Attitude

“. . . everything can be taken from a man but one thing:  the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”  (Viktor Frankl, 1905-1997) 

A good story, well told, is long remembered.  Over the many years I was a psychiatrist and a teacher, I carried in my metaphorical black bag a small repertoire of stories to bring out when the occasion seemed right. 

One story, in particular, I told many times.  it was based on a real-life experience. It was about two kids who took a field trip with their class to the botanical gardens.  Each child went on the same day, same bus, saw the same flowers, had the same tour guide, etc., etc.  One child comes back to the school bus scowling, complaining to me about how hot and muggy the day was, how the whole experience had been nothing but boring and miserable.  The other child comes back to the bus skipping, telling me about how beautiful the flowers were and how much interesting ‘stuff’ there was to know.

This is not a story about right or wrong.  Each child was right.  It was a hot and miserable day.  And, the flowers were lovely.  The story is about the power of attitude.  Each child entered into the gardens with a very different attitude and set of expectations.  As a result, one noticed the weather.  The other found joy in the beauty and interest in the learning.  Same field trip, yet each left the gardens having had a very different experience.   Attitude was everything.

Once, I was teaching an introductory philosophy course to a group of resident physicians.  We were a few lessons into the course and it wasn't going so well.  I had observed little energy or interest in the subject matter, on the part of the students.  The topic for that day was 'free will'.  I began class by asking them to consider Viktor Frankl’s assertion that “to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances” was, in fact, a human freedom.

Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist and a concentration camp survivor.  In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, he wrote about the concentration camp and his observations of inmate behavior.  Under the harsh conditions of the camp, many inmates gave up and many others tried to survive by any means.  However, he also observed that there were a few inmates who chose to offer comfort and to share their last remnants of food.  From his experience, Frankl concluded that we are free to choose, “to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

Most of my students said they believed in free will.  Most agreed with Frankl that attitude was a free choice.  I then asked them to consider the attitude with which they entered class.  Did they come eager and ready to learn or did they come with low expectations?  If, as they agreed, attitude was a choice, I said it was their responsibility to show up in class with a positive attitude.  I acknowledged that I too had a responsibility to teach with a positive attitude, with good energy and with good ideas.  The lesson that day turned the class around.  Attitude was everything.

One more brief and real-life story. . .  Early in my psychiatry training I met two veterans, both of whom had lost their legs in war; same war, similar injuries, etc. etc.  One of these men was angry, bitter and alcoholic.  The other had returned to school and was a hospital administrator.  Why such different outcomes?  If Frankl was right, perhaps, in the aftermath of terrible adversity, each man still had the freedom to choose his attitude, to choose the manner in which he faced his circumstance.  And attitude was everything.  

End of story.

The Thinker and the Doer

“And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”  (from Shakespeare’s Hamlet)

Thinking is a lot of work and I've been thinking a lot about this blog entry.  In the course of all this thinking, I got to thinking about a discussion I once had with my wife, Sue, about thinking.

Sue and I were at a hotel.  I was reading about the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.  The television was on.  I put down my book to watch a show about the history of food in America.  The particular episode was about the Hershey chocolate factory and its founder Milton Hershey.  When the show ended, I turned to Sue and asked, “Nietzsche or Hershey, who do you think was more important?”  She was amused by my question, but I was serious.  I was reading existential philosophy, wrestling as I am wont to do, with questions about life’s meaning.  In the end, is it better to be like Nietzsche or like Hershey?  Will the aphorisms of Nietzsche or the Kisses of Hershey linger longer on the lips of mankind?  I didn’t have to ask who brought more joy and comfort.  Nietzsche gave us existential angst.  Hershey gave us chocolate.  But, in the end, who will have given us more, the philosopher or the candy maker, the thinker or the doer?

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) probed the depths of the human unconscious thirty years before Freud.  Nietzsche attacked the facades and pretenses of society.  He preached that the individual must rise above the conventional morality, that God is dead and that one must become self-reliant, an ‘ubermensch’.  Like so many famous philosophers, Nietzsche led a somewhat solitary and unmarried life.  He was chronically ill, suffering from headaches and digestive problems.  He died an early death after a long descent into insanity.

I have read about many philosophers, but I had never before read about a candy maker.  I googled ‘Milton Hershey’.  The first line of the first article began, “Mr. Hershey was a ‘doer’, not a philosopher.  He never wrote and seldom spoke about his beliefs.”  Milton Hershey (1857-1945) was born into a Pennsylvania Mennonite family.  By all accounts, Hershey was a man of unquestioned kindness, generosity and integrity.  He not only built a candy factory, he built a town for the factory workers, a planned community assuring a quality life for all his employees.  He was a devoted husband, and though he and his wife did not have children, they committed their wealth to helping children in need.  In 1909 he founded the Milton Hershey School for orphans, a school that continues to thrive.  The subtitle of a Milton Hershey biography reads, “His Deeds Are His Monument, His Life Is Our Inspiration”.

Who mattered more?  Ironically, the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) seemed to side with the doer.  Levinas called philosophy the “temptation of temptations”.  “We (philosophers) do not want to undertake anything without knowing everything”.  In other words, too much thinking can lead to too little doing.

Levinas favored the doer.  Sue favored the doer.  Me, I’m still thinking about it.

On Dogma and Militancy

"It is a terrible and dangerous arrogance to believe that you alone are right . . ."  (Isaiah Berlin, 1909--1997)

In the aftermath of the August 2017 Charlottesville demonstration, Trump infamously declared that there were 'good people' on both sides.  If instead he had said that there were 'ordinary people' on both sides, then maybe I could have agreed.  On both sides were sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, working men and women, church goers and neighbors.  Ask any of them if they thought themselves to be good people, and I suppose most would answer yes.

Hannah Arendt, political philosopher and observer at the trial of Nazi Adolph Eichmann, wrote that ordinary people can perpetrate great evil.  This happens when ordinary people cease to think for themselves, voluntarily relinquishing free thought, independent conscience and critical reasoning. Instead they assume the identity and guidance of a group.  They become the slavish followers of an ideology.  Germany was full of ordinary people who willingly surrendered their independence in order to become the obedient and loyal followers of the Nazi party.  This Arendt famously called 'the banality of evil'.

So why the rise of hate, anger and intolerance in our country?  Dialogue, divergent opinion and civil discourse are not modelled or honored by our leaders.  Media ratings are driven, not by dialogue and compromise, but by the drama of conflicting ideologies.  Conservatism, Liberalism, right to life, right to choose, gun rights, gay rights, freedom of religion, freedom from religion; causes are the new religion, ideology and dogma the new idol worship.

Where there is dogma, there is no dialogue, no exchange of ideas.  There's only vilification and suspicion of the other.  Where there is dogma, compromise is not possible, it is not an option.  Compromise is 'losing' or worse yet 'selling-out',

Every dogma is defended by its militants, those who are sure of the answers, but who are unwilling to question.  For the militant, there are no alternative points of view.  They demand their point of view be heard, but close their ears to the thoughts and ideas of the other.  They seek converts to their cause, rather than mutual understanding.  Perhaps it is not coincidence that dogma spelled backwards is 'am god'.

Militants have no self-reflective humor.  They have no capacity to look critically, searchingly at themselves.  From within their ranks there can be no questioning, no dissent.  Questioners from within are called heretics.  Questioners from without are called enemies.

Militants are self-congratulatory.  They love their banners, their songs, and their slogans.  They love their martyrs.  Sadly, the lives of the outsider matter not at all.

Militants are ever vigilant to threat from without.  They crave and demand acceptance, but they are accepting of no outsider.  Militants demand fairness, protection under the law, but do not behave reciprocally.  They often demand civility and the language of political correctness from others, but are willing to inflame with their words.

There can be no dialogue with militants.  One can choose to appease them or to patronize them.  Or, one can become their adversary in defense of free thought.  But never in the process of interaction with militants can one expect to be heard, respected or validated.

And the militant's opposite?
Not one who knows, but ONE WHO WONDERS.
Not one who serves a cause, but ONE WHO SERVES OTHERS.
Not one who is self-righteous, but ONE WHO LIVES RIGHTEOUSLY.
Not one who clings to banners, but ONE WHO SEARCHES FOR TRUTH.

The Quest

"I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have the patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves . . ." (Rainer Maria Rilke)

To live the quest is as if to climb a mountain.  At the beginning of the quest, the climb, you stand at the foot of the mountain, intimidated and in awe.  You find the will and the courage to take the first steps.  With the summit your destination you begin, and the journey becomes your adventure, your life's story.

Why make the climb?  Some will not.  Some will choose a different journey with a more inviting destination--pleasure, power, or possessions.  Some will have no strength to climb, depleted by life's day-to-day demands.  Some will be afraid to climb, and some will be content to vicariously watch while others climb.  Some will close their eyes, trying to ignore the mountain's presence.  But the mountain is there, inviting anyone to climb, if willing to do so.

Why climb the mountain?  "Because it's there."  You climb because you are beckoned by the challenge, by a need to explore, by a need for purpose and meaning, by a wish to know, and by the possibility of finding out.

With the climb, you discover.  You discover that a climb requires proper tools--self-discipline, tenacity, and courage.  You discover that a climber requires a team--family, friends, teachers and guides.  But while every climber needs the help of others, you discover that you cannot be carried upward on the back of another.  The climb is yours.

You have to choose from among many paths.  Some will lead to the top.  But you discover that many paths lead astray and some paths lead to the edge of the cliff.  Along the way there are friends to steer you to the right path.  There are also those you might mistake as friends who try to lead you to the cliff's edge.

Sometimes the terrain is gentle.  Sometimes the terrain is steep and frightening.  At time you look around and take in the scenery.  At other times, the task requires your total attention and effort.  At times, you stop to rest, to nourish and to recreate.  But rest is not avoidance, and once rested you must rise and resume your climb.  Sometimes you will move forward upright.  Other times your climb may be on hands and knees.

From my climb, I have learned that the view is ever-changing.  As I climb higher, my view is occasionally obscured by the clouds, but for the most part, I see farther and more clearly.  And what happens at the summit?  I don't know.  I'm not yet there.