The Tao of Hamsters.
My hamster sleeps on her back, like so. When we tickle her tummy, she would convulse and squeak in wrath, but remain fast asleep. We might surmise, then, even if she had what we know as a consiousness, she had reacted unconsciously, instinctively. It would also not be unreasonable to infer, she does not like being tickled while asleep, and so squeaks in what she must imagine (if she were awake to do so) is an intimidating manner.
We are told, non-human animals are governed solely by pain and pleasure, a system evolved to keep them doing what's good for them, and stops them from what's not. In the wild, that squeak might have seen off possible danger; in domesticity, it made us (vexing creatures!) leave her in peace, to continue her sleep, which is good for her.
Liking pleasure, and disliking pain, are not cognitive; but overcoming this inclination or disinclination is, the capacity for which is what we have come to accept, in one form or another, as a chief definition of humanity, I mean morality: the sacrifice of some personal for some impersonal benefit.
Some people feel morality as an impulse; others have to consciously make moral choices; some reject morality altogether, and are themselves rejected by society. The relationship between the self and morality is apparently not consistent.
I am reminded of the Master Patterner recalling what Ged had said to him, that "he [Ged] had spent a lifetime learning to choose to do what he had no choice but to do."
Ursula Le Guin's fiction was very influenced by Daoism; Ged's philosophy is based on the Daoist tenet of 無為 (wu wei), which is without action, without will, without striving, without choosing. That is not to say that man should not act, or exert his will, or strive, or choose. Rather, Daoist metaphysics recognizes that the cosmos already works harmoniously according to its own laws: that there exists a comprehensive, essential, fundamental Way of things, 道 (Dao), that dictates the must-be-done which, by doing according, man does rightly. The key to doing rightly, then, is to perceive 道, and to align one's exertions accordingly.
Ged has achieved what Zhuang Zi calls 明 (ming), clear seeing, or enlightenment; he perceives what has to be done, and in completely perceiving, wants to do it. So that there is no unprofitable paradox in his "choosing to do what he had no choice but to do," I have interpreted "choosing" as wanting, desiring; and that in choosing where there is no choice, his personal inclinations are aligned with the impersonal what-should-be, what-must-be.
When animals act according to pain or pleasure, or expectation thereof (fear or hope), they act according to the needs of survival; they are inclined to do what must be done anyway. (Survival is the nature of things, simply because without survival, there would be no existence for there to be a nature of —one of the rare instances of circular reasoning that, I think, is valid). Pain and pleasure are, almost undisputably, the result of physical evolution, the adaptation to the environment, —in other words, alignment with necessity. So, returning to my hamster: it might be argued that she acts, when annoyed, according to what-must-be-done, or 道; and 道 is in the dictates of her physical nature, her genes.
We have never observed animals doing what is not in their nature (I suppose contracting Sartre's existence precedes essence). They do nothing that is not wholly practical to their well-being, whether as individuals or as groups. We could argue that animals have achieved 明 (indeed as Le Guin does, in her Earthsea series).
Now, when a mother wren places herself between the cat and her babes, we see the action of selfish genes, driving the wren's instincts, to prioritize the future over the present. However, when we see a mother throwing herself between an on-coming bus and her baby in the pram, we see love, nobility, a moral action. Only in metaphor is the wren noble; we think, we know, that animals know nothing of the higher feelings, only brute practicality. Yet, in the accounts of Daoism, might we not see these higher, human feelings as a dim apprehension of 道? That what we think of as morality, that human achievement above base instinct, is but that first step towards true achievement. It is not a coincidence that people blest with "moral instinct are those whom we esteem the most: moral actions are to them unaffected and unforced, freely and thoughtlessly and happily done.
In this sense we are most of us less than beasts, who need not agonize over doing what they must do; it is wholly in their nature to do what their nature, 道, dictates. Our selfhood, and our reluctance to relinquish it, is our flaw. It seems perverse to exalt ourselves by our flaws.
But we are not less than animals, because we might argue that what we must do is more than what animals must do; there is more to achieve; Man's works, his aspirations and so failures, are more complex, more varied, wider in range and greater in depth, than those of animals, for his concept of "survival" is more than merely physical.
Accordingly, a man's relationship between his self and others of his race are more subtle, needs to be: but, like I said before, the relation between selfhood and selflessness is not consistent throughout the human race. There are some who are merely "good" or "bad," most who are indifferent, and the one or two who are monumentally "noble" or "evil." The truly good are only those in whom we believe goodness to be merely an instinct. However, if:
1) as Blanche said in A Streetcar Named Desire, that although "we are a long way from being made in God's image... there has been some progress since then... In some kinds of people some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning"; and if:
2) continuing with the Christian theme, the object of progress is I think what Milton calls "filial freedom"; freedom in freely obeying, "for what obeys / Reason is free; and Reason [God] made right"; and if:
3) we would see the analogy between that freedom in obeying Reason and 明, and the meaningfulness of the phrase "moral instinct," and if:
4) we accept instinct as stemming from the physical history and nature of organisms,
then we could accept that the true fulfilment of morality is in the redundancy of it; —when it becomes our nature to choose what we must do in order to survive; when morality, with all its connotations of deliberateness, of painful decision, becomes easy instinct, becomes 無為; when we become human brutes. We could also then accept that all the agony, which the finer of us feel in the slowness of the our progress, is in fact quite senseless; in the true spirit of 無為, we might see that it is matter of time, working through the necessities of evolution, before we reach our goal of perfecting the human race; unless that agony, in furor profetico, leaves for posterity that which would shape again its social, spiritual and ideological destiny.
All this I saw in my hamster. What more could you ask from a pet?
We are told, non-human animals are governed solely by pain and pleasure, a system evolved to keep them doing what's good for them, and stops them from what's not. In the wild, that squeak might have seen off possible danger; in domesticity, it made us (vexing creatures!) leave her in peace, to continue her sleep, which is good for her.
Liking pleasure, and disliking pain, are not cognitive; but overcoming this inclination or disinclination is, the capacity for which is what we have come to accept, in one form or another, as a chief definition of humanity, I mean morality: the sacrifice of some personal for some impersonal benefit.
Some people feel morality as an impulse; others have to consciously make moral choices; some reject morality altogether, and are themselves rejected by society. The relationship between the self and morality is apparently not consistent.
I am reminded of the Master Patterner recalling what Ged had said to him, that "he [Ged] had spent a lifetime learning to choose to do what he had no choice but to do."
Ursula Le Guin's fiction was very influenced by Daoism; Ged's philosophy is based on the Daoist tenet of 無為 (wu wei), which is without action, without will, without striving, without choosing. That is not to say that man should not act, or exert his will, or strive, or choose. Rather, Daoist metaphysics recognizes that the cosmos already works harmoniously according to its own laws: that there exists a comprehensive, essential, fundamental Way of things, 道 (Dao), that dictates the must-be-done which, by doing according, man does rightly. The key to doing rightly, then, is to perceive 道, and to align one's exertions accordingly.
Ged has achieved what Zhuang Zi calls 明 (ming), clear seeing, or enlightenment; he perceives what has to be done, and in completely perceiving, wants to do it. So that there is no unprofitable paradox in his "choosing to do what he had no choice but to do," I have interpreted "choosing" as wanting, desiring; and that in choosing where there is no choice, his personal inclinations are aligned with the impersonal what-should-be, what-must-be.
When animals act according to pain or pleasure, or expectation thereof (fear or hope), they act according to the needs of survival; they are inclined to do what must be done anyway. (Survival is the nature of things, simply because without survival, there would be no existence for there to be a nature of —one of the rare instances of circular reasoning that, I think, is valid). Pain and pleasure are, almost undisputably, the result of physical evolution, the adaptation to the environment, —in other words, alignment with necessity. So, returning to my hamster: it might be argued that she acts, when annoyed, according to what-must-be-done, or 道; and 道 is in the dictates of her physical nature, her genes.
We have never observed animals doing what is not in their nature (I suppose contracting Sartre's existence precedes essence). They do nothing that is not wholly practical to their well-being, whether as individuals or as groups. We could argue that animals have achieved 明 (indeed as Le Guin does, in her Earthsea series).
Now, when a mother wren places herself between the cat and her babes, we see the action of selfish genes, driving the wren's instincts, to prioritize the future over the present. However, when we see a mother throwing herself between an on-coming bus and her baby in the pram, we see love, nobility, a moral action. Only in metaphor is the wren noble; we think, we know, that animals know nothing of the higher feelings, only brute practicality. Yet, in the accounts of Daoism, might we not see these higher, human feelings as a dim apprehension of 道? That what we think of as morality, that human achievement above base instinct, is but that first step towards true achievement. It is not a coincidence that people blest with "moral instinct are those whom we esteem the most: moral actions are to them unaffected and unforced, freely and thoughtlessly and happily done.
In this sense we are most of us less than beasts, who need not agonize over doing what they must do; it is wholly in their nature to do what their nature, 道, dictates. Our selfhood, and our reluctance to relinquish it, is our flaw. It seems perverse to exalt ourselves by our flaws.
But we are not less than animals, because we might argue that what we must do is more than what animals must do; there is more to achieve; Man's works, his aspirations and so failures, are more complex, more varied, wider in range and greater in depth, than those of animals, for his concept of "survival" is more than merely physical.
Accordingly, a man's relationship between his self and others of his race are more subtle, needs to be: but, like I said before, the relation between selfhood and selflessness is not consistent throughout the human race. There are some who are merely "good" or "bad," most who are indifferent, and the one or two who are monumentally "noble" or "evil." The truly good are only those in whom we believe goodness to be merely an instinct. However, if:
1) as Blanche said in A Streetcar Named Desire, that although "we are a long way from being made in God's image... there has been some progress since then... In some kinds of people some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning"; and if:
2) continuing with the Christian theme, the object of progress is I think what Milton calls "filial freedom"; freedom in freely obeying, "for what obeys / Reason is free; and Reason [God] made right"; and if:
3) we would see the analogy between that freedom in obeying Reason and 明, and the meaningfulness of the phrase "moral instinct," and if:
4) we accept instinct as stemming from the physical history and nature of organisms,
then we could accept that the true fulfilment of morality is in the redundancy of it; —when it becomes our nature to choose what we must do in order to survive; when morality, with all its connotations of deliberateness, of painful decision, becomes easy instinct, becomes 無為; when we become human brutes. We could also then accept that all the agony, which the finer of us feel in the slowness of the our progress, is in fact quite senseless; in the true spirit of 無為, we might see that it is matter of time, working through the necessities of evolution, before we reach our goal of perfecting the human race; unless that agony, in furor profetico, leaves for posterity that which would shape again its social, spiritual and ideological destiny.
All this I saw in my hamster. What more could you ask from a pet?
