To Dor on the question of Peace being better than love/mindfulness/kindness…
For those who experience a lack of peace (violence, un-safety, aggression), in their daily lives, is there even a possibility of love and kindness? If we adopt the theory of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, establishing safety must come first. Isn’t it a privilege to wonder about peace versus kindness as a core mission? For the many people on the planet who face violence every day, of course peace is the priority. If you are blessed enough to feel SAFE in general in your life, do you have a moral obligation to work towards creating peace for those who don’t? I feel that until there is peace on the planet for everyone, it must be all of our primary concern and responsibility.
To Tibet — have you ever read Walden 2? Its a fictional account of a utopian society that works towards creating The Good Life. Their core values are health, a minimum of unpleasant labor, the chance to develop talents and abilities, satisfying personal contacts, and relaxation and rest. The author (Skinner) is a behavioral psychologist who researches conditioning. This novel is his attempt to convey his theories in a fictional society. In the book, the community does tests to see what behaviors lead to outcomes that align with the values of The Good Life. They find things to be true that challenge our mainstream culture. For example, they discover that couples are happier sleeping in different bedrooms than they are sharing bedrooms. They find that children are raised better communally than by the individual couples. These ideas challenge our assumptions about morality and freedom. At the heart of the book is the question of Free Will. Skinner argues that we don’t actually have free will. People from “the outside” will have an adverse reaction to the idea of Walden 2 because they perceive it as taking away their freedom. (The community has a lot of rules and regulations about behavior- all based on research that will supposedly make them more happy). At first, we might at feel that our locus of control is challenged. However, if we don’t actually have free will, then we are being conditioned by external forces anyways (capitalism, individualism etc.) so we might as well control those forces in an intentional setting like Walden 2, where we identify our values and purposefully condition ourselves towards those outcomes.
Questions I have…
How real is cultural conditioning? How have we been conditioned by mainstream society? By consumer culture? By U.S. culture? Is it moral/ethical or even a good idea to purposefully condition ourselves in a new way? Does it take away our freedom or is it a moral imperative? If we disagree morally with the values of the mainstream culture, could creating a new (controlled and limited)culture be a revolutionary act? Could it be a way of taking our agency back into our own hands?
Many folks think its repulsive to think of human behavior as an experiment the way we experiment with rats, but I am intrigued by the idea. It seems like Tamera has a similar outlook of drawing upon “research” findings to inform their community decisions and cultural practices. I am curious about how they conduct this research and what their scientific model is.
Anyways, love you and cant wait to discuss it all in person!