Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA06201 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 6 Dec 2000 16:23:25 GMT Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745B75@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: eeing how the spirit moves us Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 16:21:03 -0000 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
An interesting idea.
Mother Theresa fills me with cynicism not elevation. Missionaries have only
one goal to convert people to their faith, in this case targetting the most
vulnerable people in society. Utterly ruthless, and utterly lacking true
compassion. After all what did she do to change the socio-political
landscape of India? Nothing. And why- because to do so would have
undermined her true aim, which was conversion of the vulnerable. Nothing
elevating about that in my book. There was a clear cultural bias in the
study (clearly 'america's funniest home videos' was seen as the most immoral
programme to show to the other group).
It is interesting however, that the categorisations of the emotions, as they
are currently accepted, do tend to offer more 'downers' than 'uppers'.
Isn't it true also that disgust is housed in a very specific part of the
brain? Of course, the interesting part is how social/cultural aspects can
result in triggering disgust (or other emotions for that matter).
Note how most leading figures in religious movements engage in particular
kinds of acts perhaps to engender this emotional response of elevation? I'm
really not sure about this though. After all what about people like Hitler?
How did he get millions to follow him, since we all know he was "evil"?
Still, more weeds in the pond to rake through...
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Wade T.Smith
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Wednesday, December 6, 2000 2:30 pm
> To: skeptic@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu; memetics list
> Subject: Fwd: eeing how the spirit moves us
>
> Seeing how the spirit moves us
>
> By Gareth Cook, Globe Staff, 12/6/2000
>
> Show people scenes from the life of Mother Teresa, laboring in the filth
> of Calcutta, and they will get a feeling often described by prophets and
> poets, but not recognized by science.
>
> Even a glimpse of human kindness - a hand placed on a leper's forehead,
> or a newborn, once fragile and abandoned, being lifted from its crib -
> can be enough to evoke what University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan
> Haidt calls ''elevation.'' A branch of the vagus nerve is activated, he
> said, giving the chest a ''sensation of expansion,'' provoking chills,
> causing the tear ducts to well up, and, in some cases, clenching the
> throat.
>
> Haidt has embarked on a quest to prove that elevation deserves
> recognition as a distinct emotion, like anger, with its own constellation
> of physical symptoms.
>
> ''People of many cultures imagine a ladder with God above and the devil
> below. When we see someone move down, we feel disgust,'' said Haidt.
> ''But what if we see someone move up?''
>
> Modern psychology has been rediscovering emotion, as brain imaging
> improves dramatically and researchers share a sense of embarrassment
> that, to date, they have agreed on only six emotions - happiness,
> sadness, surprise, fear, disgust, and anger - and that most of them are
> downers. Amusement and relief are now in their sights, but the greatest
> feeling, love, is still too elusive to be defined by sudden physiological
> changes.
>
> Haidt's initial research is especially interesting, researchers say,
> because there are hints that elevation functions as a kind of moral
> inspiration, motivating people to be more social and more giving. And if
> scientists can identify the emotional roots of charity, and the
> conditions that foster them, that would bring closer the dream of
> religious visionaries like Mother Teresa: a society in which the season
> of giving lasts all year.
>
> ''In the last 30 years, we've come to see emotions as important for
> survival, for making good decisions. What Haidt is doing is showing that
> they also have these moral functions,'' said Dacher Keltner, an associate
> professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley who
> is studying the feeling of awe. ''To the extent that you can find a state
> that makes people adhere to moral principles, that suggests you can
> improve things.''
>
> >From the beginning, the inspiring behavior of some people has posed what
> evolutionary theorists call ''the problem of altruism'' - that is, why
> does charity exist at all? In the Darwinian crucible where only the
> fittest survive, one would expect that creatures who give away food would
> quickly go extinct. Any altruistic tendencies should have disappeared,
> washed away in the acid bath of competition.
>
> Yet, this theory can be difficult to reconcile with the fact that, for
> example, Americans gave $190 billion to charity last year, according to
> Giving USA, an annual philanthropy report.
>
> The solution, scientists think, lies in the insight that humans, like
> chimpanzees or dolphins, are social animals that communicate and
> cooperate to survive in a hostile environment. Even the simple innovation
> of having someone keep watch for threats while others sleep would bring
> huge evolutionary advantages.
>
> Thus, they theorize, a system of ''reciprocal altruism,'' in which
> members of a group trade favors over time, could take hold.
>
> In a seminal paper nearly three decades ago, Robert Trivers explained how
> this system would create the foundations of morality, in which creatures
> commit acts that will bolster the group's survival, and even punish those
> who break the rules and threaten stability. As animals adapted to
> function in the complex new social order, they would develop a capacity
> for sympathy and trust.
>
> ''We have built up our morality on a firm foundation that you can see in
> the animal world,'' said Frans de Waal, author of ''Good Natured: The
> Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals.'' He has shown
> that chimpanzees share, mediate, console, and reconcile after conflict.
> ''We have a lot of psychological continuity with chimpanzees,'' he said.
> Still, de Waal said, humans are unique in that they will help strangers.
>
> Israeli biologist Amotz Zahavi argues that charity is just a form of
> ''showing off,'' of gaining social status, or impressing potential mates.
> Even anonymous donors, he said, could be trying to impress their spouses,
> or secretly hoping that their identity gets out.
>
> Others theorize that as humans have developed the ability to reason
> abstractly, they have also broadened their notion of who belongs to their
> tribe, so that they can feel kinship with, and thus sympathy for, someone
> they have never met.
>
> The answer has not been settled, but, still, biologists are increasingly
> convinced that the roots of goodness run deep. Morality, they say, is not
> solely a human creation, invented by philosophers and religious leaders
> to tame a sinning beast, but part of our core being, driven by instinct
> and emotion.
>
> To study elevation, Haidt and University of Virginia student Anita Tam
> divided subjects into two groups. One was shown a television documentary
> on Mother Teresa, and, to distinguish elevation from happiness, the other
> group was shown ''America's Funniest Home Videos.''
>
> The results, which have not yet been published, showed that viewers
> reported different physical responses, and that the comedy viewers were
> more likely to be focused on themselves, while the Teresa viewers were
> more likely to feel like doing ''prosocial'' activities such as
> volunteering.
>
> The next step, which Haidt has begun, will be to describe more precisely
> what the physical elevation response is, in the laboratory, and then
> demonstrate that it is distinctive and reproducible.
>
> Also crucial will be showing that the results hold in different cultures,
> said Paul Ekman, who established the list of six basic emotions that have
> been widely accepted as benchmarks. Ekman is a professor of psychology at
> the University of California Medical School in San Francisco.
>
> For a response to qualify as an emotion, researchers will need to show
> that it is an immediate reaction to a change in the environment - not a
> broader ''sentiment,'' like love - and that, while activated, it causes a
> person to think differently.
>
> Ekman and others speculated that elevation might be a kind of awe, which
> has become a favored topic of research among emotion specialists. Just as
> the dizzying, rough-hewn walls of the Grand Canyon can inspire a
> transforming feeling of being in the presence of something greater, so
> can acts of what Haidt calls ''moral beauty.''
>
> Haidt said that he became interested in elevation after he studied what
> he considers its opposite - the kind of ''social disgust'' one feels at
> hearing that someone has, for example, sold a child. Just as that feeling
> is nature's warning of someone to avoid, Haidt reasons, elevation could
> be a signal that you are near someone that would be good to cooperate
> with.
>
> And if these feelings are, as Haidt thinks, an essential part of us, then
> the theory would help explain how moral leaders such as Jesus or Buddha
> or Mohammed could have such a foundation-shaking influence on so many.
>
> It could also explain why nonviolent protest, of the kind championed by
> Gandhi or Martin Luther King, can have such power. Righteousness, they
> argue, would by its example go straight to a person's heart, literally
> changing it.
>
> This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 12/6/2000. © Copyright
> 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.
>
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