value shift

Max Scheler argues that there's an objective hierarchy of values. This hierarchy has five levels: sense (pleasure/pain), use (means-end success), life (health, strength, vitality), cultural (joy), and spiritual (bliss). In parentheses I've put a guidepost for each of these levels that might help clarify what they mean.

I think the word 'objective' here raises some suspicions--he really thinks this value hierarchy is out there. It's real. This is a tricky thing to prove, in the absence of God, though he claims to have done it (in a book that I'll be reading over the next two months, so I'll let you know what I think of his argument). But, whether you buy the objective bit or not, if you really observe people (Scheler would've considered himself a phenomenologist, so this is what he did--observed human phenomena, especially emotional phenomena, in the hopes of trying to understand what emotions are really like, what they do)--if you really observe people, then you can see this value hierarchy play out. Scheler thought that each person has a 'moral tenor,' which is basically an ordering of these values. A prioritizing of these values. An arrangement of the hierarchy.

So some people would rank the values in what he saw as the proper order: spiritual-->cultural-->life-->use-->sensory. But some people have what he called "disorders of the heart," meaning that their value ranking is out of order. They value the sensory more than the spiritual, for instance. They think that lower values are in fact the highest. I don't think Scheler thought that disordered people were evil, or bad, but just that they didn't have it quite right--they weren't living out the highest way of being.

Now, I think if you look at people, you can see these different orderings of value. People tend to recognize most of the levels of value that I mentioned above, and people tend to value one of those levels above the others. I think many people, for instance, don't even think there's a spiritual level--it's entirely devalued. I think many people, for instance, seem to value sensory pleasure above all else--a true disorder for Scheler in that it takes the lowest of the value levels and makes it the highest. Some people value the life of the mind above all else--they've made the cultural level the highest. I could go on, but the point is that keeping this value hierarchy in mind when you speak with people can be instructive in terms of getting to know who they are--which is largely determined by what they value.

Okay, so you might not agree with all of this, but I do think it's hard to deny that people value different things, and that you can generalize these values to the levels that Scheler describes. In fact, just try to look at yourself, and I can think you can see where you fall on the hierarchy (though I think this is sometimes easier to do with other people than with yourself). I bring all of this up because I think that one way to describe this transitory feeling I have is as a sort of value shift. I think, for some years now, I have not felt at peace because I have been devaluing the spiritual and cultural value levels at the expense of the others (especially the sense and use levels). To translate this: I think I've been fighting my pull towards spirituality and the life of the mind because I have felt like I should be having more 'fun.' But a part of me has known all along that this wasn't right for me. That in fact I'd be more content if I could just order my values differently. And yet I fight this. I haven't had the guts, the courage, to realize this shift in my life, because it would mean making certain changes, which are not easy for me to make, because I still cling to 'lower' values.

So. There have been times when I have felt the need to hang out with anyone--just anyone--so I wouldn't be lonely. I'd hang out with others just for the sake of being around people, and not because the interaction would be somehow rewarding. I think this comes out most clearly for me when I think about the weekends, and going out. I enjoy going out sometimes, because it's nice to see certain people, and it really can be enjoyable; but if I overdo it--if I go out two nights in a weekend, for instance, I quickly get bored, because 'going out' tends to consist of the same thing: you meet up at a bar, you drink, people get drunker, you have ridiculous conversations, you go to another bar, you get even drunker, the conversations get even more ridiculous--are we even talking about anything at all?--and then the bars close and you either go home and pass out or go somewhere else, where things get even more ridiculous and drunker.

Now this is fun every once in a while. "Crazy nights" can be fun. And sometimes unexpected things happen--you meet new people, you have a heart-to-heart with somebody that's facilitated by the booze--but much of the time nothing really happens at all. You wake up the next day, and nothing's really different. You didn't learn anything, the experience is foggy because you were drunk, and you weren't really affected all that much. You did have fun, but--and here perhaps is the key--fun is not a lasting thing. We all know this, but I think many of us think that fun is actually all there is, and so even if it's fleeting, it's the best we've got.

But I do not believe that fun is all there is. Fun's good once in a while, maybe as a release, maybe as something else, but there are deeper levels to life. And I think we all know this, if we think about it.

I have come to terms with this fact this semester. I have come to terms with the fact that I am not a 'loser' if I'm not social all the time, and that in fact I'm often more content to stay in and watch a movie, or read a book, or write, or call a dear friend and have an intimate conversation that hits on our deepest values--I'm often more content doing any of these things than I would be if I went out. Not always, but much of the time. I'm not saying this is right for everyone (though I think it might be, and I have to think about this more), but it's right for me, it seems.

Scheler also talks about love on all of these different levels...spiritual love, cultural love, vital love, useful love, and sensual love...and I think he's got something here, too. Love for him does not necessarily mean what we normally mean we say "love"--love for him is a movement that pulls the loved one to higher values. We love someone for what they could be in their fulfillment--for what we see in them--for what we intuit in them. (I don't think this is as mystical as it sounds, but I'll have to get into this more later.) Spiritual love, obviously, is the highest for Scheler--but we love people in other ways, too--and we can love people at one value level but hate them at another--think of people who we're incredibly sexually attracted to but have no interest in their minds (or vice versa). I think the truest love would be love on all five of the levels--we love someone's spirit, we love someone's mind, we love someone's vitality, we love someone for practical/useful reasons, and we love someone sexually. This, I think, rarely happens, and so we are stuck with partial loves without realizing that that's what they are. I've thought about love for so many years now, and I have to say that much of what Scheler says resonates with me deeply, and has made me reconsider the way I have lived my life and the people that I have loved.

When I get these damn incompletes out of the way--when I get caught up--I hope to read and write more about the above themes, and plenty more. I want to know how people can live lives that they feel are deeply fulfilling, lives they deeply value, lives full of inspiring love. I want to know what people from many cultures and many times have thought about this and I want to know what wisdom lies in these thoughts for us today. And I want to figure this all out with the help of others. If we really think about this, I think we can not only help individuals live more fulfilling lives but I think we can work towards a more fulfilling culture. This will not happen overnight. It will not happen overyear. But it can happen, eventually. The world is going to change--that's inevitable--and I think our goal should be to direct, to shape, that change with quality of life, with flourishing, with fulfillment, as the primary ideal.