Our Damaging Narratives of Suffering and Purpose

Life comes with many struggles. One of the most powerful methods of coping with struggles we can do nothing about is to tell ourselves a narrative: that this struggle, and the suffering it causes, gives our lives meaning in a way that we may not understand, but is precious and we would not want to live without. This narrative can be powerful enough to keep us hopeful and grateful, even in circumstances which by all logic should drive us to despair.

But there is a danger to it; when a narrative gives us purpose, we tend to cling to it, even when the circumstances that give birth to it no longer apply. When we lived in hunter-gatherer tribes, everyone had to contribute to the survival of the tribe. This was a struggle against nature, an unchangeable fact of the human condition. By working together as a community, we survived, and that gave us purpose. And so the narrative that the struggle to survive is what gives us purpose was born.

However, over the course of history, things have changed. Industry has made food, comforts, and luxuries abundant. Many people struggle much less than ever before. We are coming closer to—and some would argue we have already arrived at—a place where it would be possible to construct an economy so that people do not need to struggle for survival.

Yet many of us still cling to the narrative that without a struggle for survival, there can be no purpose in life. This is, of course, false. When we are not struggling for survival there are plenty of things we can do that give us purpose, like training ourselves in athletic activities, pursuing scientific research, contemplating philosophy, traveling the world, creating art, competing in games, and striving to further improve the world. Being free from the struggle for survival gives us new opportunities for fulfillment and purpose, albeit of a different flavor from the struggle, but without the downsides of the suffering the struggle imposes upon us.

And that is where the problem lies. We could be so much, and have such fulfilling lives by eliminating the struggle for survival. But the narrative that there would be no purpose to life if the struggle did not exist holds us back. People who cling to this narrative not only don’t help, but sometimes they actively sabotage those who work to mitigate the struggle, by spreading the narrative with their voices, or by voting for those who would impose the struggle upon us.

It is one thing when life is hard because there is no other choice. But if we feel that the struggle is unnecessary and is being imposed upon us by others, all purpose that would have been found in it vanishes.

Another narrative we tell ourselves of the meaning in suffering regards the inevitability of death. For our entire history, death by old age has been one of the most significant limitations of the human condition. We have many myths of the fruitlessness of chasing immortality, and have come to terms with it by telling ourselves that without the ticking clock in our lives, we would not be able to enjoy the time we have, because we would never be motivated to do anything.

However, with modern science, we may soon have the ability to reverse aging . . . if the right research gets funded. And something which has always been with us, the briefness of life, may no longer be an unchangeable fact of existence. And thus, the narrative that death gives life meaning, which once gave us solace and helped us accept the inevitable, turns on us and holds us back from reaching for a greater existence.

There are legitimate concerns regarding anti-aging research, such as how would we feed everyone, and worries about exacerbating inequality by creating a new class of rich immortals while everyone else is stuck working for subsistence. But the narrative that the briefness of life is an essential ingredient for meaning in life is not one of them.

In this era of increasing technology and understanding, we must not cling to narratives of purpose in suffering. When there is nothing we can do about it, these narratives can help us cope and find meaning in life. However, we must set aside a corner of our minds for the knowledge that we are empowered to find meaning despite our suffering, not because of it. Then, if it becomes possible to eliminate that suffering, through technology or the economy, we will not be held back from working toward it by narratives of acceptance that we no longer need.

Symbolic Cognition

For years, I’ve been grappling with a question: Why do we expect life to make sense like a story? Why do we try to piece together the events of history and our lives in ways that make narrative sense, rather than logical sense?

I have a hypothesis about this, which I call symbolic cognition. When we see something or think of a concept, we don’t just see it as it is, but also with layers of symbolism. Today, we are going to discuss symbolic cognition through four types of associations: aesthetics and metaphors, memorization, objects with morality, and facts with meaning.

Before we move on, I want to take a moment to talk about the term, symbolic cognition. While contemplating the ways we construct our views of the world through symbols, I searched for an official field of science devoted to it. The closest I could find is a sociological theory called “symbolic interactionism.” However, as far as I could tell, symbolic interactionism is specifically focused on how we view our identities through our relationships with others, whereas symbolic cognition is a framework by which to analyze one of the ways we construct our knowledge and worldviews. If there is an official term for symbolic cognition, or if symbolic interactionism does indeed cover it, I apologize.

Aesthetics and Metaphors

What is it like to hear the murmuring of a crowd? Is it soothing like a babbling brook? Eerie like a flock of squawking crows? Perhaps it’s full of energy, all the people as busy as bees. But a crowd is not bees or crows or a brook, it’s people. The comparisons come to mind because they stimulate our aesthetic senses in similar ways.

When we bite into a strawberry, we sometimes describe it as an explosion of flavor. Why an explosion? It’s because the flavor of a good strawberry can be as intense to our sense of taste as an explosion is to our senses of sight, sound, and touch. Few people are confused when we describe it this way.

When we think and experience concepts and sensations, the information gets all mixed up in our brains. As a result, our entire conceptualization of the world is a web of connections, many of which are not logical, but a this-is-like-that relationship. This is why abstract art and music without lyrics can be so powerful to us. The associations between the colors and the strokes of the brush evoke within us the same emotions as a sunset or a beautiful day in the city. Our unconscious minds make the connections, even if our conscious minds don’t understand it.

Associative Memorization

Our ability to associate logically disconnected concepts gives us an ability for memorization so incredible it might as well be a superpower. Let’s consider the strawberry we mentioned in the previous section. When we bite into the strawberry and experience its explosion of flavor, we see a firetruck drive by, its sirens blaring. This reminds us of a time we were walking by the river and a firetruck drove by, rudely interrupting our peaceful contemplation. Looking at the ripples on the river, we think of mountains being formed and crumbling from the long-term forces of plate tectonics in the Earth’s crust. With this sequence of associations, we can remember the list, “strawberry,” “fire truck,” “river,” “Earth’s crust,” despite the fact that these items have no logical connection with each other.

With practice and creativity, we can remember lists of hundreds or even thousands of items for long periods of time. A great technique for this is to use a memory palace, a place or object we are familiar with enough that we can see it vividly in our mind’s eye. This could be our house or a walk around our neighborhood, or even something like a statue we can hold in our hands. When we want to memorize something, we walk through this palace, associating every item with something we see.

For instance, the hallway leading out of my apartment has five doors. I could mentally walk past each of the doors, assigning something I want to memorize with each of them. Then, when I want to recall that list, I could mentally walk through again, picking up each item from its assigned door. If I want to memorize more than five things, I could open the doors and assign items to the features inside. For another example, my stove has four dials, each with twelve settings: OFF, LO, 1-9, and HI. With these four dials alone, I could memorize 48 things by assigning them to the positions of the dials and associating them with the items on either side.

Associations can also be made by a process called operant conditioning. When we are presented two things together enough times, we tend to associate them with one another. This is most often discussed in the context of creating a physiological reaction by an association, such as a dog salivating to the sound of a bell after being presented with food accompanied by a bell ringing enough times.

Advertisers take advantage of operant conditioning in us. For example, they condition us to see cars as sexy by repeatedly showing us car ads with attractive women in them, and they condition us to see beer as manly by repeatedly showing us ads of beer being enjoyed by strong, bearded men.

Perceiving Objects as Symbols of Morality

Picture the Holy Grail, the Cup of Christ, be it a jeweled golden chalice in your minds eye or a wooden carpenter’s mug. Now push that image aside and imagine you pick up a piece of furniture to find mold growing in a big stain where the carpet meets the wall. Most likely you saw the cup as good and the mold as bad. Not only do we associate concepts with one another, we also associate concepts with value. We feel like objects can be good or bad.

Moral symbolism can be beneficial when it helps us make healthy choices, but it can be bad when we make moral associations with types of people, forming stereotypes. For example, if you perceive smoking as bad, and you see a lot of tattooed people smoking, you might come to see tattooed people as bad by association. You then might go on to see someone with a tattoo as bad, even if you know that this person does not smoke. Moral stereotyping is, unfortunately, something we humans do very naturally, and we must work hard to train ourselves out of it.

Religions utilize moral symbolism with concepts of the sacred and the profane, worthiness and unworthiness. In the best cases, this can lead us toward fulfilling, positive lives, but it can also be used by religious authorities as a means of control.

Perceiving Facts as Symbols of Meaning

How many constellations are there? What message does a rainbow send? What is the meaning of the existence of natural evil? These questions do not have real answers. Constellations are made up. A rainbow is what happens when water droplets refract sunlight like a prism. And natural evil is just things happening naturally that result in people being harmed. There is no meaning inherent in these things, at least not when there isn’t someone causing them on purpose. But out minds imbue them with meaning by treating them as symbols.

There are a few ways in which facts mean something. If someone organizes things, such as words in a book, with the intention of conveying a message, then the objects used for communication carry the meaning of the communication. Also, we can find logical meaning in an object or place by observing and investigating it, which can tell us about what happened there in the past. However, we have a tendency to see symbolic meaning in things when it isn’t there.

For example, the idea that Earth is the center of the universe feels right, and the idea that there is no center of the universe can make us feel sad. The idea that our ancestors were crafted by the loving hands of God can make us feel much happier than the idea that we evolved from common ancestors with monkeys and apes. Yet we have no reason to feel this way. We are what we are regardless of how our ancestors came to be, and the Earth is our home whether it’s at the center of the universe or somewhere else.

This tendency to see facts as symbols with meaning has an upside: it can make stories more compelling. An author, songwriter, or poet can put objects and imagery into their stories with the intent that they be interpreted to have meaning, and that meaning contribute to the themes and aesthetics of the story.

The dark side of this is, unfortunately, very dark. When bad things happen to us, or we are confronted with the human condition, we tend to assume there must be some meaning in our suffering. We convince ourselves that without this suffering, something essential to the enjoyment of life will be lost.

If there truly is nothing we can do about it, this can be comforting and help us cope with our circumstances. However, if things change and it becomes possible to work toward changing our circumstances and getting rid of our suffering, then the story we tell ourselves of the meaning in that suffering can hold us back. We might remain chained to our suffering, even when the opportunity to get rid of it presents itself. Even worse, we might fight against those who try to move forward and make things better.

Final Thoughts

It is likely that we are not blank slates, that we are born with predispositions for certain associations given to us by evolutionary psychology. Things such as character archetypes, hero stories, and dragons, which have been found all over the world in completely disconnected cultures. On top of these templates, we build our models of the world, both symbolic and logical. Being common to all of humanity does not make them objective to the fabric of reality, but they do give us something by which we can all relate to one another.

Symbolic cognition can make it hard to learn true things, because in each instance there may be something we must first unlearn. On the other hand, symbolic cognition gives us the ability to appreciate a rich banquet of stories, arts, music, and philosophy. The symbolic meanings we see in nature may not be real, but properly cultivated, symbolic cognition itself can be a source for the meaning we seek.

It's Time for Stories of Redemption and Reconciliation

In the past five years, we’ve had stories of old former heroes who want to live peaceful quiet lives, but are called back into present-day battles resulting from what they have done in the past. Luke Skywalker and Captain Picard are two examples.

The YouTube channel Wisecrack did an analysis on this post-hero trope. They looked at it through the lens of storytelling as a mirror of society, and proposed that it signified the groaning of the modern world as the deteriorative effects of our modern social narratives begin to show in the daylight.

Right now, it’s become pretty hard not to notice the things that are going bad in society. In addition to climate change, which has been creeping up on us for decades, there has been a pandemic going around for half a year, an economic crisis, and increasing social unrest. And it looks like it’s going to keep getting worse for some time before it starts to get better.

So I think it’s time to start talking about hope, and aiming toward the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s time for redemption and reconciliation stories.

Last year, a fantasy novel came out called Shadow of the Conqueror. The main character is Daylen, an old man who was once an evil dictator who took over the world. He was a despot, a mass-murderer, and a rapist. Through a twist of fate, he finds himself young once again. With deep regret and sorrow for the life he led, he sets out with his curse of youth to do as much good as he can, struggling with the demons of his past life all the while. The implicit question is, can someone who is so evil be redeemed? The book leaves the answer up to the reader, a pivotal choice by the author.

Stories have many interpretive lenses, and Shadow of the Conqueror is no exception. One interpretation of Daylen is a stand-in for Western imperialism. The powers of Europe and its offshoots did a lot of conquering back in the day, a lot of oppression. Daylen reborn represents the white social majority of today, after most of the institutional sources of that oppression have been amended or dismantled, but its systemic aftershocks are still strong.

Daylen is the same person before and after his transformation, whereas white people today are, of course, different people from the conquerors of the past. But in this comparison, Daylen stands for the collective force of imperialism and its legacy, not individual people.

The definition of social majorities and minorities is that injustices happen more often to minorities than majorities. This should not be confused with numerical majorities and minorities, which are a measure of numbers, and which are unrelated. As a social majority citizen, it can be easy to believe that the modern social narratives work and are fair, since we are not the recipients of injustice in most cases.

Many of us have faith in modern social narratives, some willingly, some because we were brought up not knowing any differently. This is compounded for those of us who grew up in the Cold War era, when the fervor for American narratives and paranoia of alternatives was exceptionally high. When we hear of patterns of injustice upon members of groups inside our own society, poking holes in these narratives, we often react in confusion, fear, or in the worst case hostility. Zealous proponents of social justice interpret these reactions as signs of prejudice, which exacerbates the discomfort.

It’s time for a change.

The question of whether Daylen can be redeemed or not is never resolved. However, something far more important happens: he commits to wrestling with the consequences of his past actions, and doing what he can to clean it up. The question we should be asking about our own society is not whether the collective legacy of white imperialism should be blamed or forgiven, but how we can face the scars and open wounds handed down to us, and work together to heal them and find a way forward.

We need more characters like Daylen. We need more characters who go through transformations and pick up the hard task of making amends. They can’t simply be stories of forgiveness; that would put the burden of responsibility on those who have been wronged. These characters must contend with the consequences of their actions, and through sincere struggle come to a mutual respect with those whose lives were negatively impacted by their actions.

If you are reading this, and you are confused or frightened about the way current social and political trends are going, I don’t judge or blame you. Instead, I hold out my hand to you. I hold out my hand to those who are victims of indoctrination and propaganda. And even more than that, I hold out my hand to the good people of the future. I hold out my hand to future former racists, and future former imperialists. You are welcome in the making of a better, fairer society for all.

A Gallinipper at the Window – Flash Fiction

A Gallinipper at the Window

by Christian Horst

        In the heat of a muggy summer day, a gallinipper beats itself against a window. Its meager attempts patter hopelessly against the barrier, with no awareness but instinct, and no drive but compulsion. Were it by some dark miracle to succeed, it would find not a stagnant pool wherein it might lay its eggs to fester, but only a brief sweet taste before a quick death, oblivious to the agony it would cause. Yet of this it would have no comprehension, for all it knows is the twitches of its nerves and the compulsive reactions to its nescient sensations.

        What cosmic force could design such obscenity? Only the Blind Goddess Evolution, whose spasmic gesticulations wreak chaos across the world, from which chances to tumble  indiscriminately both ecstasies and abominations. With one flop of her hand upon the earth, species die. And with a kick, thousands of tons of dirt pile into a mountain, and a lucky survivor gazes about in bewilderment at its new place on top of the world. Events like these continue for decades and epochs and eons until, in a forgettable moment, a gallinipper chances upon the compulsion to beat itself against a window.

The Money Cycle – Diagnosing the Inequality Problem, and Proposing a Solution

A year ago, I visited some friends near Rogers, Arkansas. Home to the headquarters of several major corporations, including Wal-Mart and Tyson, it was extremely beautiful. Green, vibrant, and full of people, and with gorgeous free parks and museums. I had a wonderful time there. But after I left, I couldn’t help but think, This is where my money goes when I shop at Wal-Mart in Milwaukee.

The Source of Inequality

We think of money as an equilibrium. Earnings come in, spending goes out. But looking at it from this narrow, individual perspective misses the big picture. The money we earn has to come from somewhere. When we zoom out, we see large-scale processes at work, leading to large-scale trends.

Over the past fifty years, the GDP per capita of the United States has been increasing relatively steadily, but the median income, adjusted for inflation, has remained about the same. The wealthy have benefited tremendously, while the rest of us have only benefited by proxy, with improvements in technology and lowering costs. This trend must have a cause, and that cause is the rates at which the various modes of cash flow between consumers and businesses, shown in a first-order approximation in the diagram below.

This diagram shows the major highways of money flow between the poles of the economy, the consumers and the big businesses. There are intermediate steps, such as small businesses, non-profit organizations, and business contractors, but they only change the rates of flow, not the big picture.

If you work at a for-profit company, your wage comes from your employer. But the employer has to get the money from somewhere. That money comes from those who buy the company’s products, consumers and other companies. A for-profit company’s goal is to make more money than it spends, so it is going to pay its workers less money than the workers make the company.

If you are self-employed, your money comes either from consumers or companies. But again, for-profit companies will only pay you if they believe your product or services will earn them more than they spend. I often hope I can make some money on Patreon with this blog, or with my new YouTube channel, but then I remember that any money I earn will come from its entertainment value to other consumers, who are for the most part, like me, struggling to get by. It feels like asking others to go hungry so that I may be fed.

There are currents, swirls, and eddies in the flow of money through the economy, but on the largest scale it is unbalanced, flowing from the consumers to the companies. What companies give back in wages and expenditures is necessarily less than they earn in profit, which is inevitably going to result in the long run in company owners getting richer, and consumers and workers getting poorer.

The Economic Engine

The motivations of consumers and companies are different. Consumers spend money to keep themselves fed, clothed, and entertained. Companies invest money with the intention of earning more money from it, as often from the consumers as from other companies. Just look at the number of ads we are bombarded with as consumers. On TV, websites, magazines,  the side of the road, junk mail and spam. There are ads everywhere, manipulating consumers into buying their products.

Because of this, a capitalist economy is like an engine. An engine runs as fuel is fed into the combustion chamber, releases its energy, and its waste leaves via the exhaust. So too, as consumers put money into the market and company owners take it out, the economy runs. The difference is that once money has been used, it can be used again, still as full of economic potential as it was before.

One of the main claims of the virtuousness of capitalism is that consumers have the power over which companies succeed by voting with their money. This only works if the consumers have money to vote with.

The fuel of a capitalist economy is money in the hands of consumers.

How can we replenish the consumer side of the economy? Wages aren’t enough, because the reason companies pay wages is as an investment in order to extract more money than they put in. Philanthropy isn’t enough, because the more a company gives away, the less advantage it has in the arena of the market. The way to replenish the gas tank of the economy, then, must lie in government redistribution.

The government cannot just print money and give it to the consumers. Or it could, but that would destroy the economy with inflation. To avoid inflation, the government must take out from the economy an amount comparable to what it puts in, through loans and taxes. Loans must be repaid, so it’s really just taxes.

Americans are notoriously allergic to taxes, and not entirely without reason. There are two major problems with taxes: when the money goes to unjust places, such as politicians’ pockets or agendas or broken programs, and when the taxes are uneven in such a way as to artificially and unfairly choose winners and losers in the market. In order for taxes to work, these problems must be accounted for.

One of the simplest solutions would be to implement a flat value-added tax (VAT), which is put directly into a universal basic income (UBI).

Sustainable Capitalism

A value-added tax is a tax taken from every transaction that contributes to the GDP. “Flat” means the percentage is the same, no matter who is doing the buying or what they are buying. This would have the advantage of not interfering with the market competition. No company would gain or lose economic status relative to other companies, which means this tax would not negatively affect the top of the economy at all. The government would not be taking wealth from the wealthy, just rescaling the value of money to keep it stable rather than inflating.

Wealth is not in the number of dollars someone has. It is in their property and purchasing power. The scaling of money via a flat VAT does not affect one’s wealth, as long as that scaling is even across the whole economy. Generous company owners could breathe in good conscience, as they would finally be able to give money without losing their competitive standing.

A universal basic income is exactly what it sounds like. Every adult citizen receives a fixed rate of money from the government, no strings attached. That money is theirs to spend as they see fit, be it for necessity, investment, charity, entertainment, luxury, or vice. To many, this would be a tremendous relief, as they no longer have to live paycheck to paycheck in fear of going hungry or losing their homes, but suddenly become valued members of the economy.

In this renewable economy, money flows through the markets from the consumers to the companies. The government taxes the profits, and returns the money to the consumers, so that the cycle can continue. Because money continues to flow, the total wealth as measured in property and standards of living increases. The rich get richer, but so do the poor and everyone in between as rising GDP causes the guaranteed income to increase. And for the first time in fifty years, the GDP per capita will actually reflect the prosperity of the average citizen.

The VAT-UBI combination does not extract wealth from anyone, or pick winners and losers. All it does is rescale the value of the dollar so that the UBI does not cause inflation. It would also restore optimism and faith among the small folk that the economic and political institutions care about them, leading to wiser spending and an increase in employment as people start to believe in the fairness and prosperity of this new version of capitalism once again.

Adjustments and Other Solutions

Of course, real life isn’t simple. The economy is one of the most complex systems known. Therefore, a program as simple as a flat VAT and UBI is not likely to be anywhere near the best solution. So how are some ways we could improve it?

First, a flat tax takes an equal percentage from the bottom of the economy as it does from the top. Small amounts of money have more human value to those who are most in need of it, so we might want to consider a graduated VAT. The greater the wealth of the agents involved, the higher the VAT for that transaction. We could choose not to tax wages or philanthropy, as those are already transferring wealth from the top to the bottom. We would have to watch out for loopholes in these, of course.

On the redistribution side, it might seem unnecessary to have a universal basic income, since it would go to everyone equally, from the poorest to the richest. We could instead elect for a negative income tax (NIT)—which has a terrible name, because it’s a grant, not a tax. An NIT would give a supplementary income to those whose income is small.

We would want to be careful with an NIT not to make a welfare trap, where a person can lose money by getting a higher-paying job. To avoid this, the NIT could be a percent difference between one’s income and the cutoff. For instance, if the cutoff was $40,000 per year and the percent difference was 1/2, a person who earned nothing would receive $20,000, one who earned $20,000 would receive $10,000, one who earned $40,000 would receive nothing, and anyone making over $40,000 would pay income tax. This would ensure everyone had enough to get by, and be cheaper to implement than a UBI of $20,000 for everyone.

The downsides to an NIT are that it involves more bureaucracy than a UBI, and that people who make barely more than the cutoff might feel cheated, feeling like the government values those who are lazy more than it values them.

Objections and Responses

• “Won’t this cause the prices of necessities like food and housing to rise, defeating the purpose?”

Maybe a little. But think about what it would mean if they rose so high it defeated the purpose. It would mean that, under capitalism, it is necessary for a number of people to go hungry and homeless in order for prices to be low enough that some can afford them. If that were the case, capitalism would be broken beyond salvage, and we would have no choice but to tear it down and replace it. I don’t believe that’s true, but either way, a basic income program is worth trying.

• “Won’t this make people not want to work?”

On the contrary. People don’t want to work in the economy we have now, because of the problem of growing inequality. When GDP is going up, but workers are still living paycheck to paycheck, they start to think, “What’s going on? I’m doing all this work, and the economy is leaving me behind.” That is demotivating. On the other hand, if an increase in GDP leads to an increase in income for all, it restores faith in the economic institutions, and make people optimistic and eager to contribute. Instead of making people not want to work, it will motivate people to work better.

• “Won’t this dramatically increase the national debt?”

It would cost several times the current federal government budget, but could make up for that with the VAT. Depending on how successful it is, we might actually be able to use the VAT to decrease the yearly deficit.

• “Isn’t this socialism?”

No. Socialism is a radical restructuring of the ownership of the means of production and distribution, either to the workers or to the government. A basic income program only redistributes money; it does not affect the rules of ownership.

• “You sound like Marx.”

Okay McCarthy.

Conclusion

Faith in capitalism is eroding away. There are many reasons for this, and one of the biggest is the growing economic inequality, where wealth is skyrocketing at the top, while far too many people struggle to keep up with the basic necessities. This can be ameliorated by a guaranteed basic income, paid for by a value-added tax, which if implemented fairly does not affect the competitive standing of the players in the market.

This doesn’t solve all the problems of capitalism. It doesn’t solve pollution and waste. It doesn’t solve global warming. It doesn’t solve plutocratic government corruption. It doesn’t solve overseas exploitation. But it is one step to address one of the major problems. And all these people who find new financial room to breath can contribute to other solutions with the mental energy that used to be taken up by the stress of making it to the next month.

I don’t usually ask this, but if you think the perspective in this post is valuable, then please share it, especially if you know any politicians or kindhearted rich people who might be sympathetic. And if you happen to be one of those kindhearted rich people, a donation to Paypal or Patreon (links in the sidebar) would mean the world to me.