Order and Disorder

Most of us have distinct views on order and disorder, generally with a strong tendency to prefer the former. Disorder presents us with ambiguity, a condition often giving rise to feelings of uncertainty, which many of us dislike. Order provides comfort, security and regularity, and the desire for it is understandable.

Although clearly different, order and disorder cannot be seen as completely separate concepts, nor can they be seen as absolutely good or bad. A certain amount of disorder is needed for us to grow, as when our bodies are stressed at the gym or in running. Lifting the same weight endlessly or running the same distance at the same speed does not produce growth. As with physical growth, so it is with our spiritual, emotional, and intellectual lives. To move forward, in whatever realm and however we define this, we must be temporarily off balance---subject to some disorder. As the author Gail Sheehy put it in slightly different terms, “Growth demands a temporary surrender of security.” 

The desire for order and disorder co-exist simultaneously in the same person, although in different ways. Additionally, these two elements can be seen as occupying a continuum with total order on one end and total disorder on the other. While we all have a “set point” on the continuum where we customarily reside, we will move back and forth from this point to some degree as a situation, our mood or time pressure changes. Each of us has a unique need for less or more order. 

Investigators have determined that humans have a very interesting psychological process known as the need for closure. Quoting from Jamie Holmes’ fine book, Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing: “Developed by a brilliant psychologist named Arie Kruglanski, a person’s need for closure measures a particular ‘desire for a definite answer on some topic, any answer as opposed to confusion and ambiguity.’”  

The need for closure partly expresses a person’s level of desire (often unconscious) for structure or order. This desire is normal and, like most human characteristics, is a matter of degree. Some folks with a very low tolerance for ambiguity actively, often aggressively, seek closure in the form of definitive answers. Those with higher tolerances will search less actively for answers or will be quite happy with open-ended conditions. But things are more complicated than this because any person will not have the same tolerance level for all situations. For example, I am very comfortable with disorder in my writing, actively enjoying it. I don’t work from any sort of grand plan, but allow thoughts to emerge around a general theme for a chapter or the blog. Initially I am unconcerned about whether those thoughts fit or not. This high tolerance has both beneficial and undesirable sides. It does allow me to productively fiddle with seemingly unrelated concepts, but it also can cause me to move very slowly and occasionally to get really stuck. 

On the other hand, I am quite intolerant of ambiguity when I think there is conflict or emotional distress between me and another person. I want that resolved as quickly as possible. This is helpful in the sense of moving toward what I hope is a healthy resolution. But if I am not careful, I can become too active in trying to create a non-ambiguous solution with the other person, in essence forcing an outcome.  

As a consultant I have had a number of experiences related to a person’s need for order. Once when conducting a workshop for a company, I had the group engage in brainstorming, a free-wheeling discussion where no idea is off limits and where the goal is to generate as many ideas as possible in a given time. One man had a very high need for closure and showed it by continually trying to force the group to a decision before we had heard all the ideas. It clearly distressed him that he could not get to a conclusion. Interestingly, when I spoke to him privately about his efforts, he was unaware of the challenge and trouble he was creating for the rest of us. Instead, he defended himself by saying that he was really trying to help, which he sincerely believed. 

On a broader stage, political partisans of any persuasion appear to have a great need for closure—for answers that tell them exactly what they should (and want to) believe about their and the others’ parties. This definitiveness means that thought is not needed, and is in fact an impediment to creating and maintaining a fictional world---a process aided greatly by continual recitations of the given liturgy on any topic. These liturgies provide certainty; they provide THE answers. The more frequently this recitation occurs, with oneself or with others, the more pronounced is the sense of moral and practical rightness. However, since the world is hardly a simple place, amenable to simplistic and consistent answers, this partisan behavior is clearly damaging both to the believers and the society as a whole---reality will out.  

There is no absolute level of tolerance of ambiguity, or desire for closure, that is considered optimum. The key for our well-being is to know our closure propensities in various situations, and to understand how and why they work or do not work, taking into account not just our own needs, but those of others. As I said in the last post, this understanding is often best arrived at by getting help from others, our mirrors. Regrettably, while desperately needed by many of us, we usually recoil from such engagements because they create emotional disorder, paradoxically the very thing we need for emotional growth.

 

"Insult"

"The real function of a spiritual friend is to insult you." From a great 20th century Buddhist teacher, Choggyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

We are very sensitive today, always on the lookout for slings or slights, troubled mainly by taking ourselves too seriously, and thus exposing our fragile egos. Should we have the courage, and it takes a lot, a remedy is at hand, provided by the Rinpoche. We all need someone to aid us in periodically re-orienting ourselves, to give us a whack upside the head and tell us to get less self-absorbed---the "insult that isn't." This speaks to the Buddhist's desire to eliminate all illusions, the most damaging of which those we have constructed, mostly unconsciously, to protect us from knowledge of our own shallow egos and of the real world, and to make us seem bigger and better than we are.

The quote exemplifies the role that each person can play for another in continual spiritual development, which is how the Rinpoche meant it. But I think it goes farther than spiritual development, and includes other aspects of personal development. Friends or relatives, or even a stranger, can help us overcome our unwarranted assumptions and views, false beliefs, and exaggerated sense of superiority or self righteousness. They are our mirrors, and we ignore them at our cost, as I learned rather painfully.

I recall going to a group meditation on compassion many years ago. After finishing I was talking to a woman who had immediately launched into a vitriolic condemnation of another woman in the group she did not like. Much like this woman, I was similar in my failure to understand that there is no necessary correlation between experiencing a fine compassion-oriented (or any other) meditation and actually being compassionate. For much of my life I could claim with great pride that I had read this many spiritual books, gone to this many retreats, and heard this many spiritual leaders. I was sure I understood all that Buddhism and Zen had to teach me. I did not see for decades that the only thing that matters is whether I had changed my behavior because of what I had seen and heard, whether, in fact, I had become a better person in the eyes of others. I could have learned something from the woman's comments and demeanor---she was a mirror for me, but I saw nothing.

Living with the Rinpoche's quote means giving up any attachment to a fixed "self," accepting instead the fluidity of spiritual and personal movement that requires constant attention and reformulation. But no progress will be made without fearlessness, and without eliminating the reflexive actions of "counter-punching," a regrettable tactic common among people whose egos are stuck on themselves. We will hear from our "insulting" friend news we might prefer to be left buried under a ten-ton
stone---news that often elicits from us an unpleasant reaction as we try desperately to protect our cherished illusions. Counter-punching is all about defense, rigidity, closure, protection and rejection, exemplifying what the fine American Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chodron calls the "frozen mind."

Having no one to aid us in snapping out of our illusions means that we continue to believe what we think about ourselves and about the world, and we are monumentally, and highly emotionally, attached to these beliefs. Even the thought of asking someone close to us to expose our false beliefs is a non-starter. After all, we can "easily" live in denial. When is the last time (if ever) any of us really opened up this way? Even if we want to, what friend or relative would take the chance of getting the crap kicked out of him or her for being honest with us? Unknowingly, we have broadcast our stories (illusions) so effectively that no sensible person would trust us to behave properly.

Hearing the "insults" is a major challenge for any of us, changing even harder. But it is the price we have to pay to REALLY move spiritually and practically. For those willing to "take the empty-handed leap into the void," the result is openness, expansion, flexibility, inner peace, compassion and love, and a connection with the world as it really is (not as we want it to be) that any Taoist would delight in.

The great American spiritual philosopher, Ken Wilbur, says that climbing the spiritual ladder is impossible until we have started dealing with our demon, including our illusions and attachments. We can easily pretend that we are making spiritual progress, as I did, but that's all it is---pretend. Another illusion. Until we go after the demons with "a little help from our friends," we are fakes, whether this is in spiritual matters or practical living ones.

Religion and Society II

In the last post I started the conversation with one aspect of religion’s role in society---as a cohesive force and a repository of moral strictures and order, recognizing that there were some unpleasant aspects to this order. I ended with a reference to the societal changes we have see since the 60’s, in particular elevation of the cult of individualism to pre-eminence, what I see as a major factor in the disintegration of shared moral values in the US.

The cult of the individual emphasizes the person and what he wants above all. If it feels good, it is good, and the impact on others is irrelevant. As a moral system unique unto himself, the individualist sees a shared moral order as one detrimental to his well being, as it asks for behavioral restraint in the form of curbing self interest, a distasteful concept to the individualist.

As the great Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, “A stable society is achieved not by balancing opposing forces but by conscious self-limitation….” The latter is a function of healthy societies, but is anathema to the individual concerned only with himself. We are living in a societal setting in which the shared healthy strictures (granted some were not) that once bound us together, whether formal and informal, are coming undone. Much of that seems due to the failure of self-limitation.

As shared moral order is lost, social anomie sets in. The word means normlessness (Emile Durkheim) and implies social instability and lethargy, which I think are increasing in Western society. At the same time, religious connections, including church/synagogue attendance and belief in God, and the moral order supplied by those, have weakened. I am not saying that the decline in religious conviction or in attendance at services themselves have directly caused the anomie, although that may be the case, or even the reverse. I am saying the rise of the individual at the expense of the group coupled with the decline in religious observance have at least contributed to a dissolving social entity.

Some argue that even if religions were a necessary outcome of human existence in early history, they are of no consequence today. In their view, secular associations will fill the void and be a source of moral order once religions are gone and humanistic principles are in play. But there are a couple of hurdles to overcome with this view. One is that the only examples we have of large-scale secular, “religion-free” systems were the communist ones of the 20^th century, and those look quite bad in retrospect. A second is that today’s Western humanists/secularists grew up in a Judeo-Christian ethical system, and cannot easily divorce their humanist leanings from those offered by that system. In other words, such folks can certainly act morally, in their mind due to  following humanist principles. Perhaps. But it is also distinctly possible that they are acting with moral correctness because of the Judeo-Christian culture within which they were raised, even if they reject the ethic.

A third hurdle is that most of the proponents of eliminating religion are atheists, understandably enough. But they are also part of the camp that has elevated the individual to near deity-like status. Thus, secular associations are very likely to fall prey to that very cult of the individual, the dictates of which overwhelm loyalty to any shared group standards, thus undermining group cohesion and at higher levels, societal cohesion. Without self-restraint, group cohesion is impossible, humanist principles notwithstanding.

A fourth hurdle is moral relativism, a view related to the cult of the individual. Moral relativism says that nothing is fixed and each person must decide for himself what are moral actions and what are not, and that those often switch places whenever the person wants a different outcome. Such a person is obligated to no consistency, and he is the sole determinant of what is right for him, meaning he can never make a moral mistake---an upside-down “moral” view if there ever was one. The views of others, as would be the case within a religious group, matter not one bit. An island unto himself, in his mind he is accountable to no one.

A possible fifth hurdle is that secular associations, while often beneficial, usually lack one of the three critical aspects of religion. The three, as defined by Haidt, are belonging, doing and believing, and secular associations can do quite well on the first two but not well on the third. Is it possible that the transcendent meaning derived from one’s religious beliefs is a key ingredient for adherence to a self-limiting moral code?

So the biggest question of all---Is there something (or more than one thing) that religion possesses that enables it to offer for its members a solid sense of connection and proper moral behavior based in part on voluntary restrictions in behavior? As we all know, many religions in the past and some today are not exactly exemplars of quality moral behavior. Nonetheless, the question still stands.

Are we morally better off with religion and its flaws than without it?