Rachel’s Musings

There are two aspects I want to focus on in my summary of Jennifer Hecht’s Happiness Myths: Wisdom gathered from history about happiness and the influence of money on our society. The book is very well written and contains much more insights, gained through taking a historical perspective, than I will touch on here.      Continue reading this post » » »

Timothy Wilson’s book Strangers to Ourselves is a fascinating journey to our adaptive unconscious, which he defines as the “mental processes that are inaccessible to consciousness but that influence judgments, feelings, or behavior” and have adapted through evolution (23). Wilson contents that we cannot observe these processes because they are simply inaccessible to us: “a lot of the interesting stuff about the human mind - judgments, feelings, motives - occur outside of awareness for reasons of efficiency, and not because of repression” (8). He argues that this is similar to other processes, such as perceptual processes or even digestion, which we know are happening but are not observable through introspection. In contrast to Freud, modern psychological research suggests that the unconscious cannot be explored no matter how deep you dig. This is not a bad thing, Wilson points out, but it is a reflection of the mind’s power: a lot of information can be processed very quickly and efficiently (although not always accurately) (16). Our minds are parallel processors because we process quite a bit of information unconsciously. Instead of looking inward, Wilson suggests a much more powerful way to self-understanding: observing our behavior (16). In addition to not being able to understand ourselves well through “navel gazing,” we might even be driven by goals from our adaptive unconscious that we are not completely aware of (34). Wilson summarizes: “We know less than we think we do about our own minds, and exert less control over our own minds than we think. And yet we retain some ability to influence how our minds work. Even if the adaptive unconscious is operating intelligently outside our purview, we can influence the information it uses to make inferences and form goals” (48).      Continue reading this post » » »

Chip Conley’s book “Peak: How great companies get their Mojo from Maslow” applies Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to the world of work. He summarizes Maslow’s famous pyramid: “Maslow believed that each of us has base needs for sleep, water, and food (physiological), and he suggested we focus in the direction of fulfilling our lowest unmet need at the time. As those needs are partially fulfilled, we move up the pyramid to higher needs for physical safety, affiliation or social connection, and esteem. At the top of the pyramid is self-actualization, a place where people have transient moments called ‘peak experiences’” (p. 9). Conley collapses Maslow’s five pyramid levels into three: Survival (Maslow’s physiological and safety), success (social/belonging and esteem), and transformation (self-actualization). He then adapts this transformed pyramid to the three primary stakeholders to every business, using his hospitality company as the development example: employees, customers, and investors. Each stakeholder, Conley argues, has a unique pyramid and the role of a successful business is to move each stakeholder up the pyramid to the transformation level.
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In her book, Married to the Job, Ilene Philipson takes us on an eye-opening journey through today’s work-world. Philipson argues that the loss of community from the historical sources - neighborhood, church, clubs - drives many people to marrying their job, not only spending lots of hours there but also letting the job and the company’s culture define who they are and our worthiness (1). She calls this phenomenon “dangerous from the individual’s, the corporation’s, and society’s perspective” (32). Through case histories and societal analyses, Philipson paints a rather bleak picture to which she can only offer a partial solution since ultimately society’s approach to work will have to change.
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Victor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, is a classic little book on meaning, which was originally published in 1946. His development of logotherapy is woven throughout his tale of survival of numerous concentration camps during the later years of the German occupation of Austria. As historical research has shown, Frankl did not develop logotherapy in those concentration camps. Frankl underscores that as well when he recounts the destruction of an important manuscript that he had smuggled through the showers of Auschwitz, the real showers. It did not survive very long, though, and Frankl’s observation in the other concentration camps - he was only a few days in Auschwitz - was partly driven by his wish not to forget the contents of his manuscript. The situation in the concentration camps also made for an ideal test-ground of Frankl’s main hypothesis, which is summarized in his favorite Nietzsche quote: “He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.” Logotherapy tries to provide guidelines on finding reasons to live: “If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering” (p. 67). The ability to choose how we react to even the most dire circumstances, Frankl calls this “spiritual freedom,” cannot be taken away from us. It “makes life meaningful and purposeful” (p. 67).
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I was excited when I started reading David Korten’s book “The Great Turning” because I agree with his assessment that we are currently at a crossroad: we either make some changes in the way we live soon or global warming will wreak havoc on civilization. Korten frames this as the choice between Empire and Earth Community. He does, in my opinion, and excellent job describing the perils, injustices, and dangers of Empire. However, the book becomes largely unrealistic, steeped in wishful thinking, when he begins talking about “evidence” that we are moving toward an Earth Community. I decided that I must be living on a different planet and that the Earth Community will not just happen, as Korten seems to suggest. Korten’s sense of hope seems to stem from two sources: An increase in people’s awareness that we need to change something and the existence of an Earth Community prior to the onset of Empire, which he equates with the beginning of patriarchy. Unlike in his chapter on the travails of Empire, he hardly cites any evidence for these sources of hope – other than his anecdotal experience. He also does not make any suggestions about how a 5,000 year jump in societal structure can be accomplished, i.e., how do we overcome 5,000 years of Empire? Feeling that my time would be better spent by reading other material, I abandoned the book, disappointed in what seemed such a promising beginning.
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