Peter Rollins's Blog, page 49

Corrymeela, Northern Ireland

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Please Give Me Freedom From The Pursuit of Happiness

Politically speaking we might say that the goal we fight for is a world in which people are free to pursue their highest ambition. In practice this involves many difficult and complex debates concerning the freedoms of groups relative to the freedom of individuals as well as a host of practical limitations and cultural realities that make such a goal so elusive and difficult. However the type of freedom that I am interested in is not the freedom to pursue your highest ambition but rather the freedom from the pursuit of your highest ambition.

Something that I am exploring at the moment in my writing is the way that the pursuit of that thing which we believe will satisfy our soul is deeply destructive. It is a common belief that society will function best when its population is able to pursue what they desire. A pursuit that is constrained in only minimal ways (protecting others, making sure that contracts are honored etc.). The idea is that a happy society is one in which we have the ability, hypothetically at least, to gain the fame, money, relationship, creative venture, lover etc. that we seek. If these dreams are not even unlikely but practically impossible to achieve then, whether we realize it or not, we effectively live in a type of oppressive, totalitarian society that will lead to nothing but a discontented, depressed and angry population.

However the problem is that the drive to achieve what we believe will make us whole and complete is not, as most think, some self-interested, selfish act that can lead to happiness. If anything it manifests itself as a profoundly self-destructive, selfless venture not unlike the Zombie's pursuit of brains. Take the example of someone who is seeking fame and recognition above all else. The problem is that they allow everything else to suffer. One can see the negative effect of this drive in the broken relationships, the stress and the ill-health that results from the insatiable pursuit. If the person were to sit down and do a cost/benefit analysis of their drive in a dispassionate utilitarian manner they would likely see that their obsession is not enhancing their life but actually destroying it. Indeed often people who are driven to pursue something like wealth, money or fame are painfully aware of this reality. At certain points they will even, over a drink, confess that their desire is not liberating but rather oppressive and that they would like to be free of it so that they might be able to more fully enjoy the relationships, possessions and lifestyle they already have. Hence Freud's fascinating work on the Death Drive and the beyond of the Pleasure Principle (ideas that explain how we actually act in non-utilitarian ways, seeking something that is damaging to our self-interests – a subject I want to take up in future books).

What we see here is the way that the freedom to pursue our highest ambitions is not experienced as a freedom from some oppressive system but is itself often felt to be deeply oppressive. This is something that Mother Teresa noted when she visited the US. During her time she noted a poverty and oppression that hid in the material wealth and political freedom enjoyed here. For such political freedom often leads to a society with greater material wealth and better opportunities for the population. Things that are to be valued highly. However unless we also have the freedom from the pursuit of our highest ambition this political freedom, far from offering us an escape from oppression, can be experienced as one of the most psychologically powerful forms of oppression.

For the first type of oppression is one that is imposed upon us (the inability to pursue our happiness). It is then experienced as an external limit. This means that even if we cannot pursue what we desire we can maintain an inner protest, "I may not be allowed to get what I truly want but I don't accept it". This is somewhat similar to a child who is forced by their parents to go and visit a relative that they don't really like. The child is not given a choice, but is able to internally resist, maintaining a position in which they go to see the relative while imagining the freedom they might have if they were older and didn't have to.

However, in contrast to this, the type of oppression that comes from our ability to pursue what we want does not allow us to maintain this inner protest. For now there is no external constraint being impossed. The message one gets from society is, "there are no limits, go on, pursue whatever you like." The problem here is that we now have no-one to blame for our unhappiness. We cannot say to ourselves, "I would be happy if only this Government was overthrown." We are free to pursue what we want, indeed we are actively encouraged to do so everywhere we turn. Popular films, music and magazines all seem to be telling us the same thing, "Go for it." In this way we discover that the voice which tells us, "just do it," is actually more insidiously oppressive than the voice which says, "you can't do it." For one simple reason, the latter is an external constraint that allows us to maintain a small inner protest while the former gets under our skin. It is a voice that implicitly tells us that we can't blame anyone but ourselves for our enduring lack of fulfillment. It is this that Mother Teresa put her finger on when she saw all the depression and sadness of the developed world, something that she did not experience to the same degree in Calcutta at the time. For her it was more insidious because blatant poverty could be seen and addressed, but this psychological poverty was experienced from "within" the person as a demon dwelling beneath the surface of our skin. It was a poverty that had found a way to hide in the most unlikely of places: in wealth itself.

What if we had sites in our life where we could be free from the pursuit of our highest ambition? Places in our week were we can give up all the things we aim for and just embrace the friends we have, the beauty around us and the little moments of grace that we abide within? This is one of my visions for the reconfigured church – a community that is not a place where we go to pursue some highest pleasure (heaven, ecstatic experience, an escape from our everyday life) but rather the place where we lay all that down and learn how to smile deeply about the here and now.

You Gave Me What I Already Had, and Then You Took It Away

There is a famous set of experiments carried out by the Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov in which he would present some dogs with food while ringing a bell. He showed that over time the dogs began to associate the ringing of the bell with receiving food. The result was that, if the dogs heard the bell, they would begin to salivate. These experiments were of great interest to a number of scientists and philosophers and proved important in the movement known as Behaviorism. Well I recently heard of a fascinating reverse form of this experiment that some professionals use to train dogs, one that might offer us some insight into the nature of human desire.

To understand the training method let us imagine that we have a dog who always runs to the door when the mail arrives and barks incessantly. In a counter-intuitive move the owner actually rewards the behavior. Everyday the owner gives the dog a biscuit and a tummy rub at the very point he runs to the door. After a little time the dog begins to associate the act of running to the door and barking with a reward. Then, one day, the owner stops giving the dog his reward. She simply ignores the mail being delivered. If the association between the act and the reward is strong enough the dog no longer runs to the door.

This approach is effective because of the way that the owner denaturalizes a pre-existing habit and retroactively becomes its cause. The dog in question had an already ingrained habit, one that had become natural for the dog. But the owner now gets the dog to associate the "natural" act (running to the door) with a reward (a biscuit and tummy rub). Eventually the dog associates the behavior with the attention he receives from his owner. The habit is thus invested with a new level of pleasure and the dog experiences the act as something he does for his owner. So when the reward is no longer given the desire to run to the door dissipates.

This little insight into animal psychology can help us glimpse something fundamental about the nature of human relationships. As adults we have all kinds of interests, desires and hobbies. If we meet someone we fall in love with that person will often take pleasure in these things either through direct participation or indirect encouragement. This is a truly wonderful experience because it enables us to experience the things we already enjoy in a fresh and vibrant way. They are no longer simply things we do because we like them but become things we do because we see how they bring pleasure to the one that we love. Perhaps I always liked going for walks by the ocean. But now that I have someone who takes pleasure in me doing that, and who perhaps accompanies me, I appreciate those walks so much more.

It feels like the one we love has given us the gift of the things we already had. As if they were the originators of that which preceded them. For they give us the radiant gift of enjoying what we already liked or, to put it another way, embracing who we already are. What we feel is most within us (our deepest desires) are now experienced as being graciously bestowed upon us.

There is then an inescapable danger connected to love. For if our beloved walks away they end up taking more than any physical possessions. They take away the interests and desires that were once naturally ours. We can see this in the life of someone who loses a person that means everything to them. In the aftermath of that loss the individual struggles to want or desire anything. All the things that used to make their life meaningful are now drained of color and seem meaningless. Not simply those activities that they used to share with their beloved, but also the things that they enjoyed doing before their beloved took centre stage.

Hence the profound danger of love: the one we desire above all else has the power to take away our ability to desire anything at all.

A Little "Thank You" – Free Iphone App

Last year I developed an iphone app called "Insurrection" that contains much of the content of my 2010 Pub Tour. The app includes fourteen videos, nine parables (including one that is illustrated) and the tour EP. Originally it was $4.99 as I tried to cover some of the costs of developing it. But I thought that it was time to give it away as a small thank you to those of you who have been engaging with my work over the past few years on this blog, facebook, twitter and at various events. I really do appreciate the kindness and willingness to wrestle that so many of you have shown.

Some of the material from the "Insurrection" app is explored in my forthcoming Insurrection book. Indeed the song from video seven and the closing liturgy from video thirteen of the app can be found in the book (I recommend looking at those two first if you are stuck for time)

At some point I will need to start charging again (as I want to improve and develop the app a little), but for now, if you would like this little thank you gift you can click here.

 

Claremont Seminary, Claremont CA

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Claremont School of Theology, CA

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Fuller Seminary, Pasadena CA

This is an evening of informal and (hopefully) engaging conversation revolving around some of the theological and philosophical themes I explore in my new book Insurrection.

For more information click here

Fuller Seminary, CA

This is an evening of informal and (hopefully) engaging conversation revolving around some of the theological and philosophical themes I explore in my new book Insurrection.

For more information click here

Another Invitation to Drift – Reflection 5

 

So here is the final audio reflection on How (Not) to Speak of God. As I have mentioned before these have been a little test to gauge interest as I look at creating a podcast channel. As such I invite you to give some critique in the comments section below. It can be anything. But some examples off the top of my head include tips on how to do better recordings, what material you would like me to talk about, what you think of the length, whether the is right (these have been very chilled, perhaps too chilled) etc. etc.

 

You can find the fifth reflection here - "How (Not) to Speak of God" Reflection 5

 

 

An Invitation to Drift – Reflection 4

 

Here is the penultimate audio reflection on How (Not) to Speak of God. Thanks to the help of a friend I should soon have these, and other audio files, on itunes for download. If you have been listening to this little experiment I would be grateful if you offered some critique tomorrow in the comment section, as I am thinking of doing more regular podcasts in the future.

If you haven't been following these reflections you can get the first one by clicking here.

 

The background track is called "Drift" and can be downloaded for free here

 

Click on the link for the fourth reflection "How (Not) to Speak of God" Reflection 4