Losing Our Humanity — Saving Humanity: Part 1

How We Are Disconnecting from Ourselves, Others, and the World in Which We Live

Part 1: An Introduction

by Jeff Bloom

I started writing this piece with the idea that it would be a nice, easy, and reasonably short essay. But, as usually happens to me, I jump right into the rabbit hole and find myself digging deeper and deeper. When I reached 16 single-spaced pages and had developed a good introduction, I thought I’d better stop and make this topic into a series. But, the “introduction” was still way too long. Sigh… The trouble is that when I write about something, I learn a great deal more than if I just think about it or just read about it, although both of these are really important things to do. Writing, at least for me, opens up the doors (or rabbit holes) to points at which there are weaknesses or vagueries. And, so, I’m going to restart this exploration with greatly modified introduction, which I hope will be followed by a short series of dives into the depths of some of the areas in which disconnects are particularly problematic.

Please indulge me in a very brief divergence. But, this divergence may point to yet another disconnect that has insidiously wiggled its way into our lives. I find news programs in the standard media (PBS, NPR, NBC, CBS, ABC, and MSNBC, as well as a few others based in the U.S.), as well as alternative news media, which is mostly on YouTube (e.g., the Midas Network, et al.), to be very chit-chatty. A little bit of this chitchat may be fine and create some connections with one’s humanity. But, all too often the chattiness just becomes self-promotional and disconnects them from listeners or viewers. They also waste an incredible amount of time with this nonsense at the expense of covering either a greater extent of news or a greater depth of analysis. Actually, they cover very little extent and very little depth most of the time. And, this situation does seem to further disconnect us from ourselves, others, and the world around us. I diverged here to try to both remind me to focus on the pithiness of the matters at hand and to mention to you that, if I’m getting too chatty, please send me a reminder of this paragraph. However, I do see on the horizon some “stories,” which by their very nature should be chatty. But, such chattiness should be intertwined with substance. Chattiness also can stimulate further thinking and questioning for readers, but when it doesn’t that is a quite a shameful wasted opportunity.

If you haven’t noticed, “disconnects” are certainly plentiful. We are subject to and/or initiate disconnects all too often. When we sit down behind the wheel of a car, chances are extraordinarily high that we are disconnecting from the world around us and especially from other people, unless they are sitting in the car with us, and even then it isn’t the same as sitting around a table drinking coffee and chatting. Even when we walk down the street, through a mall, or even on a forest path, we more than likely disconnecting from ourselves and the world around us (see Inquiry, below). We initiate disconnects when we shut down or get overly angry at someone else. We disconnect from others when we impose a double bind [1] or gaslight [2] someone else. There are innumerable examples of disconnects in our own lives and in our shared social and cultural contexts. However, in this essay, I’d like to explore the idea of meta-disconnects, which are disconnects of disconnects. These meta-disconnects seem to be patterns of both our own and our shared ways of thinking and acting.

Inquiry

The next time you walk somewhere, try doing this simple exploration. It may be interesting to do this in different settings and at different times, such as after a particularly stressful or aggravating encounter with someone.

As you walk, start trying to pay attention to the thoughts that are going through your head (or wherever they’re happening). Then, try to just pay attention to your feet hitting and pushing off the ground in the way you naturally walk. Feel your body moving and adjusting to the motion. Then, just try paying attention to what’s happening around you as you walk.

When you notice that your seemingly endless stream of thoughts have jumped in and interfered with your noticing your body and surroundings, just gently go back to the noticing your body and surroundings.

You can do this for two minutes or 5 minutes, or whatever is you’d like.

How much of your walking around is disconnected from your own body and your environment?

I don’t want to direct your thinking about this. But, it may be interesting to jot down some thoughts about the implications of how our random stream of thoughts affects us as human being.

And, please share some or all of your thoughts in the Comments section below, or in our Members’ Forum.

The kind of “disconnect” that we explored in the Inquiry can be described as a sort of common, base-level disconnect. But, as disconnects go, being carried away by our stream of thoughts is rather benign. And, we usually over-ride this disconnecting pattern of thought when we’re confronting an emergency, when we’re engaged in some activity of great interest, or when we’re engaged in significant conversations with others. But, one of the potential problems with our streams of thoughts is how they can begin and perpetuate processes of solidification and justification of ideas that can lead to more serious disconnections. An example of how this happens involves an experience I’m sure all of us have had. We might get into an big argument with someone that might get overly heated and nasty. Afterwards and throughout the rest of that day and maybe for several days after, we rehash the argument, while adding justification for our positions and for whatever anger we have for the other individual. Maybe these “justifications” are accurate and reasonable, but they could just be our version of a situation that is much more complicated. We may be partially, or entirely, responsible for the disagreement, but we may spend much sleepless time rehashing and justifying, without ever considering our part in the disagreement. We may have lost friends and disconnected from workplace supervisors and bosses through such stream of thought processes. Such processes are a lot like pit bulls, when they bite down they don’t let go. (No offense towards pit bulls intended.) Personally, I really detest such moments, when my stream of thoughts carry me off in ways I do not want to go. I just try not to believe my own thoughts and just let them do their thing and wait till they fizzle out. But, often I just have to consider the stream of thoughts and the mental images that go along with them as just another half-star movie that I’ve watched 50 times.

At this point, I’d like to clarify a few ideas and develop a bit of context for our examination of disconnects. In a way, disconnects are insidious sets of patterns of human thinking and action that lead to (and Stephen Jay Gould [3] is going to roll over and shout obscenities at me from his grave when I say this) the evolution of a whole assemblage of disconnects from oneself, from one’s environments, from one another, and from the essence of life or the essence of our own humanity.

Before I get to the pithy material of disconnects, I want to clarify a few terms and basic ideas. I use “evolution” in a broader sense of the changes that occur in the social contexts of humans and other forms of life. The term “social,” as used in the previous sentence, encompasses various forms of social systems, such as, economics, politics, education, healthcare, and so forth, as well as various products that arise from social activities, such as, technologies, architecture, agriculture, works of arts, and so many more. “Context” is a relatively slippery term, which refers to some sort of fuzzily bounded, but relatively cohesive and compatible sets of activities, ideas, and/or physical attributes or settings. I hope this definition is suitably fuzzy. Some examples of contexts include

• the context of an Arizona desert
• the context of education in the United Kingdom,
• the context of a refugee camp in Uganda,
• the contexts of meaning surrounding a particular idea, such as, floating or forest,
• the context of an Amazon warehouse workplace,
• the political contexts of Israelis and Palestinians.

Some of these examples use the plural of context, but I suspect that any singular context we might mention is actually intertwined with numerous other contexts.

If you desperately want certainty and clearly defined and neatly packaged ideas, dealing with our living world will not provide much satisfaction in that regard. All living things and living systems encapsulate variable degrees of uncertainty, have a fairly high degree of unpredictability, are fuzzy and messy, and can or should have a great deal of variation. And, the way in which “context” is used here and the way “context” manifests in life is similarly uncertain, unpredictable, fuzzy, messy, and variable. The whole thing (life and contexts) is fluid and changeable. Contexts are sort of like amoebas with even fuzzier borders, along with the ability to intertwine and overlap with other amoebas (contexts), while also having the ability to morph into different amoebas (contexts). Let’s take a quick look at a specific context. In this case, I’ll look at me, the context of Jeff Bloom.

The context of me includes, the context of each of my body’s biological systems — cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, skeletal, digestive, the multiple contexts of each layer of skin, the muscular system, the immune system, etc. Within each these systems there are the contexts of each individual component (e.g., the ventricular muscles of my heart, the veins of my circulatory system). Then there are the multiple types of cells that make up each of the tissues in each of the systems. Within the cells, there are a variety of contexts involves in the various components of the cells (e.g., nucleus, Golgi bodies, mitochondria). Then, there are the strands of DNA and RNA. The DNA contains contextual information that has spanned generations, as well as bits of contexts from other organisms. Now, let’s move back up the scale to, for lack of a better word, my cognition or my cognitive contexts. We perceive “things” from the world around us, as well as from within our bodies and from this thing or things we call mind. Pretty much immediately upon perceiving something and before we consciously or intentionally react, we attach emotional contexts and filter these perceptions through the lenses of other contexts of various biases, beliefs, and other interpretive frameworks. Most of our perceptions are ignored and never have much if any impact on our cognition. Those that are not ignored make their way into a variety of fluid and dynamic contexts of meaning. And, these contexts of meaning are moulded mostly from our social contexts of family, friends, schools, work, and, now as never before, social media. At this level or layer of socially-mediated and environmentally-mediated contexts cognition, the already fuzzy borders of any context seem to get even fuzzier as the extend to unknown distances from our physical bodies, or in the example, my body. Having been fortunate enough to have traveled to places outside of my original country-context, there are pieces of me and pieces of other places spread out all over the place. From Singapore and Malaysia to India; in the UK, Italy, Sweden, and Poland; and in Canada, where I lived for a decade, there are contexts from these places intertwined in me and parts of my contexts intertwined there. And, some of these contemporary pieces of contexts could intertwine with much older DNA contexts. In fact, if we go far enough back these contextual connections become more plentiful. My DNA contexts go back to what we know now as German, England, Scotland, Wales, the Irelands, Norway, France, Spain, Italy (Roman Empire), Syria, and even to a very early Chinese warlord. I am and we all are bundles of intertwined contexts spread out like tendrils through space and time.

Contexts are varying combinations of cognitive (including emotional), social, and physical—biological—chemical. But, the important point is that the use of the term “context” is helpful if trying to visualize and understand the fluidity and dynamics of various aspects of our world. When we try to decontextualize information, in particular, we destroy the depth and extent of meaning. Schools seem to be quite good at decontextualizing; as are most politicians and corporations; as well as some religious leaders/teachers, such as pastors, priests, rabbis, lamas, swamis, imams, and so on.

As Gregory Bateson stated, “without context, words and actions have no meaning at all.”[4] But, this is not an all or nothing situation. There is a gradient from zero meaning to richly meaningful. And, often we are left with having to supply the contexts. In far too many cases, we may have the contextual information supplied by questionable sources that are not based in any sense of reality (e.g., propaganda, cultish contexts, and so forth). And, if you haven’t guessed, this contextual mis-alignment is a major disconnect that can have cascading, and often ill, effects.

I almost forgot. I’m nearing the end of the introductory piece and haven’t really delved into humanity, which is the central issue of this series. Like all terms, “humanity” has diverse meanings, which vary depending upon the experiences and contexts of the utterer of the word. However, the definitions found in dictionaries, which also vary, capture most of the accepted and shared meanings as used in everyday conversations (SEE Appendix for definitions from two different dictionaries).

However, I want to elaborate on this idea of “humanity.” When I ponder what it means to be human or to manifest the qualities of being human, all sorts of possibilities come to mind. If I wanted to and was a psychopath, I might think of humans as rather useless and immaterial living things, most of whom are scum and are quite expendable. There are certain notable figures, past and present, who may very well feel this way. But, such a view is not at all what I consider to be the core quality of being human, or, for that mater, the core quality of being any living thing.

I should warn you that at this point we could diverge into multiple articles or multiple books to explore the depth and extent of “the core quality of being a human or of being any living thing.” However, I will try to keep this brief. Although maybe another effort is needed to explore this particular rabbit hole.

Essentially, we and all other living things are here because those before us have wanted to live and stay alive for as long as possible. To do that many living things have had to care for their young. But, others who for one reason or another do not care for their young, at least after they’ve been born or hatched or whatever, have cared enough to have a strategy that would give their young a good chance of surviving. Some do that statistically with a large does of wishful thinking — have lots of babies or disperse lots of seeds and hope that enough survive to keep their species going. Some find safe place to lay or deposit eggs. But, humans and many other animals spend significant time taking care of their newborns until they can take care of themselves. And, then there those organisms that just split off, either into a clone of itself or “sprout” a bud of itself, like hydra, where the the young are literally kept attached until they’re big enough to go off on their own.

This “caring” is not some mechanical process that was relied upon as the explanatory principle ever since Descartes, and follower shortly after by Newton. Living systems are not mechanical systems. We all have the same or very similar neurotransmitters. We all have emotions and need to connect those emotions to various ways of thinking in order to live and survive. We just live in different contexts and need to think and learn in ways that appropriate for our survival. The only exception to that seems to be us. For some reason, humans can and do think in ways that are not only destructive to ourselves, but also to the entire biosphere.

So the best characteristics of our humanity may actually be the characteristics of all other living things. The caring for self and others, the tending to the needs of self and others, and the taking of actions to help maintain the survival of others. In the languages of humans, these characteristics may be talked about as empathy, compassion, generosity, patience, perseverance, integrity, honesty, caring for, caring about, deeply valuing relationships, and so forth. I’m also going to add one particular activity that is probably essential, but never discussed in these terms… play and playfulness. We continue to find more and more organisms that engage in this activity, which very well may be a significant approach to developing and maintaining relationships.

In the next part in this series, I want to spend a little bit of time pondering the core patterns of cognition that can give rise to various layers of disconnections. Or, maybe these layers are some how tied up in logical typing errors[5] or in misappropriating levels of abstraction[6] in our own thinking. Or, are disconnects primarily issues in metacommunication?[7] How common are double binds[see note 1] in the propagation of disconnects? I suspect disconnects involve all of these processes as well as others.

If you’ve just read this essay and you’re hoping to read the next in the series, spend some random moments pondering the disconnects you experience, as well as those you see in various contexts. If we want to work towards reconnecting and living in a world with fewer disconnections, it is very helpful to get to know the contexts and dynamics of the challenges we’ll face. And, please feel free to ponder more publicly in the Comments section below or in the Members’ Forum.

Endnotes

[1] Double Bind is a term coined by Gregory Bateson and his colleagues (Bateson, G., 1972/2000, 1991; Sluzki & Ransom, 1976; Wilden, 1972/1980) that describes situations in which an individual or group is placed in a severely problematic context or set of contexts, with no apparent way out of the problematic context or contexts. It is often equated with a catch-22, but double binds are much more complex. A classic type of example is a child growing up in a household, where one or both parents consistently criticize the child for one thing or another. The child is criticizes for talking, then criticized for not talking. The parent or parents may say tell the child they love him or her, but while they are saying this they are looking away and avoiding any expression of affection. There is nothing the child can do that can elicit affection or acceptance, because everything is criticized, objectified, and distanced. The whole context is toxic with no apparent way out and no way to change it.
[2] Gaslighting according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary is a “psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.” [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gaslighting]
[3] Stephen Jay Gould was a popular paleontologist/biologist, and was adamant that the word “evolution” refers only to that set of biological phenomena we commonly consider to be part of the evolution of life on Earth. He was equally adamant that the concepts involved in evolution could not be applied to culture and other social contexts. He talked about this issue in many of his articles and books, but discussed it in some detail in the last chapter of his book, Full House (Gould, 1996).
[4] Page 14 in Bateson, G. (1979/2002)
[5] Logical typing errors — The theory of logical types was developed by Alfred Lord Whitehead and Bertram Russell in chapter 2 of their book, Principia Mathematica, in 1910. Their discussion focused on the mathematical concept of sets and how a set cannot be a member of the set, which is a logical typing error. More relatable examples, may include one the claims Governor (of Texas) Greg Abbott made about crime, that he could eliminate rape by capturing and punishing all rapists. Besides being a ridiculous claim from a number of different perspectives, “Rape” is at a different level of abstraction or of logical typing than “rapist.” In addition, his statement that he could “eliminate” rape by “arresting” the rapists adds another logical typing entanglement. A rapist isn’t a rapist until that person rapes someone else. To eliminate rape would mean that you’d have to foresee the future in order to arrest a person who was about to become a rapist. Such statements are clusters of entangled logical typing errors.
[6] Levels of abstraction - Whorf —- Bateson (1972/2000) — Korzybski (1948)
[7] Metacommunication - Guddemi (2020) — Bateson (1972/2000) — Wilden (1972)

References

Bateson, G. (1972/2000). Steps to an ecology of mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Bateson, G. (1972/2002). Mind and nature: A necessary unity. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Bateson, G. (1991). Sacred unity: Further steps to an ecology of mind (R. E. Donaldson, Ed.). New York: A Cornelia & Michael Bessie Book/Harper Collins.

Gould, S. J. (1996). Full house: The spread of excellence from Plato to Darwin. Easton, PA: Harmony Press.

Guddemi, P., & Bateson, G. (2020). Gregory Bateson on relational communication: From octopuses to nations. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Korzybski, A. (1948). Selections from science and sanity: An introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics (2nd ed.). Fort Worth, TX: Institute of General Semantics;.

Sluzki, C. E., & Ransom, D. C. (Eds.). (1976). Double bind: The foundation of the communicational approach to the family. New York: Grune & Stratton.

Whitehead, A. N., & Russell, B. (1910). Principia Mathematica (2nd ed., Vol. 1). London, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Whorf, B. L. (1956). Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (J. B. Carroll, Ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Wilden, A. (1980). System and structure: Essays in communication and exchange (2nd ed.). London, UK: Tavistock.

APPENDIX

Humanity

FROM: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

noun
1. Humans considered as a group; the human race.
2. The condition or quality of being human.
3. The quality of being humane; benevolence.

———————————

FROM: The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/humanity)
1 : compassionate, sympathetic, or generous behavior or disposition : the quality or state of being humane

2a : the quality or state of being human
joined together by their common humanity

© 2024 Jeffrey W Bloom