"Ever more people today have the means to live , but no meaning to live for"(Frankl,2006) .
November 13, 2015 · by Eda Mucaj ·in Book Reviews, Therapy
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Think love and kindness are weak traits? Think again. Dr. Dacher Keltner reveals another story of human nature. How can we attain a good life? Does the potential for happiness and a good life follow inevitably from our nature or in spite of it? What are the origins of our capacity for kindness? Questions on human ontology have long circulated in philosophical, religious and scientific systems of thought and yielded a synthesis of theoretical insights from distinguished figures such as Kant, Plato and Freud. Plato in his Chariot Allegory compared the human soul to a chariot and the intellect as the charioteer. Later, Freud reasoned that humans’ innate qualities were greed, lust and domination driven by self-serving drives toward sex ad aggression and it was society which was needed to suppress these qualities. For ages, emotions have been considered as the origin of immorality and irrationality. However, recent studies on human emotion argue persuasively for an altered view on human nature, a view which rejects the primacy of self-serving drives toward sex and aggression and associated tendencies to greed, lust and domination. These studies maintain that benevolent affects are rational, functional, evolved part of human nature which are deep-rooted in our neurobiology, and can be cultivated to foster happiness and a good life. In our society we continuously devalue play, love, gratitude and modesty. Yet, when we feel grateful, or when we feel humble, or compassionate, when we feel these emotions humming in our nervous system and all their chemical effects, we get a sense of a greater purpose and deep well-being. In his book “Born to Be Good”, Dacher Keltner reasons that positive emotions, such as loving kindness, empathy and compassion, are the pathways to the good life. Dacher Keltner is a social psychologist and a distinguished researcher who focuses on nonverbal communication including facial expressions and pro-social emotions, such as love, sympathy and gratitude, and processes such as teasing and flirtation that enhance bonds. In Born to Be Good : The Science of a Meaningful Life, (2009) Dacher Keltner explores the biological and evolutionary basis of the positive emotions and their relationship to happiness and the good life. He argues that human beings are inherently good and in order to cultivate the good life, we must simply increase our awareness of this capacity. According to Keltner , goodness is indicated by emotions such as compassion, love, and kindness that arise in interpersonal interactions and is indexed by jen ratio, a Confucian concept that entails principles of humanity reverence and kindness. The extent to which we balance our attention to the good and bad in life determines the value of our jen ratio. Keltner’s concept of a higher jen ratio and the good life seems to parallel the optimization principle advocated by positive psychology: High positive effect and low negative affect can lead to a greater sense of purpose, mastery and self-acceptance. (Sundararajan,2005) Keltner’s thesis is that the key to leading a happy and meaningful life rests on our ability to identify and facilitate positive emotion in our everyday experience. He furthers explains how decades of scientific research on human emotion reveal that we have positive emotions hard wired into our nervous systems. Based on Darwin’s principle of serviceable habits, Keltner’s reasons that positive emotions have played an important role in our survival, promoting bonding through social networks, even bridging social divisions; therefore he modifies the phrase “survival of the fittest” to “survival of the kindest” (pp. 52). Darwin himself argued in his book, The Decent Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, that sympathy is our strongest instinct, and it would spread through natural selection, for “the most sympathetic members, would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring.” For quite some time this attribute of human nature was entirely omitted by evolutionary science . On the preeminence of sympathy toward altruistic behavior, Keltner includes the following statement by Darwin: “ such actions as the above appear to be simple results of the greater strength of the social or maternal instincts that that of any other instinct or motive; for they are performed too instantaneously for reflection, or for pain or pleasure to be felt at the time” (pp. 54-55). Keltner reasons that the display of positive emotions which embody social instincts, have succeeded over time because they confer an evolutionary advantage by inducing cooperation in the human collective. The fragility and dependency of our children argues Keltner, altered human relationships and reorganized our nervous systems, making positive emotions such as loving kindness and compassion essential to our survival. To further support his argument that human are born to be good Keltner explores Paul Ekman’s work on facial action coding system and how each distinct emotion is the subjective presence of different physiological conditions. He states that we can observe our intrinsic tendency to positive emotion in our brain reaction's to pain. Both when we are in pain as well as when we see someone else in pain, the anterior cingulate region of our brain is activated, implying that we have the same pain response to other people’s pain as we do to our own experience of pain. Research seems to show that we are wired for sympathy and altruistic behaviour. On the preeminence of love and compassion , contrary to their common denigration as “weak” inclinations, Keltner assigns foundational significance to these emotions in preserving morality and social cohesion. He highlights more research that traces manifestations of love and compassion in the nervous system and arrives at vagus nerve and oxytocin, from which sensations of “ spreading , liquid warmth” emanates. (p.228). These research studies show a direct causal relationship between compassion and the vagus nerve activity, the more compassion you feel, the more intense the vagus nerve response. Results of these studies also a positive correlation among vagus nerve activity, positive emotions and stronger relationships. A lot of data suggests that we are wired to care, down to a neurobiological level. Oxytocin is a neuropeptide hormone which plays an essential role in pair bonding and in generating social emotions and behaviours such as trust, cooperation and social attention. It is released through the hypothalamus into the bloodstream when we engage in hugs, kisses and loving relationships it is also relates during childbirth and breastfeeding. Both Vagus nerve and Oxytocin are branches of the neural system that have evolved to facilitate caretaking, trust and cooperation. In Born To Be Good : The Science of a Meaningful Life,(2009) there is a chapter devoted to each of the positive emotions that give rise to a higher jen ratio, including embarrassment, smile, laughter, tease, touch, love, compassion and awe. Each chapter goes into great detail regarding the science behind the topic of its title. Keltner’s argument rises powerfully on the shoulders of evolutionary science and neuroscience explaining how we are” wired to be good” (p.269). Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful life (2009), makes us aware of our capacity to be good to one another and to promote the good in others, leading to happiness and the good life for ourselves and others. You might want to let go of the common held beliefs about loving kindness and compassion being traits of weakness, or illusions. Feelings of love, kindness and compassion seen to be rather essential to our greatest needs to survive, connect and flourish in life. By: Eda Mucaj Feature: Yulia Külahlı on flikr.com Second: Amazon |
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