers tell us that the distance between the moon and the earth varies between 222, 042 miles 24

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on 21 January (perigee) and 251, 211 miles on 4 December (apogee). We know that this is correct because we have been able to land a spaceship on the moon using these distances for making the necessary calculations. You will note that there is nothing that we can observe through the use of the senses alone that can provide us with this information. In order to discover these truths, we have to deploy powers of reflection and analysis that have no parallel in the rest of the natural world. The signs that provide evidence of the existence of these unique powers justify the invocation of a unique cause which we are referring to here as the power of the human spirit. To continue, we note that meta-cognitive capacities develop as a result of at least three interrelated mechanisms: first, biological processes associated with human evolution and maturation; second, the deliberate, systematic, and conscious effort of human beings to develop our capacity for critical thinking and the transmission of these capacities over time via the instruments of culture; and third, the intervention in history of those mystical Beings that are the founders of the world’s religions (Abraham, Krishna, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh, and so forth). These unique souls, Bahá’ís believe, embody the capacity to extend the reach of human consciousness into new spheres of awareness and understanding. In addition, they fertilize the human spirit with new creative capacities that result in the emergence of new arts and sciences in much the same way that the sun in springtime brings forth the hidden potentialities of nature. The Bahá’í writings suggest that these Holy Ones also endow the human mind with new moral, social, and spiritual concepts that give rise to new forms of civilization. We explore this claim with some degree of care in a future chapter.

The conceptual development of critical thinking The formalized process of critical thinking was perhaps first associated with the practice of hermeneutics. And although the 25

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