{"id":17080,"date":"2018-03-15T10:24:30","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T17:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17080"},"modified":"2018-03-15T10:24:30","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T17:24:30","slug":"mysterious-beings-beyond-the-binary-of-logic-and-intuition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/mysterious-beings-beyond-the-binary-of-logic-and-intuition\/","title":{"rendered":"Mysterious Beings: Beyond the binary of logic and intuition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We are a mystery. A beautiful, complicated mystery. Sociologists, psychologists, economists, marketing analysts, politicians, biologists, educators\u2014all seek to understand, interpret, and respond to the nature of humans.[1]<\/a> And yet, we quickly come to a place where a person or group responds \u201cirrationally\u201d or out of character from what we would expect. Journalist and commentator David Brooks, in his book, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement<\/em>,[2]<\/a> suggests that our culture\u2019s focus on the rational, conscious mind of individuals misses the reality that most decisions occur unconsciously in our emotions and our internal desire to bond with other people. He begins, \u201cIf the outer mind hungers for status, money, and applause, the inner mind hungers for harmony and connection\u2014those moments when self-consciousness fades away and a person is lost in a challenge, a cause, the love of another or the love of God.\u201d[3]<\/a> In other words, his thesis, told as a fictional narrative, \u201cemphasizes the role of the inner mind\u2014the unconscious realm of emotions, intuitions, biases, longings, genetic predispositions, character traits, and social norms. This is the realm where character is formed and street smarts grow.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

We are shaped\u2014and we shape\u2014by our relationships with others and the world around us. And while our responses to the world may seem deliberate and logical, a deeper response happens in our gut, where we long for connection and harmony. Our very identities are changed\/transformed by our relationships with others.[5]<\/a> Brooks writes, \u201cThe desire for limerence [the pleasure gained from harmony] is at its most profound during those transcendent moments when people feel themselves fused with nature and with God, when the soul lifts up and a feeling of oneness with the universe pervades their being.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

Brooks\u2019 text provides much to absorb or chew on, including:<\/p>\n

The unconscious mind wants stories[7]<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n

We like arcs; beginnings, middles, ends; model making to explain what\u2019s going on. I \"\"<\/a>thought about this, and how much the stories of Harold and Erica, Rob and Julia, captured my attention and drew me into their (very ordinary, though middle\/upper middle class) lives. I thought about how a narrative-style of preaching resonates more with me than expository preaching. And I thought about how authors like Wendell Berry, Madeline L\u2019Engle, Frederick Buechner, and others, have crossed non-fiction and fiction genres to communicate their ideas, and how it is their stories more than their essays, that stay in my memory. We want examples, the more specific the better. This might be why Bobby Braddock\u2019s country music songs resonate with so many Americans, because they tell detailed stories, \u201cwhere emotion is not something to be endured; it\u2019s something to be embraced:\u201d[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

Kept some letters by his bed<\/em><\/p>\n

Dated nineteen sixty-two<\/em><\/p>\n

He had underlined in red<\/em><\/p>\n

Every single \u201cI love you\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I went to see him just today<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh, but I didn\u2019t see no tears<\/em><\/p>\n

All dressed up to go away<\/em><\/p>\n

First time I\u2019d seen him smile in years<\/em>\u2014He Stopped Loving her Today[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Can we trust ourselves?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

We (at least I) have been taught not to trust our emotions; they are not reliable. As Brooks points out, \u201cresearch pointed out ways our unconscious processes lead us to deviate from the economic model of perfectly rational man.\u201d[10]<\/a> Our emotions and feelings delude us to reality. Which also fits well with the model of the rational (thinking) man and the irrational (emotional) woman model. And yet. Rather than defining a human in these binary terms, we can recognize that God created us much more rounded than one-dimensional. Rather than pitting intuition versus logic, Brooks recognizes that \u201cwe need both systems to thrive\u2014the conscious and unconscious, the rational and the emotional.\u201d[11]<\/a><\/p>\n

We are not as strong as we think we are<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Following with themes I\u2019ve observed from the past two weeks, Brooks\u2019 narrative and reflections bring us back to humility. He writes, \u201cOne of the constant implications of this research is that we have to be completely modest about what we know or can know. We don\u2019t even know ourselves, let alone other people\u2026. We have a constant tendency to be overconfident.\u201d[12]<\/a> The \u201chubris of experts\u201d is a danger, especially for those of us who truly are \u201cexperts\u201d in something (say, a doctor of ministry). While we\u2019ve done the research, studied, written, and experienced, we risk overstepping our self-assurance to a point where we might be wrong, or even convey that delightful knowledge in a way that turns people off. (Here is a dark side of expert knowledge). Brooks challenges, \u201cthe most important thing is to develop an attitude of epistemological humility, an awareness of how little you are likely to know and how little you will understand the things you do know. Much of life is about failure, whether we acknowledge it or not.\u201d[13]<\/a><\/p>\n

What\u2019s missing?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

While I enjoyed\/appreciated the story told by Brooks, and the thesis he built with it, I also missed something in the telling: tradition. It was amusing to follow the entire life cycle of a few people perpetually in present time. But the reality is that we build on the past, on others who came before us, and on the repeated motions of doing what\u2019s been done before (and after) us. We did not get to explore \u201chow traditions preserve the non-rational forms of wisdom that underwrite family meals, relational loyalty, care for the next generation, love for the old, and skilled and vocational practice.\u201d[14]<\/a> This absence of social tradition misses out on the relational depth of the Trinity and the richness of a true \u201csocial animal.\u201d<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> See Brooks\u2019 TED Talk<\/a>, \u201cFor centuries we\u2019ve inherited a view of human nature based on the notion that we\u2019re divided selves, that reason is separated from the emotions, and that society progresses to the extant that reason can suppress the passions. And it\u2019s led to a view of human nature that we\u2019re rational individuals that respond in straightforward ways to incentives.\u201d<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> David Brooks, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement<\/em> (New York: Random House, 2011).<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., ix.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., viii.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Ibid., 14.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid., 209.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Ibid., 378.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Malcom Gladwell, \u201cThe King of Tears<\/a>\u201d Revisionist History<\/em> podcast, season 2, episode 6, July 19, 2017.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> \u201cWhy did he finally turn his back on his great love? Because he\u2019s dead. Only death could end his love\u201d for his wife who\u2019d died years before.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Brooks, 379.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> Ibid., 380.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> Ibid, 381.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> Ibid., 382.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/a> Glasman, Maurice. “How to be a Better Person.”\u00a0New Statesman<\/em>\u00a0140, no. 5057 (Jun 13, 2011): 61-62<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are a mystery. A beautiful, complicated mystery. Sociologists, psychologists, economists, marketing analysts, politicians, biologists, educators\u2014all seek to understand, interpret, and respond to the nature of humans.[1] And yet, we quickly come to a place where a person or group responds \u201cirrationally\u201d or out of character from what we would expect. Journalist and commentator David […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[811,1195,167,1194,1197,1193,1022,1196],"class_list":["post-17080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-berry","tag-bobby-braddock","tag-brooks","tag-buechner","tag-country-music","tag-gladwell","tag-lengle","tag-storytelling","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17081,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17080\/revisions\/17081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}