Sunday, 23 June 2019

Humans, Humanity, and Human Rights - Chapter 1 (G)

This project commenced with a conceptual outline, published on Saturday 1st December, 2018, at: https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2018/12/humans-humanity-and-human-rights.html
I’ve decided I’ll post each chapter in its first, raw state, and you, Dear Reader, can see if my later research (probably long after I've finished this first version, in my retirement, should I be fortunate enough to actually get to retire) led to any change. (You can also think about the points I am making.) 
I've come up with an initial structure of the book (no guarantees it won't change), and will add the links to each chapter in the latest installment as they are published. Owing to the size of each chapter, I will have to publish this using the sub-chapters. Links below, and also here.

*****

Chapter One – Introduction to Concepts, and On Early Humans

G.  What perspective does psychology and other modern thinking contribute?



G.1 IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER

To begin with, I am NOT a psychologist, and thus NONE of the following should be considered a professional opinion (my University qualification is in a completely different field, one notorious for lack of emotional intelligence and competence at human interactions, so in no way gives the following any weight.
I have limited knowledge of the field. I actually don’t have that field in my list of what I wanted to ideally study before I wrote this book, but I’ve bumped into it from time to time (e.g., when trained to work as a volunteer phone counsellor around three decades ago, and a partner and some friends are counsellors, and I’ve sought help on a few occasions through my life), and have a certain amount of amateur (very much amateur!) interest.
However, I should also say that I have some doubts about, shall we say . . . the “state of perfection” of that profession – I consider, as with all areas of knowledge, there is more to be learned, and thus the field can maybe benefit from a little scrutiny and challenging. (In particular, I suspect modern thinking is too hidebound on topics such as the soul, research can be too simple for complex topics, and has possibly moved farther away from Jung than it should – but I endorse the attempt to objectively gather and use evidence.)
Interim note for first edition: notwithstanding the above, I do have some reading lined up on this topic, as well as a few books I wish to buy and read, so I am anticipating that this sub-chapter may be subject to extensive review. Then again, I have a stack of history, human rights, and philosophy books, and one “history of human rights” book, in those two categories, so the same may apply there as well.

G.2 Needs

So let’s look at this from the perspective of: what were the needs of that time, long ago?
Well, the first and most obvious need is physical survival – food, water, shelter, safety. This would require knowledge of what is safe and what is dangerous, where enough can be found, and what risks exist and how they can be manage.
(By the way, Paul K Chappell has argued convincingly that motivation is more important than just having needs – the link to his video is in the footnote below. [1] )
There is a tendency among many modern people to think of such skills as if they were simplistic, but I recall an interview where an Australian indigenous elder clearly knew about the benefits of having drinking water that has been kept free of human contact, a principle that my home city of Melbourne (Victoria, Australia) has held to, and that other cities overseas are rediscovering. These required skills were not only about personal survival, but also about ensuring that those people you loved survived – if you have significant others in your life now (not everyone does),look at them and consider whether you would entrust their survival to a superstition, or to hard work applying the best skills you had available?
I consider it highly likely that early humans were similar – our genetic forebears, primates, have well developed social structures and a group instinct: why would we have suddenly lost that? In other words, we would have been driven by the capacity to love – a characteristic that I consider science underestimates in sentient animals (I have at least one book lined up to buy and read on this topic).
To develop on that further, I consider Maslow’s famous Hierarchy of Needs would apply. I’ve seen that Hierarchy, developed on the basis of Maslow’s observation of what already existed, in several forms, but for now, I wish to point out that, above the physical needs there comes a set of emotional needs that are satisfied by “good” human contact (not by the “tough love” nonsense). Tribal humans today gather for storytelling and entertainment, and have a wealth of social interactions – the film “Ten Canoes” is an excellent example of that.
(We also do that today – gathering in theatres and public places for millennia [consider the Ancient Greek plays, Shakespeare, and so on] became gathering around radios in the early 20th Century, TVs in the late 20th Century, and our “devices”-oh, oops . . . well, that last gathering may be through the ethers, rather than physical, but it still is a form of gathering – one not as well managed, perhaps, as older forms.)
The values (or “norms”, if you prefer, Dear Pedants) of such times would have involved survival, for sure, but also social harmony and happiness. If people were too unhappy, they would possibly have committed suicide or gone to another tribe, but they would not have been able to contribute at their best – remember, this is early, gatherer-hunter societies of humans that I am considering: I think this all started to be skewed when empires started developing, and possibly, to some extent, during the earlier development of agricultural civilisations. But initially, I argue, respect for human dignity would have been an unstated principle, respected and fulfilled to the extent permitted by circumstance and human strengths and failings.
It would, on the other hand, have been quite possible that survival constraints prevented – or limited the number of people – who reached the self-actualisation stage, but . . . when I look at some of the “mystics” in India and Tibet, many of them seem to have got to self-actualisation without much in the way of physical stuff.
For that matter, self-esteem and self-actualisation are pretty much internal states of existence, unrelated to having an excess of other needs beyond what is needed for survival.
All of that means that, in my opinion, second generation rights (to simply, these are about physical quality of life), first generation rights (simplifying again, these are about interactions between people), and third generation rights (in the sense of collective rights) would all have existed (apart from anything else, because they are inherent to every human being) and would, to quite an extent, have been met by the early groups of humans, to degree that they could (i.e., some groups would have been better at that than others).
They just may not have been able to put all of that into words.

G.3 Transactional analysis

Transactional analysis [i] , developed by Eric Berne in the 1960s [2] , seems to me to have been fairly big in the 70s and 80s, but we don’t hear so much about it nowadays (I wonder if newer, flashier “products” have incorporated Transactional Analysis’s ideas, much as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has been incorporated into so many things [often without acknowledgement]? Then again, it did crop up when I last sought counselling [over stress]).
The basic notions of transactional analysis are:
·         we each have three internal states of being that we can “enter” (express may be a better word – I don’t have any of Dr Berne’s books at hand [they’re probably still in storage]):
o   parent – which can be either critical or nurturing;
o   adult – our mature or “ideal” self – comfortable, reasonable and assertive; and
o   child – which can be creative, playful, or adaptive.
·         people can interact with each other from one or more of these various states of being: these are termed transactions (hence the term for this system). Where these are mismatched, for instance, problems can result, and where the motivations are ulterior, the transactions are termed “games”.
There are some well-known diagrams for these concepts, including the fantastic cover of at least one of Dr Berne’s book. Looking online now, it seems that these concepts have been developed and refined, so they’re still applicable – at least in the field of human interrelationships.
A couple of examples of modern versions of these diagrams are at:
·         the three states (typically drawn as a vertical arrangement of three circles, resting on each other): try https://mypersonalhomesite.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/functional-ego-states.gif?w=300&h=179;
·         the interactions: http://lifestoogood.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/TA1.png, and a dynamic at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TransactionalAnalysis.gif.
Now, I wrote: “at least in the field of human interrelationships”. My opinion is that this form of analysis would give considerable personal insight into the interactions that were used to realise or undermine human rights – from either the start of human existence, or from a fairly early stage.
Certainly by the time we were making tools or “domesticating” fire our mental development would have been advanced enough for multiple facets / layers to exist. However, I consider it likely that complexities already existed, as I consider there is a fair case to argue that they exist in primates and the hominids we evolved from – in particular, the existence of personalities, and some of the collaboration I mentioned earlier – including political organisation, getting rid of bullies, etc as mentioned in Sub-chapter E - Our genetic neighbours, gatherer-hunters, and being humane.
However, in terms of gaining an understanding of the history of human rights, I’m not so sure this adds anything to this Chapter (interesting though I find it).

G.4 Other perspectives

There are a range of other psychological theories / perspectives that could be used to examine this further, but I doubt that many of them would be of greater use than transactional analysis.
The one exception to that is an exploration of consciousness.
Now, I consider it a trap to mistake being able to articulate one’s consciousness for the existence of one’s consciousness – that is, being able to describe conscious/unconscious/group unconscious is not the point at which they come into existence (just as the idiots in school who thought they were being suave and sophisticated by trying to argue about whether Newton “invented” gravity or described an existing phenomenon – seriously, they existed!).
What does change, however, as one masters language, is an improvement to one’s awareness and ability to use, work with, and develop one’s various stages of consciousness – including moving things from one’s unconscious to conscious (there’s a whole set of discussions around group consciousness that I may try to add in for a future edition, but I’m still working on that at this time, so not yet, in terms of this first [rough] edition).
I am a big believer in the advice to “know thyself”, and have been consciously and very deliberately working at this since I was a teenager.
Furthermore, as I have learned more consciously about human rights, including how to articulate them, I have been able to personally realise them more, and help others to realise them.
This, I consider, is the great lesson at this stage of human development: not being conscious of, let alone articulate, human rights is major problem – and quite possibly is why early bullies were able to suppress human rights initially.
So, let’s move on to human rights theory.

[2] There is some commentary on the influences of other psychologists – including Freud on Dr Berne’s development at http://www.ericberne.com/transactional-analysis/. The comment that Dr Berne saw Freud’s id, ego and superego as NOT phenomenological is interesting – to me, at any rate.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)