Our Quest for Effective Living: A Window to a New Science / How We Cope in Social Space

© 2009, 2011, 2015 Fred Emil Katz. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/22/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4389-9026-2 (eBook)

ISBN: 978-1-4389-8565-7 (softcover)

ISBN: 978-1-4389-8566-4 (hardcover)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-3760-3 (audio)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009904604

Contents

Dedication

OUR HUMAN SPECIES IS ENDANGERED: A MANIFESTO

Our Quest for Effective Living: How We Cope in Social Space

Book One

The Second Path Phenomenon Manages our Unmentionables

Book Two

The Closed Worlds Phenomenon: We Are Often Wrapped in Moral Communities

Book

Three The Access-to-the-Ultimate Phenomenon

Book Four We Become Connected The Link Phenomenon: It Gives Meaning to Our Lives

Conclusions: Looking Through the Window into a New Science

Addendum Applying This Book’s Vision to Understanding and Treating Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome among Iraq War Veterans

Notes

Acknowledgments

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the memory of Ted Levitt, my cousin.

He was passionate

— In his embrace of reason and the mind’s creativity

— In his teaching

— In his writing

— In his devotion to family; I know — I was a beneficiary of many versions of that devotion.

He was humanity at its best.

Ted was a prominent professor in the Harvard Business School. His parents sponsored my coming to America when I was nineteen years old. At that time Ted, himself an undergraduate working his way through Antioch College, encouraged me to go to college — and did things to make it happen.

OUR HUMAN SPECIES IS ENDANGERED: A MANIFESTO

From a sociologist whose parents and brother were murdered in the Holocaust — and who realizes that survival, of individuals and of entire populations, cannot be taken for granted.

Biologists are well aware that in the natural world new species can evolve and, alas, that existing species can become extinct. Thousands of naturally occurring species have, in fact, become extinct. What about our own, our human species? Are we heading for extinction? I could cite a list of natural dangers - from volcanoes to floods, from new viral epidemics to earthquakes — over which we have little control, but which can threaten the survival of our species.

Beyond these there are dangers which we humans ourselves contribute, which also threaten the survival of our species. These include ever more lethal wars that kill us off in massive numbers. The level of killing that took place in the Thirty Years’ War was accomplished in a few short years in Europe in World War 1 and in the American Civil War. More recently, in the Second World War we accomplished more effective ways of mass killings — by saturation fire-bombings of cities and by the use of atomic bombs — all of which supplanted the old-fashioned ways of warrior-killings where individuals killed individually by sticking bayonets into one another. Mass killings became sanitized and readily available options. (While personal, one-on-one killings have not been eliminated from our military menu.) In political terms, we have entered eras of ethnic cleansings, where lingering tribal loyalties and antipathies are sometimes implemented in organized killings; and where terrorism becomes a tans-national enterprise. I could go on. But let me summarize: By our own efforts we humans may succeed in destroying our species. We may give it momentum, let me add, by the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction potentially controlled, not only by governments but by rogue groups, where inhibitions against their actual use may not exist since these groups may be guided by some sort of transcendent vision that makes survival of ordinary folks, on this planet, seem irrelevant.

What can we do? What must we do?

I believe that behind the state of mortal danger to our species is our impotence in the face of the dangers we humans produce. Our sciences of human social behavior have not helped. At a time when the natural sciences have given us spectacular successes in mastering some parts of our environment, our sciences about human social behavior remain spectacularly unsuccessful. Yes, we have considerable insight into the fabric of our society, and how things are actually operating — as exemplified by such scholars as Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, and by the work of a host of other social behavior scientists. But their insights have not stopped our species’ lurch toward extinction.

I am convinced that the danger to our species demands a more viable and robust way of understanding how we humans exist in SOCIAL SPACE. It starts by recognizing that, from our biology, we are saddled with a fundamental duality. One, from the moment of our birth all of us begin a life-journey as separate, identifiable creatures. And yet, two, we are not self-sufficient. We interact with, and are interdependent with our surroundings — from the air we breathe to the social contacts that nurture us.

Both of these — our separate identity as functioning individuals and our interplay with surroundings — constitute what I am calling Social Space. In this book I begin the adventure of showing the nature and workings of that Social Space in which we exist and conduct our lives.

A word about science

From the history of medicine we learn an empowering lesson. There was a time when many lethal diseases were accepted as acts of nature that humans simply had to accept, that we could not prevent or, at least, control to the extent that they would keep us from leading normal lives. I don’t need to recite the medical successes — the conquest of polio, and so many other diseases, that medical science has helped to either eliminate or, at least, keep from ruining lives. Behind many of these successes is that medical scientists discovered a number of basic phenomena — such as the workings of bacteria, the structure of DNA, the operation of neurotransmitters — that underlie much of disease and, even, ordinary healthy functioning of our minds and bodies. These discoveries required more than observation of what exists in nature. They required — as the physicist Henry Margenau taught us — taking a chance on mental leaps that explain observations.

I am convinced that we can, similarly, discover basic phenomena if we take a cool look at ingredients of what I am calling the Social Space in which we humans operate. In this book I take leaps into that space. I have us take a look at four attributes of Social Space. I don’t claim that these are the final word about Social Space. They are merely a beginning. You will see that these attributes illuminate much of our daily life in new ways. My dream is that these can eventually give us tools for more effective living, where our species will have a healthier existence on this planet. Meanwhile, I hope you will enjoy the illumination.

Our Quest for Effective Living:

How We Cope in Social Space

(This section is a bit of theory. If you are inclined to be practical, go directly to Book One, on page 1.)

How do creatures cope with their surroundings? The most famous answer in the history of science was provided by Charles Darwin. He demonstrated that the evolution of biological species comes about from transactions between creatures and their surroundings. In Darwin’s formulation, the surroundings select which species survive and which perish and, within that struggle, define which attributes of individual members of a species will be conducive to survival and which will be eliminated in the survival struggle within an environment. The focus is on the environment’s impact on individuals, and on entire species, in the struggle for species’ survival. The impact of these surroundings gives us a glimpse of social space in action.

Yet, Darwin’s approach lacks sufficient attention to the interchanges between creatures and their surroundings, what I am calling social space. In that social space one does not assume that the environment is somehow a separate and independent entity that arbitrarily influences creatures. Instead, I believe the interchanges, the social space, comprise a domain in its own right. By identifying the interchanges, the workings of social space can be clarified and understood. Applying this to humans illuminates much of our behavior — including claims that horrifying activities, such as genocide, are justified on moral grounds, to mention just one of a number of shake-ups social space brings to conventional wisdom. The book investigates how humans actually cope within the social space in which they exist and how, in turn, that social space impinges on individuals. This revelation is driven by the propelling conviction that a new science, a science of social space, can explain much about how the social environment defines human realities.

The action of social space also has a bearing on our species’ survival or possible demise. Darwin inadvertently gave us the gift of a much-ignored subtext, in addition to his magnificent contribution about natural selection by environments. Alongside the survival of the fittest species comes the demise of the unfit species, which can also result from social space influences. We cannot assume that our species will inevitably survive, especially when we remain so unclear about the social space in which we exist and operate. In response to the need for clarification of the influences of social space, I posit four constructs — four phenomena — about its nature that concentrate on how we humans cope within social space in our daily life. As a starting point, brief sketches of each of these ways of coping follow. The first and third focus on the individual; the second and fourth focus on the social field. The rest of the book develops these constructs more fully.

The Copings

The Second Path

We divide our self — yes, divide our self — through the Second Path phenomenon. In our daily life we must cope with our immediate surroundings. As we interact with people, especially at work, we portray ourselves as essentially confident and competent, capable of handling problems as they arise. We believe we know what we are doing. This is how we project ourselves to others and even to ourselves. Yet in the course of daily career-driven activities, many unmentionable fears, uncertainties, annoyances, and even forms of honesty are likely to arise, which are real but cannot be expressed in the career-work context. These can end up as a Second Path in the individual’s life, which manages the Unmentionables in our life. The Second Path can attain a momentum and character of its own, with great impact on the rest of the individual’s existence. The Second Path can make it possible for us to live with the Unmentionables we encounter.

Closed Worlds

We humans are moral creatures. Much of the time our actions are guided by some variety of morality. We call them our beliefs. We call them the values we identify and hold dear. We call them guiding principles for our behavior. Such moralities usually come to us as composite moral packages, in the form of a particular religion, nationality, or ethnic community, or perhaps as the moral package endorsed by one’s profession or occupation. Altogether, these give meaning to our life. But they can also be moral walls that shut out the rest of the world’s morality. Stated differently, moralities can embrace us as an entirely closed, moral system. They can dictate a complete system of moral life, what I sometimes call the Local Moral Universe, or Closed Worlds. They sometimes justify behavior that is entirely abhorrent from the point of view of the individual participant’s own upbringing. That is, people performing abhorrent deeds may be fully aware that their deeds are abhorrent in terms of their upbringing but nonetheless believe that the deeds are entirely justified on moral grounds. This is possible when a person is operating in a Closed World. Here a Local Moral Universe prevails, building walls that shut out all other moral considerations. Military contexts immediately come to mind. Most soldiers do not begin life wanting to kill. Most soldiers share our society’s abhorrence for killing. But in military contexts they may engage in killing, believing that there is high moral justification for killing.

Transcendence

Disciples of a cult leader who commit suicide, suicide bombers who knowingly kill innocent civilians, and many of Hitler’s followers in Nazi Germany can be shown to be part of a comparable phenomenon. A Hitler, a guru, a leader identifies for followers the ultimate objective for their lives, perhaps to attack the Great Satan active in the current world. Followers believe, above all, that they have personal, critical access to that ultimate objective through their own actions: Through a suicide attack on a designated enemy, Great Satan is choked. Individuals thereby believe they transcend their local, petty circumstances and enter into a destiny far grander and far more significant — vital to survival itself.

Transcendence is not only relevant to such extreme actions as those just mentioned. Actually, transcendence can be germane in everyday, benign activities, as part of our normal social existence. It is, for instance, built into the very fabric of most religions. When a Catholic receives communion, that person is engaged in an act of transcendence; much of one’s life