Kim's view on spirituality and a reply by Piet

[Piet]

From: Kim Harthoorn
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2015 2:13 PM
To: Piet Groot
Subject: Re: Nameless Discussion Club - Restarting Monday 28 Sept.


Hi Piet ! I hope your summer was good. I'm glad to know that the group is starting again ! I wish I could be there, but I'm stuck in grey rainy Paris...

I think that the way you chose to deal with the spirituality problem is a very clever one. Seen from a behavior perspective, the problem is easier to analyze.

Here are some thoughts about it. Feel free to share them with the group, or not (what you think is most appropriate).

The lack of spirituality and/or focus on the "soul", whatever that may be, seems linked to the ambient cynism. To me, irony is the mode in which we live in the social space. We cannot trust the others, we always take a distance and deconstruct what they are saying, we don't take them seriously, we put them off if they try to talk to us outside the regular social act (shops, cafés, etc). We always suspect others of bad intentions (especially women, look at the Grimm or Perrault fairy tales - don't trust the bad wolf, dont trust the witch, etc), we distrust others.

Hence, a general lack of sincerity has dominion over the social climate. Nobody talks about what's really on their mind - but I guess we are all the same, and 75% of the time, we think about food and sex. The rest of the time, "what happens after I die ?" and "why is the world like this ?", or any other commonsense question in front of the ungraspable complexity of the world, are obsessing us. But there is an "omerta" about it in our everyday life. (Omerta is a corsican word for something nobody is allowed to talk about - it's a law of silence).


It also has to do with what people expect of us. We are expected to behave a certain way, because we were "predicted" by marketing studies and commonsense caracterology. It is a very capitalist way of thinking : things must be predictable, one can bet on this or that reaction, and act in consequence, even before it actually happens. That means, we are expected to react a certain way, and to be predictable.

These expectations weigh on us. We want to be accepted, so we want to make the other happy, so we want to meet expectations. I guess this is how our behavior and reactions are moulded by society. But we are free to do otherwise, and to act unexpectedly. Like Salvador Dali, our originality or craziness may later become accepted.

The "New sincerity" current in literature (of which I know little, but it seems interesting) attempts to reconnect with what irony mocked and reduced to stupid considerations - feelings, among them spiritual or irrational ones.

To me, bringing spirituality back in our society means talking about it in the first place. Let's make it a subject by bringing it in conversations, even when it may be unexpected. That could be an exercise : talk to someone about spirituality, and have their feeling about it. Then, in another session, we could confront the different visions of spirituality and see if talking about it a bit more makes it less of an omerta.

I dont know if all this is useful or not, but thanks for reading it if you made it this far. Good luck for the restart of uni and let me know what you think of all this !

Greetings from the city of light

Kim



From: Piet Groot
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2015 16:00 PM
To: Kim Harthoorn
Subject: Re: Nameless Discussion Club - Restarting Monday 28 Sept.


Heya Kim! How nice to hear from you. Too bad you’re stuck in that awful Paris, but don’t worry: it’s grey an rainy here as well!

Thank you for such an elaborate answer. Of course your input will be shared in the group, since every well-meant contribution is still very welcome; and, since you’re one of the founding members of our club, there will always be a place for your thoughts.

As for my personal thougths on your ideas, I think the following:

First, you make a point about cynism, irony, and a natural tendency to distrust others. First of all, I’d like to say that I don’t think it bad that certain norms exist about how to behave – in fact, I don’t think a society without norms would be possible. Norms itself aren’t bad, I think, they’re just guidelines for people on how to behave in public, and also a guide to interpret other people’s behaviour. One norm could be that people should wear clothing in public, as is in fact the case. Why does such a norm exist? Is it valid? Should we live by this norm or not? – these are all valid questions that should be asked from time to time, and I think some norms can become outdated or useless. Therefore, I think it is good to be critical about the norms that exist – however, I don’t think norms in itself are bad (one norm could after all be “take each other seriously,” and what can be bad about that?).

Starting from this, I move on to your point. You say that people generally distrust each other, are cynical, and look at the social space with irony. How come this to be the case then? It could be that people are born that way, in which case we cannot do anyting about it; or it could be the case that people learn to live that way, in which case we might be able to educate people to think differently. I’d like to think that it’s the second case that’s true, and that society is the result of learnt social processes, like norms. I agree with you that a lot of distrust has crept into our lives, and that this distrust has in fact become the norm in many situations. I immediately think about the mutual distrust between people and institutions, and about the loads of paperwork that has become necessary these days just to check on everyone’s behaviour. This form of distrust in society, I believe, is nasty and costly, and should be immediately abolished. And for sure, many people have unknowingly internalized this distrust as a norm, so that they are now unaware that things could be (and have been) different. However, I think that this mainly applies to interactions between individuals and systems, or between individuals and groups. When it comes to personal interaction between individuals, even if they are strangers to each other, I personally don’t see the kind of distrust and irony you were talking about – but maybe that’s just me.

Another interesting thought, one that I hadn’t thought of before, is this. Besides there being bad norms, it might also be the case that deviation from the norm iself has become less accepted (so that deviation is now more difficult to do). In other words: society has become more stringent about adhering to the existing norms. This may explain your notion about the heavy weight of expectations to behave in a certain way. Perhaps you’ve got a good point here, in that society nowadays is less accepting of deviant behaviour, and that, as a result, people are much more concerned about living up to society’s expectations.

This is all very interesting, and it’s given me food for thought. I don’t really see how this story of mine connects to spirituality though.. perhaps I’ve diverted the topic away from spirituality a bit. However, I am still curious about your thoughts on this.

Kindly,

Piet