Personal Zeitgeist

On an internet forum I participate in someone started a thread called “personal zeitgeist.” She asked,

What do you think contributed to your own current set of intuitions, worldview, etc.? For example: 


- Noteworthy historical events that really made an impression during a formative period in your thinking 

- Pop culture of the time 

- Personal experiences 

- Geographic region you were born in/local culture/travel, etc. 

- Personal values, as in it was part of your nature to value critical thinking, emotions, religious beliefs, etc.

I found it quite an amazing process to write a list in response. In We Are all Innocent by Reason of Insanity I talk about what I call My Story, and how we all write narratives that define our lives. The beliefs and assumptions that we form in our early development become filters of our perceptions; these filters construct our mind-generated reality (and it’s the confusion of our mind-generated reality with actual reality that makes us insane). This mind-generated reality is our narrative, our Story. 

In the book I talked about the influence of my family and some of my personality quirks, but her question helped me frame My Story in a broader sense, based on the cultural influences of my time. Here’s what I posted:

1. Childhood in the 60’s. I thought revolution was normal and liberation (of all kinds—race, gender, sexual) should be easy.
2. Travel to the Soviet Union in 1979. I realized my government had been lying to me my entire life (trust me, it was obvious to a 21-year-old that the USSR at that point was not the threat it was made out to be).
3. My parents’ divorce when I was 14. Agony at the time but started me questioning everything. My family had seemed like “Leave it to Beaver” and then it all crumbled overnight, out of the blue. Nothing seemed dependable anymore, but I also became less interested in living like everyone else.
4. Learning, when I was about 12, that Jesus was a special case, the only son of God, and the rest of us are cursed with original sin. This really pissed me off; I couldn’t see any point in Christianity after that.

After I wrote the line, “revolution was normal and liberation (of all kinds—race, gender, sexual) should be easy,” I realized what a defining influence that perspective has had on my life. It has certainly skewed my perception of politics; I’ve been angry and bitter about what I saw as lack of progress because I couldn’t understand why things didn’t change faster/more easily.

What also comes clear to me from this list is a problem with trust—numbers 2, 3, and 4 are all about feeling betrayed, lied to, made a fool of. And the truth is a good portion of my adult life was spent trying not to be a fool—I was a cynical skeptic distrustful of any organization, be it environmental, political, or spiritual. I never wanted to be a member. I didn’t want to get trapped in the conventional world because it was, I believed, built on a pack of lies, so I have lived an alternative lifestyle on the fringes of society. Those perceptions made before I was 21 have had an enduring effect on my life. Now I can see why I’ve never been a “joiner,” the pejorative term I used when someone asked why I wasn’t part of a local environmental group. 

What I learned from this little exercise is that understanding your personal zeitgeist is a good idea—it can help you become more aware of the assumptions and beliefs skewing your perception.

Consequences of no Free Will - Personal

Earlier posts have addressed the question of whether we have free will, which we resoundingly answer in the negative. We have also looked at the societal consequences of life without free will. In this post we’ll look at the personal implications.

What does life look like without free will? The short answer: instead of guilt, blame, and pride we have compassion and gratitude.

When people talk about free will they mean that every sane human being has the ability to make logical and rational choices between good and evil, and that each of us consciously and freely chooses our every thought and deed.

The first consequence of the belief in free will is guilt: we blame anyone who has done something wrong, including ourselves (shame is self-directed blame). To feel justified in assigning guilt or blame, we must believe that a person is intentionally or premeditatedlybehaving in a wrongful manner.

Free Will = Guilt
Cartoon by Arthur Hancock

They are doing wrong on purpose; they could have behaved differently if they had wanted to. They should have known better. Similarly, the only way we can feel shame is if we feel we could have behaved differently than we did. Free will is the cornerstone of this reasoning. When we believe in free will we think that we are the conscious directors of our behavior.

As the cartoon above illustrates, the conscious control component of guilt is easily demonstrated by imagining how we treat animals as opposed to humans for committing the very same acts.

Imagine that someone rounds a corner and walks right into you. Naturally you feel fully justified in blaming them for their inconsiderate carelessness: You shout, “Watch where the hell you’re going!” You then notice that this thoughtless twerp is wearing dark glasses and carrying the white-tipped cane of the blind. Ouch!

Taking Responsibility

Personal responsibility. At first glance the philosophy espoused here seems to be saying no one should be held responsible for their actions. The song


Not Right in My Mind from Time Capsule Video on Vimeo.

seems to provide the excuse for every charge from the most minor bit of rudeness to premeditated murder:  “For every time I’ve scowled at you in traffic, Or honked or cursed or given the high sign, I just want to say I couldn’t help myself, The truth is I was not right in my mind.”

After listening to some of the songs from “We Are ALL Innocent by Reason of Insanity,” a person commented:

 The notion behind not being responsible for any actions, while a bit intriguing, just doesn’t jive with my beliefs; I believe only some of us are truly insane and the rest of us, who occasionally (or some, frequently) behave badly, are somewhere on the continuum of just immoral, all the way down to lazy, when we don’t behave well.

The basic premise of “we are all innocent by reason of insanity” is that everyone is delusional because we all confuse our subjective opinions with objective fact. Our subjective opinions slant our perception of reality. Everything we do and think is rationalized and justified in our minds. This is the path to compassion: we realize that people “behave badly” because they are confused in their thinking.

It’s also a path to personal responsibility. When I realize I’m crazy I realize my thinking is confused, therefore it’s easier to question the thoughts that led me to take an action that turned out badly.