Pirsig and the rigidity of our values

In a very interesting passage of “Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance”, Robert Pirsig uses a metaphor to describe how the rigidity of our values sometimes can put us in danger:

“All kinds of examples from motorcycle maintenance could be given, but the most striking example of value rigidity I can think of is the old South Indian Monkey Trap, which depends on value rigidity for its effectiveness. The trap consists of a hollowed-out coconut chained to a stake. The coconut has some rice inside which can be grabbed through a small hole. The hole is big enough so that the monkey’s hand can go in, but too small for his fist with rice in it to come out. The monkey reaches in and is suddenly trapped – by nothing more than his own value rigidity. He can’t revalue the rice. He cannot see that freedom without rice is more valuable than capture with it. The villagers are coming to get him and take him away. They’re coming closer… closer!... now! What general advice – not specific advice – but what general advice would you give the poor monkey in circumstances like this?”

Pirsig would tell the monkey to reconsider his values (in this case, as fast as possible), removing the value rigidity that rates rice above freedom. Perhaps the monkey could get released from the trap with a small amount of rice among his fingers, if he weren’t too greedy and tried to get all the food inside the coconut.

The metaphor of the monkey trap can teach us interesting aspects of many things, including about the exploration of resources in our planet. Instead of a coconut, a monkey and some rice, the real situation is composed by seven billion people “trapped” in the same planet, sharing common resources and having lives that are linked in a certain way. All of us are trying to take some rice, but the amount of food is limited, and we must be intelligent in using it. If we get stuck, worried about taking the biggest quantity of rice we can, we run the risk of dying in the trap.

If we know that the things we do and the way we consume things can be harmful to other people and to the environment, the question is: are we able to reconsider some of our values? If not, why?

And where are our duties?

Two weeks ago Daniel wrote about a costumer who sprayed pepper on the face of other people to be the first to get the products she wanted at a Black Friday sale. As he pointed out, it seems we are losing our civility.

My guess is that many people are giving too much value for their rights at a point in which the rights of others value nothing. “My”, “me”, or “I”, are the favorite words for many of us: “I have to be the first”, “the government needs to work for me”, “I can do what I want”, and so on. I don’t know how American society is structured, but here in Brazil I feel we are experiencing an epidemic of “my things first”. It is deeply sad to see even children behaving this way.

Frans de Waal wrote that if he could be God for a moment, he would give people the gift of empathy, the ability to see the lives of others from the same perspective we see our own. There cannot be cooperation without empathy. We need to understand that our interests are similar to those of our friends, neighbors, relatives, and even enemies.

We are used to having our lives according to the legal system, but certain moral decisions we must take in our daily lives are not regulated by law. So, we should realize that our responsibilities to other people (and to the environment, too) go far beyond law.

Creating memories in nature

A friend of mine spent a couple of years in the state of Bahia, northeastern Brazil, to map the distribution of monkeys of the genus Callicebus in that state. He had to talk to a lot of people to get information about the localization of the monkeys, and then check if they were still living in that area. Some people indicated an old man as a source of great knowledge about the fauna and flora of the region, and my friend went to a small community to interview him. By the end of the talk, my friend played the sound of a monkey vocalization and asked the man if he could recognize what sound was that. When the old man heard it, he stood up and started crying: “this was the sound of the forest! The sound of the forest! This does not exist anymore, people destroyed it! But it was not me!” His daughter, who was hearing the talk, asked my friend to stop the interview because his father needed to go home and rest. He was very excited and his body was shaking.

The old man didn’t know that sound was the vocalization of a monkey. For him, it was the forest. And the forest must have played an important role in his life. I wonder what he remembered when he heard “the forest”. Perhaps his youth, his family, friends, the social life in his community, good and bad things, all of them happened in that place, surrounded by the forest. The forest had been the background for life in that place. And the forest was not there anymore.

This kind of situation is an example that indicates we have to defend nature not only for the material things it supplies us. We need to conserve nature for the sake of our peace of mind. Forests, animals, and every other aspect of nature are inside us, are part of what we are. In a world where financial values are the central part of many discussions, even those related to environmental questions, cultural, ethical and spiritual values must not be forgotten, and we can incorporate some of these values living close to natural things.

Discussion topics: Does nature evoke good memories in you? Is there a special landscape that reminds you of good things that happened in you life?

What is necessary for people to change?

The word that we use the most in environmental discussion is “change”. People have to change the way they perceive things, change their attitude towards the environment, change the way they use resources, change many things. Change seems to be a magic word. But if things were so easy, we would be living in an almost perfect world.

Changing habits is one of the most difficult things a person can do. Sometimes we don’t change because we don’t want to lose comfort, because we’re quite lazy, or we’re afraid of what can happen. Maybe we don’t change because we are used to so many good things and never tried to live without them.

Irvin Yalom wrote about change in his interesting book Staring at the Sun. The book is about how people perceive death, and how it can change their lives. When people face what Yalom calls an “awakening experience”, they start to see life in a different way. An awakening experience can be the loss of a loved-one, the breakup of an intimate relationship, a trauma, an illness, the loss of a job, retirement, and other situations in which the person seems to lose control of his or her life. To help overcoming this kind of situation, some people start doing what they thought was necessary before, but they never did, maybe because of the reasons written above. Some people donate their time, and money, to help other people and animals, some of them help environmental organizations, some stop eating meat, some get involved in politics, and so on.

We always hear about a person who changed his or her life suddenly because of an awakening experience (to see recent examples of that, click here, and here). No one has any doubt that a way to change one’s life is having a hard time. Being aware of that, we may think: is it really necessary to wait for such experiences to behave differently? Why not start doing today what we always thought to be the best for us, for other people, and for the environment?

Questions for discussion: Do you have something you’ve always wanted to do regarding environmental issues? Are you motivated to change?

The environment (and the world) needs good citizens

Guilherme B. Guzzo is a biologist and teacher in Brasil, with a M.S. in Zoology.  I'm posting this on his behalf.  We met at a meeting in Uruguay and had several wonderful conversations.  I hope he continues to contribute his wise thoughts to this blog.

The environment (and the world) needs good citizens

Guilherme B. Guzzo, biologist and teacher, M.S. in Zoology

 

One of the most difficult points when we discuss environmental issues is: how is it possible to change people’s behavior in a way that they start to perceive the environment that surrounds them as a vital part of their lives?

Part of the answer relies on the role of schools in the transmission of knowledge. It is really difficult for anyone to act in a certain way if he or she does not have enough information about the problem. But information is not all we need. Robert Pirsig, in his classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, stated that, if we want to change the world, we first need to change ourselves. We cannot achieve good results if people do not perceive the importance of doing the right things. Some people may ask “why should I use less water, or save energy in my house?” The question we could address to this people should be “is there any reason to behave the other way?” Even if we don’t know exactly the effects of using a lot of energy in our homes, or of using water to clean our backyard, we should save these resources just because this is the right thing to do.

The role of the families is, in my opinion, more important than the role of schools in creating responsible citizens. Values are grown in the familiar environment. Parents need to understand that what they do and say can have a tremendous influence on their children. That’s why parents should try to do the right things, and habituate their children to do the same. Parenting is not just about feeding the children, giving them material and monetary resources; the essential is to be concerned with their personal development, with personal values.

To be a good citizen is a question that does not concern the life of an individual. Citizenship is a value that societies should appreciate: it is essential for life in groups, and the environment also depends on it.