- Hermann Hesse
The funny thing is - when I first read this sentence (it's from Hermann Hesse's diaries) it was as if a shock of cold water had been poured over me. I had to resist the urge to jump up and cry - "Yes, that's it, that's how I feel too!" And then, as my conditioned self-control kicked in, I thought - "Wow, it's okay to feel that way..."
I was seeking approval for my own thoughts and feelings. I was able to feel better about my life because someone else - someone famous, a Nobel Prize winner - had once felt that way too. This fact validated my emotions, told me it was okay to feel and think the way I did. Now it was okay to let others know...
It's amazing how much in our lives is dictated by the need for approval from others. In a way, this is the most dangerous need that society conditions us to feel. The whole reward/punishment nature of parent-child relationships dictates a constant need for approval in our adult lives. This approval is needed from some source - parents, elders, teachers, peers, subordinates, journalists, politicians, people, anywhere - sometimes even from our pets. The instinct for approval is so strong that it overrides every natural instinct and desire.
My own view is that it cripples us, as a race.
I can't help but think about our favourite pets - dogs. It's said that any dog's genetic structure is 99% the same as that of a wolf's - even the chihuahua's! Just that 1% difference in genetic structure makes for the amazing variety of domesticated canines that we see around us. Among this diversity of canine forms, one thing is common - the need for approval. All dogs are bred to exhibit this ability. It's what makes them tame.
The domestication of animals was achieved by men/women who bred approval seeking behaviour into wild animal species. Perhaps that's how "lesser" humans were bred too. Kings and tribal chiefs would have wanted their subjects to be more docile, and pliable. Perhaps early societal structuring (especially in the Indian subcontinent) was created in order to domesticate the "wild" nature of the human animal.
This experiment hasn't worked as well with cats, for example. Felines seem to resist approval seeking genetic changes. So do African Elephants, though Indian Elephants succumb in some measure. However, reptiles and other non-mammal animal species don't seem to have an approval-seeking gene in their systems. Mammals suckle their young, and the parent-child relationship among mammals lasts much longer that any other animal species. Perhaps this approval seeking gene (or part of the gene) only exists in mammals - and in some more than in others.
Perhaps this gene (or behavioural instinct) helps pack behaviour. However, I feel that in human society this conditioning results in some very damaging patterns. First of all, this pattern is so deeply ingrained in us by the time we are teenagers that a period of rebellion ensues where natural instincts and the approval-seeking gene vie for mastery. In most cases approval wins out - and then we are said to be mature, or grown up, and capable of handling responsibility.
What are our natural instincts? To feed, to fight, to procreate, to invent belief systems, exercise the imagination and learn about the world through play (simulation) activity, to communicate, to seek shelter, and to seek affection. It is this last need that is corrupted, by turning affection into a reward for imitating societal behavioural patterns, rather than naturally given.
The danger with the long parenting period that humans undergo is that affection, which should be given and exchanged naturally, now becomes allied very strongly to behaviour. If the behaviour fits in with what is accepted by that particular social group, all is fine. If not, the natural tendency towards affection is held back by the group - a punishment for the offending behaviour. However, that behaviour has no connection with the need (affection). When the need is used as a lever, (as, indeed, are starvation, loss of shelter, freedom, etc.) the animal side of our beings gets very confused.
Behaviour, and all action and culture, are created (historically and zoologically) in order to fulfill and provide for our basic needs. When behaviour becomes more important, and needs get relegated to a simple reward-punishment status, the human animal grows up a little twisted. As this behaviour-need hierarchy is reinforced throughout schooling, the modern "civilized" human is created - in whose psyche approval-seeking takes precedence over basic needs.
It is my contention that this is the root-cause of many things that plague our society today - violence, abuse, hatred, communalism, terrorism, and the subjugation of the individual to the mob in all it's various forms.
More about this later, though, as I have to go. This is my first experience with blogging and I must say it has been fun. I just hope that people read this and I can start a discussion about this and other things that worry me, and things that make me laugh - the stupidity and idiosyncracies of homo sapiens....
I was seeking approval for my own thoughts and feelings. I was able to feel better about my life because someone else - someone famous, a Nobel Prize winner - had once felt that way too. This fact validated my emotions, told me it was okay to feel and think the way I did. Now it was okay to let others know...
It's amazing how much in our lives is dictated by the need for approval from others. In a way, this is the most dangerous need that society conditions us to feel. The whole reward/punishment nature of parent-child relationships dictates a constant need for approval in our adult lives. This approval is needed from some source - parents, elders, teachers, peers, subordinates, journalists, politicians, people, anywhere - sometimes even from our pets. The instinct for approval is so strong that it overrides every natural instinct and desire.
My own view is that it cripples us, as a race.
I can't help but think about our favourite pets - dogs. It's said that any dog's genetic structure is 99% the same as that of a wolf's - even the chihuahua's! Just that 1% difference in genetic structure makes for the amazing variety of domesticated canines that we see around us. Among this diversity of canine forms, one thing is common - the need for approval. All dogs are bred to exhibit this ability. It's what makes them tame.
The domestication of animals was achieved by men/women who bred approval seeking behaviour into wild animal species. Perhaps that's how "lesser" humans were bred too. Kings and tribal chiefs would have wanted their subjects to be more docile, and pliable. Perhaps early societal structuring (especially in the Indian subcontinent) was created in order to domesticate the "wild" nature of the human animal.
This experiment hasn't worked as well with cats, for example. Felines seem to resist approval seeking genetic changes. So do African Elephants, though Indian Elephants succumb in some measure. However, reptiles and other non-mammal animal species don't seem to have an approval-seeking gene in their systems. Mammals suckle their young, and the parent-child relationship among mammals lasts much longer that any other animal species. Perhaps this approval seeking gene (or part of the gene) only exists in mammals - and in some more than in others.
Perhaps this gene (or behavioural instinct) helps pack behaviour. However, I feel that in human society this conditioning results in some very damaging patterns. First of all, this pattern is so deeply ingrained in us by the time we are teenagers that a period of rebellion ensues where natural instincts and the approval-seeking gene vie for mastery. In most cases approval wins out - and then we are said to be mature, or grown up, and capable of handling responsibility.
What are our natural instincts? To feed, to fight, to procreate, to invent belief systems, exercise the imagination and learn about the world through play (simulation) activity, to communicate, to seek shelter, and to seek affection. It is this last need that is corrupted, by turning affection into a reward for imitating societal behavioural patterns, rather than naturally given.
The danger with the long parenting period that humans undergo is that affection, which should be given and exchanged naturally, now becomes allied very strongly to behaviour. If the behaviour fits in with what is accepted by that particular social group, all is fine. If not, the natural tendency towards affection is held back by the group - a punishment for the offending behaviour. However, that behaviour has no connection with the need (affection). When the need is used as a lever, (as, indeed, are starvation, loss of shelter, freedom, etc.) the animal side of our beings gets very confused.
Behaviour, and all action and culture, are created (historically and zoologically) in order to fulfill and provide for our basic needs. When behaviour becomes more important, and needs get relegated to a simple reward-punishment status, the human animal grows up a little twisted. As this behaviour-need hierarchy is reinforced throughout schooling, the modern "civilized" human is created - in whose psyche approval-seeking takes precedence over basic needs.
It is my contention that this is the root-cause of many things that plague our society today - violence, abuse, hatred, communalism, terrorism, and the subjugation of the individual to the mob in all it's various forms.
More about this later, though, as I have to go. This is my first experience with blogging and I must say it has been fun. I just hope that people read this and I can start a discussion about this and other things that worry me, and things that make me laugh - the stupidity and idiosyncracies of homo sapiens....
2 comments:
good one
Re: "And everything that a man could do must enrich him in some way, and for everything that he did not do his life must be for ever poorer."
From the same author:
"...We must be as stealthy as rats in the wainscoting of their society. It was easier in the old days, of course, and society had more rats when the rules were looser, just as old wooden buildings have more rats than concrete buildings. But there are rats in the building now as well. Now that society is all ferrocrete and stainless steel there are fewer gaps in the joints. It takes a very smart rat indeed to find these openings. Only a stainless steel rat can be at home in this environment..."
Intelligence out of New Zealand says that Leslie Charteris is a pen name of the renowned sci-fi author Harry Harrison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harrison
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