Humanity

Even in these hard times,

the world need not be

a dark, lonesome place

 

Angus Skinner

 

Christmas is a celebration of the future. Whether religiously we celebrate the birth of Christ and his life, indeed perhaps the promise of a life hereafter, or celebrate the turn of a season and the coming beauties of spring or autumn, we are celebrating the future.
     This is surely also true of Diwali, that great Hindu festival of lights when everyone wears new clothes and of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights originating in the dedication of a restored temple and, from a preserved single vase of oil, the future availability of sacred light. Ramadan, at the other seasonal pole (summer in the UK), celebrates the holy revelations to Muhammad and the future of humanity, worshipping God – and with Ramadan lights (Muhammad's revelations were at night). In January Sikhs have a celebration of their 10th Divine Light, their tenth guru; a guru is someone who leads others out of shadows, carries the lamp.
     Light, across the world, across religions, matters. Seems obvious given day and night. Seems obvious given seasons. It is easy enough in our light polluted cities to disparage sun worshippers and to underestimate how lives were dominated by darkness and fears of the darknesses of night, of forests, of deep seas.
     As Anver Offer, the Oxford economic historian details in his study of affluence in the US and the UK since 1950 (2006), our wealth has evolved much faster than our well-being, and indeed faster than our capacities to sustain loving relationships over a lifetime; he has a telling chapter on retreat from commitment. George Vaillant, eminent Harvard psychiatrist and leader of the Harvard 40-year study of adult development, argues that wealth has evolved much faster indeed than our spirituality (2008). Positive psychology has an interest in why this is so even though its main focus must be on helping pull us into the future.
     In launching the field of positive psychology Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi wrote (2000):
     'Entering a new millennium, we face an historical choice. Left alone on the pinnacle of economic and political leadership, the United States can continue to increase its material wealth while ignoring the human needs of its people and that of the rest of the planet. Such a course is likely to lead to increasing selfishness, alienation between the more and the less fortunate, and eventually to chaos and despair. At this juncture the social and behavioural sciences can play an enormously important role.'
     That has proved to be the case though by no means only through the field of positive psychology as we witness the development of behavioural economics and other fields. Remarkably our knowledge and understanding of well-being, flourishing, happiness, hedonic psychology, have changed dramatically. Moreover, instead of being afterthoughts for policy makers, for leaders and managers, and indeed in life generally, they have come centre stage. With implications for all, not just those who are already well and seek to become even better: for the many, not the few. There are many indexes of well-being in development across the world including one being piloted by Oxfam in Scotland. The world faces hard times and, as Seligman wrote, 'hard times are uniquely suited to the display of many strengths' (2003).
     The world has seen major turning points before. After centuries of plague and deaths across all classes, including the most holy, some Renaissance thinkers thought that 'The light has gone out of the world' – which thought dominated much art not least that of the elemental Caravaggio who brought chiaroscuro (light-dark contrast) to personal and religious representations. Seligman refers to 21st-century developments in behavioural science as analogous to the Renaissance, which saw the end of the medieval dark ages and a focus on beauty not war.

 

     Aesthetics were also central to the 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment and especially one of its founders, Francis Hutcheson, whom Seligman has informally described as perhaps the first positive psychologist. Hutcheson's work was influential in the formation of America and intriguingly his 'Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy' was a textbook at the then College of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania, home of positive psychology. The Scottish Enlightenment emphasised reason in the best conduct of human affairs, but also the vital centrality of emotions, of passions and crucially of compassion in the formation of moral judgements. Essentially if not always openly atheistic, their question was from where if not from God does our sense of good, of virtue come? And why our compassion, our love? Christopher Hitchens, the British writer and polemicist who died this month in a Texas hospital, wrote in 2007: 'Human decency is not derived from religion, but precedes it'.
     Adam Smith and David Hume, those key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, would have readily agreed with and indeed much enjoyed Daniel Kahneman's epic 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' (2011). (Kahneman won a Nobel prize for his contribution to economics, the father of behavioural economics, but like Smith his reach is much wider). I doubt Hume or Smith would much admire the way the world has developed. The ground-breaking Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh has been presenting a play ('The Tree of Knowledge' – Jo Clifford’s first for the Traverse for quite a while) in which Hume and his friend Adam Smith return to life in the modern world.   
     With some amazement at material progress, they are appalled at the society they encounter, and especially its lack of 'tenderness'. They feel responsible for having led the world astray but, justifiably, feel deeply misunderstood. Their theories of fellow-feeling, of the inevitability as well as the centrality of sympathy, they find disastrously neglected. They sought to enlighten the world through the application of reason, while recognising the importance of emotions. They find our new world a dark and lonesome place.
      Loneliness is indeed often the scourge of our modern societies with alienation rife in cities and rural areas. We see more and more people living alone, increased emphasis on personal and individual experiences. John Cacioppo, a leading researcher and thinker in the new field of social neuroscience, shows how damaging this can be with evidence from evolutionary psychology as well as neuroscience (2008).
     Loneliness can be felt most acutely at Christmas and other festivals and so it is especially important to make sensitive efforts to reach out. We have known this for millennia. Now we also have the science to show us why. Not all intuition is good, but it is our main support and leader. Science will lighten the ways into a more fellowship-based future.
      In addition to the science there are other great signs of being pulled into a better future. In the UK we have been privileged to watch an inspirational series on the development of choirs to address a range of socially problematic situations; perhaps the most moving is that of the wives of soldiers in Afghanistan. Talk about resilience; maybe singing should become part of resilience training for us all? Churches used to fill that role.
     These and other developments across the arts and media may yet herald the hope for the future that E O Wilson wrote of in 'Consilience' (1998). Consilience means a jumping together. Wilson, an eminent biologist, argued that one of results of the extraordinary information and communication revolutions we are privileged to be living through will be a jumping together of the arts and science such as 'not seen since the Scottish Enlightenment'.
     Centuries after the Enlightenment Nehru wrote of Ghandi’s death that 'the light has gone out of our lives' but later that the light Ghandi had shone would be eternal for it came from a deeper spirit than religion. Modern neuroscientists locate spirituality, through responses under brain scans, at a different, non-verbal and earlier evolved part of our brains than organised, verbal religion, a fact that Vaillant links with the centrality of love to flourishing lives.
     In the light of day, of understanding, of science, of engagement with others – of dancing, singing, loving, laughing together? Of appreciation of art and of each other? How can we fail to build a better future?
     I wish you light, love and laughter. Let's celebrate the future.

 

Angus Skinner is a former chief social work inspector for Scotland