As a stress-damaged prison guard (retired), I found the answer to why the world is so f****ed up from a stress-damaged seventeenth century philosopher, Benedict de Spinoza. His answer is simple: stupid (or as he calls it, inadequate) thinking. Spinoza says the universe we live in makes sense. Our thinking does not. He explored the reason in his philosophy.
Why do I use the ‘F’ word? When I was a prison guard, I found that the two most common words used by prisoners were ‘respect,’ and ‘f***.’ A prison is a very f****ed up place. Anger and despair hang like a morbid tapestry on the walls.
The prisoners respond to their situation with F.T.W. (F*** The World).
One Christmas Eve I saw a sign on a cell door when I was walking down the range: ‘No one is merry here so f*** off!’ But the world where prisoners say we live and the one in which they live when they leave the joint is also f***ed up. I do not need to tell you why. Just look; anger, hate, war, religion and politics. Do I need to go on?
I discovered philosophy as a young man and fell in love with it. The first philosopher I read was Martin Heidegger. The way to do philosophy, he said, was to live in an author’s work until you are carried out of it.
The man in whose work I was living when I went inside prison was the nineteenth century American philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce. Though I feared mathematics because I was poor at it, Peirce taught me to lay aside the math bogeyman. I grew to love the concepts of mathematics and related fields of logic and science.
Which meant that, on midnight shifts I would walk down black ranges, briefly flicking my light into the corner of every prisoner’s cell, then return to the office and the light of reason as I began to read books on math, logic and science.
But reason was not enough. Philosophy had given meaning to my earlier jobs first as a construction worker, then in child welfare. But reason failed me inside prison. I became addicted to adrenaline highs, suffering the lows and eventually becoming so melancholic I did not want to live.
But then one of the science books led me to Spinoza by referencing a website in Siberia where a European philosopher was comparing Spinoza’s notion of substance to current scientific thinking. I had encountered Spinoza in university but did not think I needed him. Now suffering the increasing pain of the stress disease I had acquired in prison, I knew I needed help.
I needed to learn how to rethink my life and the world. Philosophers would call what Spinoza teaches, his ‘theory of knowledge.’ I would say rather, it is tools for living. I began to use Spinoza’s ideas as I did my keys as a prison guard; keys to unlock barriers to understanding the universe.
Every occupation has a specific tool to do the job. Keys are the most important tools a guard uses, just as an accountant uses numbers.
Over my desk I have a life maxim adopted as my rule of conduct. Albert Einstein said we can all live in a prison of our thinking:
“A human being is part of the whole, called by us, ‘universe,’ a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”
Einstein, who was a Spinozian in his philosophy, is describing why the world and our thinking about it is so f***ed up. This world is of our own making. The cons are accurate in their assessment. But the universe is the whole out of which all adequate thinking must come.
Acknowledging that the whole universe is greater than all our collective egos is the first key to unlocking the barriers to our understanding. The conceit of human nature is to think we know it all. But modern science has proved in a decisive way through Heisenberg and Godel that we do not. AA’s second step says it all. We ‘came to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.’
As infants inside our mothers, we probably experience the security of this whole, just before we are pulled screaming out into the world. It is filled with baffling objects (including the one that slaps us on the butt). Piget says these objects do not even have permanence until we are around six months old. So we begin our experience in this world f***ed up.
Ever since, we have tried to make sense of the objects surrounding us. This active search to make sense is what we mean by an idea. Some philosophers, such as Plato have mystified this word, but a word is all it is.
Spinoza says the second key to unlocking understanding is when this search latches onto objects. Spinoza calls them, ‘singular things,’ or things which are unique, one of a kind. He says this is how our mind works, or brain for those who do not like the word, ‘mind.’
Using the key of existence, we spend our lives trying to unlock how we relate to these objects or singular things and how they affect us.
I suspect this is how an animal understands the universe. They do not get past their immediate reaction to the thing that exists. My dog reading his pee mail.
But as humans we have complicated the is-ness of objects with language: ‘ma-ma’ ‘dog.’ ‘Christian, Jew or Muslim.’ Forgetting that all objects are singular things, i.e. one of a kind, we group them and order them as to how they affect us. In other words, we abstract objects into categories of general and universal descriptions of how they relate to our lives.
Language is not only what makes us human but also what makes us, among animals, the only ones who can f*** up. Humans are the only animals who can abstract emotions away from their direct purpose of relating to actual objects in a here-and-now way into ideas of anger, hate, guilt, greed, repentance and so forth. Abstract emotions are restraints, chains around our consciousness that separate us from our natural existence in the universe. No wonder our world is f***ed up.
The remedy to this problem caused by the excesses of language is Spinoza’s third key. He says we have ‘common notions’ which can unite our thoughts into adequate thinking or reasonable ideas about the universe. Some of these notions are basic physical facts of our lives, the kind physics scholars explore. .
Not everyone agrees on what Spinoza means by ‘common notions.’ Some seem to have gone on language holidays in their discussions.
As I read and reread the second part of Spinoza’s Ethics, I began to realize why he used a geometric method. It relates to Euclid’s Geometry, which was the only geometry that Spinoza knew. ‘Common notions are the foundation of our reasoning’, Spinoza says.
Common notions run throughout the discussions of early philosophers. Aristotle says they are ‘the necessary principles…the truth of which it is not possible to prove… and reason dwelling in the soul.’
Today’s mathematicians and scientists would call them ‘axioms,’ a less prosaic term than the ancients. No ‘reason dwelling in the soul.’ But what we have gained in preciseness, we may have lost in content.
Consider Euclid’s five Common Notions:
1) Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another
2) If equals be added to equals, the whole are equal
3) If equals be subtracted from equals, the remainders are equal
4) Things which coincide with one another are equal to one another
5) The whole is greater than the part.
What do we see? The common notion of equal, one which is almost invisible to
us. While seldom paying attention to it, we use it all the time. When we add two and two to equal four, we pay attention to the numbers, the operation and the result, but not to the equal glue which holds it all together.
This is the way I suspect it was for Spinoza. For him, the common notion of equal was more caught than taught, running through the entire corpus of his work, especially parts two and five of the Ethics. While never specifically addressing it, the common notion of equal is the reason he calls his major work, Ethic.
Spinoza is not alone in this catch. Equal underlies all of the major works of humanity, while going missing from profane writings like Mein Kampf. The Common notion of equal is, of course, the essence of ethical thinking and the impetus behind the idea of justice. If ethics is the main idea of religion, as Spinoza suggests, than the common notion of equal is its wellspring.
The warp and woof of mathematics is also the common notion of equal. Without it you cannot do mathematics. In fact, the organizing principle of all mathematical thinking is the common notion of equal. Because of this, mathematical ideas are the model of adequate or reasonable thinking.
Spinoza says the superstition of religion:
‘ would have been sufficient to keep the human race in darkness to all eternity, if mathematics, which does not deal with ends but with the essences and properties of forms, had not placed before us another rule of truth. ‘
The residues of religious superstition still persist in philosophy, seeping through
humanistic, transcendental and interpretative strains which think they must battle scientific ideas to maintain liberal ethics. In prison we called these kinds of ideologues,
‘do-gooders,’ (individuals who make their own ideas more important than the reality of the situation).
Such philosophies try to model Spinoza in their own image, dismissing his geometric method while speaking of mathematics as ‘misguided.’ I suspect these individuals are terrified of a symbol in any other form than language. They ignore Spinoza’s harsh critique of language like the word, ‘Being.’ (Yes, I was carried out of Heidegger). They are algorophobes who turn their fear of ciphers into mistrust towards the field in which they are an abstraction.
But abstraction is abstraction. Mathematics is first a way of thinking and acting. It is only a language of abstraction for specialists. Almost all the residue philosophers are dressed in the armour of ethics as they go forth to critical battle. I suspect they would be shocked to know the common notion that guides them is the same ‘equal’ that has created mathematics.
It is irrational to dismiss the value of mathematics and science in understanding the universe. Whenever any activity that uses mathematics and science goes astray, it is caused by ideologues, not their discipline in thinking and acting.
This third key, the common notion of equal, unlocks barriers to understanding so that we can use reason. Armed with the keys of the wholeness of the universe (also a common notion), the singularity of existing things and the guidance of seeking what is equal in all things, our thinking can be adequate (reasonable) and not f***ed up.
The world is f***ed up because we think and act with inadequate ideas; ideas which are confused by emotions and corrupt the imagination. Spinoza spends considerable time showing how powerful, confused emotions and corrupt imagination are. Reason cannot stand alone against this confusion and corruption. This is why, of course, that Spinoza is not a rationalist.
Our understanding needs a cure (emendation) from what he calls this ‘deadly disease,’ of confused emotions and corrupt imagination. The three keys are the scalpels to perform this surgical operation.
I needed such an operation. I had lost the desire to preserve my life. I was no longer actively striving to profit in my life. This is what Spinoza means by the word, ‘conatus.’ As he says, “seeking the normal profits of humankind: riches, fame and the pleasure of sense,” make our own thinking inadequate and are the sign posts of the ‘deadly disease.’ We need to go down the equal path for our true profit.
In saying this, Spinoza echoes the words of Christ and many other ethical teachers such as Buddha, Mohammed, Red Cloud and Immanuel Kant.
Then he lists four ways we gain ‘practical advantage.’
First, it teaches us how to free ourselves from the prison of our myopia, confused emotions and corrupt imaginations as Einstein stated, ‘by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.’
Second, we learn how to respond to the things and situations that seem to f*** up our lives. All things are of equal value in our experience of the universe, both the things we judge good and those we judge bad. Just as two plus two equals four, these experiences will all add up as reasonable in the long run. We just need patience. The doors that close are just as important as the doors that open.
Third, this teaching, …”contributes to the welfare of our social existence since it teaches us to hate no one, to despise no one, to mock no one, to be angry with no one and to envy no one. It teaches everyone, moreover to be content with his own and to be helpful to his neighbour….”
Fourth, it teaches us why an equal society would be best for its citizens. Spinoza’s political theory has been much discussed and admired by individuals from the left to the right of varied and diverse stripes.
Finally, Spinoza teaches what to do when circumstances and situations f*** up our emotions. Since I suffer from stress disease, these situations may seem very petty to an outside observer. However he has given me a simple program which I try to follow carefully. It has five steps: When I encounter such a situation, I:
1) Identify what emotion is occurring (anger, fear, etc)
2) Separate this emotion from the situation that caused it
3) Separate this emotion from the baggage of past & future.
4) Relate this emotion to the common notions of equal and the place of the part
(me) in the whole.
5) Identify how this emotion is affecting my body (usually an adrenaline rush)
and use adequate thinking to place it into a proper context.
In step four there occurs a somewhat ironic twist in Spinoza, which he obscures by ‘God talk.’ This relating has to be emotional. Spinoza hints at this when he says only a stronger emotion can annul another emotion.
Reason, Spinoza says, is not effective against emotion. “This love to God,’ he says, is the highest good which we can seek according to the dictates of reason.” So, for Spinoza, the highest good which reason can attain is an emotional attitude towards reality, (the whole). He has tried to sneak emotion in as reason.
He says, :’emotion that arises from reason, is necessarily related to the common properties of things.’ Reason is the wag of the tale of understanding.
We can call this attitude, love, wonder or many other words inspired by religion and mystics but I prefer the word my cons used, ‘respect.’ While they turned this word inward, toward themselves, as a need, it should be turned outward, towards existence and every unique thing in it. Respect for existence.
When we take away Spinoza’s cautious sop to the Inquisition this is what he mean meant by the word, ‘God.’ It doesn’t matter whether this emotional attitude is called, ‘love of God,’ ‘ belief in a higher power,’ ‘respect for existence,’ as long as it guides us into ethical action and we find satisfaction or well being in this pursuit. This is the essence of true religion and reason.
This is how we profit in our lives.
Here is an example of the five steps in practice. I tend to leave practical affairs to
my wife; paying bills and scheduling appointments. Last Monday she was volunteering down the street. I stayed home to write. While I love research, writing is more like walking the prison ranges, where you never know what will happen. While there may be exciting moments of discovery, you can also get a shank in the back. I get the same adrenaline rush from writing that I sometimes did as a guard. Much of the time, both are a fairly straightforward, slightly boring routine. Then once in awhile, all hell breaks loose.
Last Monday was like that, similar to the emotion I felt when I found contraband hidden on the range, a still in a broom closet, a shiv inside a magazine. The high when the common becomes the uncommon and a singular experience, a source of discovery.
In the middle of this high my wife came home. As I ran feverishly along the ranges in my head, expressing my ideas, she took off her coat and pottered around; waiting for me to finish and begin the schedule for the rest of the day which included a dinner we’d both agreed to attend.
About an hour later, I hit the wall. My adrenaline dropped from high to irritable fatigue. “What time is that damn dinner?” I said.
She checked our schedule. “It was actually lunch,” she said apologetically. “They kept referring to it as dinner, but it turns out, it was at noon. I got it wrong and now I guess we’ve missed it.”
My wife was raised believing that dinner was the meal at the end of the day where I had it at noon. Because by choice she does the cooking, I go by her definition. But now I had a focus for my irritation, even though I had not wanted to go.
Our social faux pas was her fault. I began to add it to a list of her other mistakes in the past. The fuse was lit. I was ticking and my stress disease was ready to blow. But then understanding stepped up. As it should have, since I had spent the morning explaining how to be cured.
“Are you treating your wife ‘equal?’ it said. ‘Are you being loving towards her?’ Well, no, I wasn’t. I began reluctantly running down the five steps. It was obvious that adrenaline was controlling my body and emotions. While you cannot turn it off, acknowledging its presence can mute its effects somewhat.
I pirouetted in my mind “Honey, I’m so sorry,” I said. “It could happen to anyone.”
Not all emotional outbursts are so quickly capped but I have been applying Spinoza’s five steps for several years so it has become easier to bring emotions and imagination under the control of adequate thinking.
Why is the world so f***ed up? Inadequate thinking. The word, ‘f***’ is our common scream.
It is not easy to think adequately. Spinoza explored why.
It works for me. The victories are occurring more often.
Ask my wife.