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.

in-spired

Saw my therapist for the third time today, week #3. We ended after maybe 30 minutes with her telling me I should save my five remaining sessions for my back pocket. That's what she said: back pocket. I agreed. And we parted amicably. I realized that I was just telling her about how things used to be bad and now things are good. I was telling her about these problems I used to have, which I seem to have dealt with for now, so it wasn't clear what exactly she was supposed to do.

The one concern I still have, really--the one thing that doesn't seem to have fallen on track--is that I have bad relationship patterns that I will perpetuate. The thing is, I won't know if I'm still having issues with relationships until one actually comes along. So we'll see. I'm hoping that, because most everything else has fallen into place, maybe my attitude towards relationships (which now seems to be that I'd like a relationship but I'm entirely content without one, with just my friends) will fall into place as well.

J and I were talking tonight, and I was saying that we have it so incredibly good here--we were agreeing on this--and that the only two things that could really enhance things right now would be a perfect relationship and a gang of friends who go out regularly where everybody likes each other quite a bit and it's just fun. The perfect relationship may not exist--what most of us have idealized as the perfect relationship probably doesn't exist for anyone--and while I know some great people here, I don't think a 'gang' has formed, really, like what I have in Tampa, what I had in Pittsburgh. And those are fairly big things--but they're not everything. And as long as I have people I love and meaningful work, I can be quite content.

Unofficial comes creeping, and it's got the marks of a drunken disaster.

I heard F. Bergmann speak tonight (and last night)--he wrote a book called On Being Free, which I read last semester for a course and was inspired by--and I'll see him over the next few days/nights as well a few times. I spoke with him briefly afterwards, and I told him I'd really like to be involved with his work--he works primarily now with the New Work movement, an example of an applied philosophy that is actually changing human conditions, and part of this movement includes a revamped educational system. He said he'd try to get a group together before he left here, where all of us who wanted to be involved could exchange email addresses and maybe we could get something going in C-U. This may also be a way to work with him in Detroit (where he's consulting with the Highland Park schools), if I was able to go there for a while...maybe live in Michigan for a while, working with him, learning firsthand how school reform can happen in a way that meshes with my dissertation ideas? I'd be learning, thinking, working, applying? That might be a wonderful idea.

remember december

Do you remember what December was like?

I don't. Unless I apply some effort, and I think back, and I think hard. But then it's like remembering someone else's life, or remembering the details of a movie you saw a few months ago. We are now almost six weeks into the semester--in fact, maybe we are six weeks into the semester--and my life feels entirely different than it did even a month ago.

I am continuing to feel content, and this has been surprisingly steady. There are moments when I'm not in the best mood, but I never really feel depressed, or despairing. I just coolly think, "Things aren't so great right now, but they're not so awful either, and things will improve." And I'm right, I've found. The pills are undoubtedly (in my mind, anyway) part of the difference, but there's more to it than that--I've made biological changes, but I've made some psychological, sociological changes, too.

The #1 thing has been that I think I've found my calling. I've found a life project that motivates and inspires me and that I think I can dedicate my life to, given my talents, weaknesses, constitution--given who I am and who I am becoming. This project is to explore the question: "How can human beings live the best possible lives?" This question has guided me implicitly for so many years, taking me through psychology, religious studies, philosophy, education, and it's time for it to become explicit.

This question is not easily answered, of course, but it's something that people have thought about more or less continuously for a long time. Clearly there are subquestions one has to answer on the way to answering the big one, like "What are some conceptions of the good life that people have produced and lived by?" "How do people actually go about living those conceptions of the good life?" "Is there a way we can educate people to pursue a good life for themselves above all else?" "Should we endorse certain views of the good life over others?" "Should pursuit of the good life even be a primary goal of human life at all?" There are probably even more...and I think it's these questions that will sustain my life. These are the questions I get excited about. I actually want to read about these things. I want to dive into continental philosophy--phenomenology, existentialism, postmodernism--I want to read more religious texts, I want to read about psychotherapies that have been developed to lead people to the good life...I want to read anything I can that deals with the question of the good life.

And I want to start writing, too. I want to start writing out my ideas, my thinking--I want to start developing my own philosophy of the good life, or at least my own philosophy of the process one might take to discover the good life for him/herself. I've put down the idea of being a scholar lately, but the idea is appealing to me again, I think because I've found an area in which I would love to be an 'expert.' And to teach about these sorts of questions? I can hardly contain the thrill I feel at the possibility of a life spent teaching, reading, and writing about the good life. This, I think, is essential for me to live a good life of my own.

My values are shifting. I don't feel like the same person I was last semester. I of course am not the same person--we change from moment to moment--but I feel like I'm approaching the world differently now. It's an odd feeling, and one I can't fully explain just yet. It's very transitory, as if I'm right now in the process of shifting--I'm between ports.

More to say, later.