Untangling Haidt/Eliade
Mar. 1st, 2012 07:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillSo I wrote a response yesterday to something that was quoted in Haidts book.
And along comes Kip yesterday evening and I mentioned it to him and he had actually read several books by the author Haidt was quoting because that author (Eliade) writes about literary theory too. (Though Kip said he found Jung more useful, but anyway.)
The short version is that everything I had to say (I still think) was correct but I was arguing against a position Eliade probably hadn't taken. Eliade probably wasn't saying we perceive sacredness. He was probably saying we experience sacredness the way we feel happiness--as an internal condition different people feel about different things, but that we pretty much all have had at one time or another.
My confusion came from the fact that "perceive" and "sacred" are both words we use about things outside ourselves and "feel" and "happy" are words we use about things inside ourselves. I perceive bluebirds in the tree, and feel happy. The bluebirds might be sacred but they make me happy. So when Haidt plucked "perception of sacredness" out of a longer book whose context (hopefully) made it clear that Eliade knew he was talking about an interior experience, Haidt gave me the impression that Eliade was talking about an exterior experience.
And the difference matters. People generally understand that happiness is internal; a reaction unique to them. Knitting makes some people happy. But even avid knitters see this as a relationship between themselves and knitting, rather than as a characteristic of knitting that everyone must perceive. If I take a picture of my knitting lying in the trash pierced by a rusty nail, I'm not going to get death threats. If three pieces of knitting are found in the incinerator, knitters will not riot. Because while people like clustering with other people who share their enthusiasms, they generally don't see those of us who don't share them as morally wrong.
Whereas external words like "green" and "velvety" and "sacred" imply that the quality is not unique to the person experiencing it, but is a characteristic intrinsic to the external object or event. And now it becomes much more natural to assume that everyone can perceive it and someone who says they don't has, at best, something seriously wrong with them, and at worst, some malicious reason. And even if they don't perceive it, they should act as if they do, because that is the due of the object or entity. The bluebirds make me happy, which is my business, but they are alive and can suffer, and even if you don't perceive that (in which case there is something seriously wrong with you) I expect you to behave as if you do (not set them on fire for your amusement) because that is the bluebirds' due.
Whereas if I feel like setting my knitting on fire, people who find that knitting makes them happy are unlikely to react the same way people would if I had set a bluebird on fire. But if I were to set a bible on fire, a fair number of people would react not like the knitting case--"Damn. What a waste of good happiness. But it *is* your knitting."--but like the bluebird case. "You EVIL JERK! How DARE you!? I ought to light you on fire!"
And that is a problem.
So I think we need a word that is not "sacred." We need a word that makes it clear that this is an internal emotion, like happiness, that certain things bring out in us, and which things vary from person to person, and there's nothing wrong with that. Also sacred has way too much connection to religion, and while some people do feel this emotion while mentally modeling supernatural entities, that is by no means the only cause. (Plus I am totally sick of people saying "you used this word that is connected with religion, therefore I have discovered what you were too obtuse to know about yourself--that you are not really an atheist, HA!") Alas, we need this word not just in addition to "sacred" but instead of "sacred" because the whole "sacred is an exernal quality" problem is not going to go away just because we have a new word.
Which I don't think will happen, but I feel like I at least understand the source of the problem better, having considered words that correspond to internal emotional states versus words that correspond to external qualities.
And along comes Kip yesterday evening and I mentioned it to him and he had actually read several books by the author Haidt was quoting because that author (Eliade) writes about literary theory too. (Though Kip said he found Jung more useful, but anyway.)
The short version is that everything I had to say (I still think) was correct but I was arguing against a position Eliade probably hadn't taken. Eliade probably wasn't saying we perceive sacredness. He was probably saying we experience sacredness the way we feel happiness--as an internal condition different people feel about different things, but that we pretty much all have had at one time or another.
My confusion came from the fact that "perceive" and "sacred" are both words we use about things outside ourselves and "feel" and "happy" are words we use about things inside ourselves. I perceive bluebirds in the tree, and feel happy. The bluebirds might be sacred but they make me happy. So when Haidt plucked "perception of sacredness" out of a longer book whose context (hopefully) made it clear that Eliade knew he was talking about an interior experience, Haidt gave me the impression that Eliade was talking about an exterior experience.
And the difference matters. People generally understand that happiness is internal; a reaction unique to them. Knitting makes some people happy. But even avid knitters see this as a relationship between themselves and knitting, rather than as a characteristic of knitting that everyone must perceive. If I take a picture of my knitting lying in the trash pierced by a rusty nail, I'm not going to get death threats. If three pieces of knitting are found in the incinerator, knitters will not riot. Because while people like clustering with other people who share their enthusiasms, they generally don't see those of us who don't share them as morally wrong.
Whereas external words like "green" and "velvety" and "sacred" imply that the quality is not unique to the person experiencing it, but is a characteristic intrinsic to the external object or event. And now it becomes much more natural to assume that everyone can perceive it and someone who says they don't has, at best, something seriously wrong with them, and at worst, some malicious reason. And even if they don't perceive it, they should act as if they do, because that is the due of the object or entity. The bluebirds make me happy, which is my business, but they are alive and can suffer, and even if you don't perceive that (in which case there is something seriously wrong with you) I expect you to behave as if you do (not set them on fire for your amusement) because that is the bluebirds' due.
Whereas if I feel like setting my knitting on fire, people who find that knitting makes them happy are unlikely to react the same way people would if I had set a bluebird on fire. But if I were to set a bible on fire, a fair number of people would react not like the knitting case--"Damn. What a waste of good happiness. But it *is* your knitting."--but like the bluebird case. "You EVIL JERK! How DARE you!? I ought to light you on fire!"
And that is a problem.
So I think we need a word that is not "sacred." We need a word that makes it clear that this is an internal emotion, like happiness, that certain things bring out in us, and which things vary from person to person, and there's nothing wrong with that. Also sacred has way too much connection to religion, and while some people do feel this emotion while mentally modeling supernatural entities, that is by no means the only cause. (Plus I am totally sick of people saying "you used this word that is connected with religion, therefore I have discovered what you were too obtuse to know about yourself--that you are not really an atheist, HA!") Alas, we need this word not just in addition to "sacred" but instead of "sacred" because the whole "sacred is an exernal quality" problem is not going to go away just because we have a new word.
Which I don't think will happen, but I feel like I at least understand the source of the problem better, having considered words that correspond to internal emotional states versus words that correspond to external qualities.
Ambiguity
Date: 2012-03-01 04:39 pm (UTC)Now that I think of it, the word you're looking for might be "exalted"; there are some others like "joyful" or even just "special" that might serve in specific cases.
Another way to disambiguate, given the tools we have to work with in English, is by picking our verbs carefully. E.g., "this grove feels sacred to me" vs. "this grove is sacred to Artemis", which would translate roughly into "this grove makes me feel exalted" vs. "people this grove is associated with the the worship of Artemis".
The real problem, as you say, is that "sacred" is associated with religion; nobody has any problem figuring out what is meant by "this is a happy place" or "this is a sad book". But substitute a religious code-word like "sacred" or "holy" or "evil", and suddenly all this cultural baggage comes along for the ride.
Re: Ambiguity
Date: 2012-03-01 04:56 pm (UTC)As a geek I have way too often seen it wiggle around to bite people in the ass.
"Exalted" might work, as in "This grove exalts me." "This book exalts me." "This music exalts me." "Seeing the night sky exalts me." Yeah, that could work, I think. I like that.