Following is just a collection of (somewhat) related ideas, more like questions really, begun as a planned talk that was uncompleted for the New England Seminar on Bowen Theory’s Societal conference, 10/02/15. Thank you for any ideas, objections, or questions!
I got started by an interest in Pope Frances and the statements by many that what he has been saying on climate change may have a bigger impact than the statements of scientists. I am interested in his leadership, including his efforts to defuse polarizations, and his emphasis on accepting our differences across nations and cultures.
After listening to his speeches and reading transcripts of them, and learning of their positive effects, I started to wonder whether humans may eventually eliminate both poverty and harm to the environment through a combination of 1) the function of the emotional system and 2) leadership from individuals at relatively higher levels of differentiation of self, as the pope seems to have.
I believe that it is likely that humans will eliminate poverty and environmental degradation long before we can significantly take on the problem of lack of differentiation of self—that is based in the very variation that has allowed a leader like the pope to emerge! Though I don’t have any information about his siblings, I think it is likely that there is discernible variation in differentiation of self within his sibling group.
The pope guides himself according to his faith, and I think it is hard to know what different people experience as faith. My husband (more on him later) reminded me that Tolstoy was raised as an Orthodox Christian, became an atheist, and later practiced as an Orthodox Christian.
The first day that I brought my five-year-old for some basic religious education to the Leverett Congregational church, I was welcomed by a couple who said they had been attending for 30 years, and added: “pretty good for a couple of atheists.” As it turned out, I was the first person in the Leverett church, going back to the 1770s, to join the church without stating that I believed in God, or in Jesus as the son of God.
I have not kept up with those efforts to explore and develop Bowen’s ideas about the function of religion and would be interested to learn more.
In my own family, I can see positive functions of religion. My brother, who lives in Yorktown, VA, attends an evangelical church with his wife and children. His politics and interests in evolution and science are probably not the norm at the church. But he has found religion to be an additional way to reflect, to increase self awareness, and self regulation. After our father died in 2011, he got involved with a young teacher at the school where he was teaching. He soon ended it, but it was a mess. The school wanted to fire the young teacher, but he refused, and instead resigned. He meets with a small group from his church which he credits with helping him stay on track as a husband and father.
My husband found his way to a wide network of extended family going back to village life in Lebanon where his grandparents were peasants. He loves the religious icons and ceremony of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and he also attends a Catholic church at times. He was raised Catholic and rejected it, but he finds comfort and beauty there now. As I observe him, it seems to me that he finds some of the religious practice and prayer a way toward greater responsibility for the groups he is part of, as well as a lessening of inner conflict.
Like many people, I have been curious about the studies that show that attending religious services has a positive effect on health. I have read that both prayer and meditation contribute to feelings of compassion toward others, which it seems would be linked to feeling less isolated. I’m curious whether Steve Cole, speaker at Symposium this year, has any data on religious participation related to the reduction in perceptions of isolation, that have the negative health results he has documented.
I have also been curious about the relationship of religion to the emotional system. Perhaps religions emphasize the higher emotions? The ones that lead to behaviors that benefit the group as a whole, like compassion, humility, a sense of awe? The early anthropologists described religious practice in traditional societies as the human’s efforts to be in harmony with the universe, or with Nature. Does religion have a function toward that harmony, that science, at least at this time, does not have? In the future, I expect that the experiences of religion, like compassion, humility, and worship, will be studied more fully in science and be a part of science, just as the emotions including love have begun to be part of scientific study.
That’s all that I have, but for those interested, I copied a few statements by the pope, especially the ones that caused me to ask, where is he coming from when he says that? What is guiding him? There are also some passages from William James that he quotes at the end of the section:
“I ask you all, please, to pray for me, and if there are among you any who do not believe or cannot pray, I ask you please to send good wishes my way.”
I am most grateful for your invitation to address this Joint Session of Congress in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” I would like to think that the reason for this is that I too am a son of this great continent, from which we have all received so much and toward which we share a common responsibility.
Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility.
Yours is a work which makes me reflect in two ways on the figure of Moses. On the one hand, the patriarch and lawgiver of the people of Israel symbolizes the need of peoples to keep alive their sense of unity by means of just legislation. On the other, the figure of Moses leads us directly to God and thus to the transcendent dignity of the human being. Moses provides us with a good synthesis of your work: you are asked to protect, by means of the law, the image and likeness fashioned by God on every human face.
I also want to dialogue with all those young people who are working to realize their great and noble aspirations, who are not led astray by facile proposals, and who face difficult situations, often as a result of immaturity on the part of many adults.
We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind
But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners. The contemporary world, with its open wounds which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it into these two camps. We know that in the attempt to be freed of the enemy without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place. That is something which you, as a people, reject.
Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments, and thus promoting the well-being of individuals and of peoples. We must move forward together, as one, in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.
The challenges facing us today call for a renewal of that spirit of cooperation, which has accomplished so much good throughout the history of the United States. The complexity, the gravity and the urgency of these challenges demand that we pool our resources and talents, and resolve to support one another, with respect for our differences and our convictions of conscience.
In this land, the various religious denominations have greatly contributed to building and strengthening society. It is important that today, as in the past, the voice of faith continue to be heard, for it is a voice of fraternity and love, which tries to bring out the best in each person and in each society. Such cooperation is a powerful resource in the battle to eliminate new global forms of slavery, born of grave injustices which can be overcome only through new policies and new forms of social consensus.
Here I think of the political history of the United States, where democracy is deeply rooted in the mind of the American people. All political activity must serve and promote the good of the human person and be based on respect for his or her dignity. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776). If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance. Politics is, instead, an expression of our compelling need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community which sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests, its social life. I do not underestimate the difficulty that this involves, but I encourage you in this effort.
Let us remember the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Mt 7:12).
This Rule points us in a clear direction. Let us treat others with the same passion and compassion with which we want to be treated. Let us seek for others the same possibilities that we seek for ourselves. Let us help others to grow, as we would like to be helped ourselves. In a word, if we want security, let us give security; if we want life, let us give life; if we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities. The yardstick we use for others will be the yardstick which time will use for us. The Golden Rule also reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development.
It goes without saying that part of this great effort is the creation and distribution of wealth. The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of the spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive and sustainable. “Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the area in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good” (Laudato Si’, 129). This common good also includes the earth, a central theme of the encyclical which I recently wrote in order to “enter into dialogue with all people about our common home” (ibid., 3). “We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all” (ibid., 14).
In Laudato Si’, I call for a courageous and responsible effort to “redirect our steps” (ibid., 61), and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity. I am convinced that we can make a difference and I have no doubt that the United States – and this Congress – have an important role to play. Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a “culture of care” (ibid., 231) and “an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature” (ibid., 139). “We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology” (ibid., 112); “to devise intelligent ways of… developing and limiting our power” (ibid., 78); and to put technology “at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral” (ibid., 112). In this regard, I am confident that America’s outstanding academic and research institutions can make a vital contribution in the years ahead.
Francis: Immigrants ‘Will Enrich America and Its Church’
Thomas Merton. He remains a source of spiritual inspiration and a guide for many people. . . Merton was above all a man of prayer, a thinker who challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizons for souls and for the Church. He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions.
How essential the family has been to the building of this country! And how worthy it remains of our support and encouragement! . . . I can only reiterate the importance and, above all, the richness and the beauty of family life.
In particular, I would like to call attention to those family members who are the most vulnerable, the young. For many of them, a future filled with countless possibilities beckons, yet so many others seem disoriented and aimless, trapped in a hopeless maze of violence, abuse and despair. Their problems are our problems. We cannot avoid them. We need to face them together, to talk about them and to seek effective solutions rather than getting bogged down in discussions. At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family.
“They are cast off by society, forced to live off what is discarded and suffer unjustly from the consequences of abuse of the environment,” Francis said. “These phenomena are part of today’s widespread and quietly growing ‘culture of waste.’ ”
Any harm done to the environment, therefore, is harm done to humanity.
—At the United Nations General Assembly.
From there, the layers of political commentary that followed his remarks in Washington earlier in the week seemed to fall away, leaving the day one of pure emotion for Francis and those wishing to be near him.
“A hope which liberates us from the forces pushing us to isolation and lack of concern for the lives of others, for the life of our city,” Francis said. “A hope which frees us from empty connections, from abstract analyses or sensationalistic routines. A hope which is unafraid of involvement, which acts as a leaven wherever we happen to live and work. A hope which makes us see, even in the midst of smog, the presence of God as he continues to walk the streets of our city.”
All these achievements are lights which help to dispel the darkness of the disorder caused by unrestrained ambitions and collective forms of selfishness.
First, it must be stated that a true “right of the environment” does exist, for two reasons. First, because we human beings are part of the environment. We live in communion with it, since the environment itself entails ethical limits which human activity must acknowledge and respect. Man, for all his remarkable gifts, which “are signs of a uniqueness which transcends the spheres of physics and biology” (Laudato Si’, 81), is at the same time a part of these spheres. He possesses a body shaped by physical, chemical and biological elements, and can only survive and develop if the ecological environment is favourable. Any harm done to the environment, therefore, is harm done to humanity.
Second, because every creature, particularly a living creature, has an intrinsic value, in its existence, its life, its beauty and its interdependence with other creatures. We Christians, together with the other monotheistic religions, believe that the universe is the fruit of a loving decision by the Creator, who permits man respectfully to use creation for the good of his fellow men and for the glory of the Creator; he is not authorised to abuse it, much less to destroy it. In all religions, the environment is a fundamental good (cf. ib
id.).
The misuse and destruction of the environment are also accompanied by a relentless process of exclusion. In effect, a selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged, either because they are differently abled (handicapped), or because they lack adequate information and technical expertise, or are incapable of decisive political action.
Economic and social exclusion is a complete denial of human fraternity and a grave offence against human rights and the environment. The poorest are those who suffer most from such offences, for three serious reasons: they are cast off by society, forced to live off what is discarded and suffer unjustly from the abuse of the environment. They are part of today’s widespread and quietly growing “culture of waste”.
a moral law written into human nature itself
For the danger comes neither from progress nor from science; if these are used well, they can help to solve a great number of the serious problems besetting mankind (Address to the United Nations Organisation, 4 October 1965). Among other things, human genius, well applied, will surely help to meet the grave challenges of ecological deterioration and of exclusion. As Paul VI said: “The real danger comes from man, who has at his disposal ever more powerful instruments that are as well fitted to bring about ruin as they are to achieve lofty conquests” (ibid.).
The common home of all men and women must continue to rise on the foundations of a right understanding of universal fraternity and respect for the sacredness of every human life, of every man and every woman, the poor, the elderly, children, the infirm, the unborn, the unemployed, the abandoned, those considered disposable because they are only considered as part of a statistic. This common house of all men and women must also be built on the understanding of a certain sacredness of created nature.
Such understanding and respect call for a higher degree of wisdom, one which accepts transcendence, rejects the creation of an all-powerful élite, and recognises that the full meaning of individual and collective life is found in selfless service to others and in the sage and respectful use of creation for the common good. To repeat the words of Paul VI, “the edifice of modern civilisation has to be built on spiritual principles, for they are the only ones capable not only of supporting it, but of shedding light on it” (ibid.).
“It does not follow, because our ancestors made so many errors of fact and mixed them with their religion, that we should therefore leave off being religious at all. By being religious we establish ourselves in possession of ultimate reality at the only points at which reality is given us to guard. Our responsible concern is with our private destiny, after all.”
― William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
“This sadness lies at the heart of every merely positivistic, agnostic, or naturalistic scheme of philosophy. Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best with its strange power of living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting, still the evil background is really there to be thought of, and the skull will grin in at the banquet. In the practical life of the individual, we know how his whole gloom or glee about any present fact depends on the remoter schemes and hopes with which it stands related. Its significance and framing give it the chief part of its value. Let it be known to lead nowhere, and however agreeable it may be in its immediacy, its glow and gilding vanish. The old man, sick with an insidious internal disease, may laugh and quaff his wine at first as well as ever, but he knows his fate now, for the doctors have revealed it; and the knowledge knocks the satisfaction out of all these functions. They are partners of death and the worm is their brother, and they turn to a mere flatness.”
― William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
“To suggest personal will and effort to one all sicklied o’er with the sense of irremediable impotence is to suggest the most impossible of things. What he craves is to be consoled in his very powerlessness, to feel that the spirit of the universe recognizes and secures him, all decaying and failing as he is.”
― William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
“Were one asked to characterize the life of religion in the broadest and most general terms possible, one might say that it consists of the belief that there is an unseen order, and our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.”
― William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
Laurie, there is a lot to think about here. I’ll put in a couple of associations I have related to the function of religion. I’m thinking you probably/may know about David Sloan Wilson’s book, Darwin’s Cathedral. I haven’t read it, but I have it on my list. As I understand it, he analyzes religious affiliation in terms of multilevel selection theory that the function of religion is to increase the fitness of the group. I think seeing religion as enhancing fitness is what Jack Calhoun might have had in mind when at the end of his life he called for a few hardy souls to lose their mind for several years to join him in the project of collecting and synthesizing all the world’s knowledge about the environment into a novella length book that an individual could wrap their mind around. This then would serve as the basis for a religious icon that mankind would be drawn to follow, and as it would be based on knowledge and science, the religious impulse would lead the population in the direction of survival via a correct relationship with nature. Calhoun said this, told to the best of my recollection and understanding, at a symposium one year.
Pope Frances seems almost miraculously the right leader for both the Catholic Church and the world. He opened the dialogue stating “I am a sinner,” and has consistently spoken to our common humanity, our common destiny as creatures of the earth, while avoiding the pitfalls of the controversial issues in the church. Influenced by DS Wilson’s book, I am thinking of religion as meeting two fundamental human needs: need for beliefs to guide our lives, and for a sense of community. I am interested in Laura’s remembrance of Calhoun’s project and I see some evidence that this is happening. Gathering of people around climate change and the many other environmental concerns is a religion-like mission, happening in and out of churches.
Your noting that the Pope is linking poverty and environmental degradation is I think at the heart of his leadership. Reminds me of Bowen’s gift for seeing the core issues and tuning out the distracting noise.
in response to Stephanie’s ….”Pope Francis seems almost miraculously the right leader……..” At one point I heard Dr. Bowen talk about how in the context of his disappointment in the level of functioning of most human organizations, he had some admiration for the Catholic Church. The cardinals choose the pope. I imagine they had something to do with Ratzinger’s resignation as well. Given how corrupt the church seems to have been in recent years around priests and sexual abuse of children, I’ve wondered about what it was that Bowen meant. Pope Francis seems to be the real deal. Something worked right. I hope he has a long run – he himself predicted he would not, I think I remember.
I can’t figure out what level of differentiation Pope Francis is.
I just like some of the things he says.
“Who am I to judge?”
“if you don’t pray, send your best wishes my way.”
The questions Laurie raises, as I hear it is, can religions or spiritual ideas, offer a guidance that enables the emotional system to promote survival through cooperation rather that survival through regression?
Bowen was clear to me in his 9th concept that one has to look at the functional facts of what people do and not accept explanations as in the reasons people ride bikes across the US is… all one can verify is that at this time of life a number of people from various families acted in this or that way.
The people uses language to appeal to the emotional system, to perhaps take actions that work towards greater cooperation. How will his words function? What can we use to measure if these words have more that a temporary impact? What changes will we consider as evidence that the emotional system is responding to this higher call and what the impact might be on the deepest part of the emotional system.
If there is great danger some will sacrifice to help others. What changes might be associated with the Pope’s message?
“Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments, and thus promoting the well-being of individuals and of peoples. We must move forward together, as one, in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.
Although I read this in October, I am reading it anew in Feb. Thank you so much for presenting this. I have often thought of the Pope and the one world leader who is attractive to all, and can speak about human weaknesses without criticism or blame. There is something very exciting about listening to him, as he makes it so clear what differentiation is.
I think if he can stay in meaningful contact with enough world leaders, he will have an influence on them over time. I am thinking of his role in the US decision to normalize relations with Cuba.