Quaker Theology #6 -Spring 2002

                                                                                    CONDITION - - 2

Where does the condition of "condition" come from?

Since I am arguing that the Quaker sense of condition is universal and is grounded in the sense of self or ego (not uniquely a Quaker discovery), I feel obligated to suggest a process for how this condition comes to be. I would like to offer an explanation that I believe is consistent with Fox and puts the matter into a contemporary framework that Friends may relate to better than to the seventeenth century language of early Friends.

All people grow up in human society and from middle childhood on begin to develop a sense of self. This sense of self is not something critically constructed because most of it is assembled without the critical faculties being brought into play. Rather, it is an aggregate of relationship experiences (good and bad), instruction and misinstruction by parents, siblings and other teachers, imaginations and worries (often poorly tested), and social safety and defensive skills. And this sense of self is developed in a cultural environment reflecting the accepted values, notions and ideologies of the dominant authorities.

By the time we reach age eighteen to twenty-one, this history and its attendant attitudes becomes our guide for handling the rest of our lives. We have absorbed the spiritual values of our culture and made them into us. (Of course this is hidden from us, sealed over, by the cultural emphasis that encourages us to think of ourselves as "rugged individualists.") We have reached (as we say) our "majority" (an interesting term that can carry the implication that we are a composite of a variety of influences, some of which are contradictory, and that we have selected out of this composite certain features which we will use to rule over the others).

We continue to add or subtract bits to the heap of our self-understanding as life moves along but we rarely examine this pile because, as a collection of assumptions, it is itself now in place as the judge of our experience. Though we are not fully aware of it we have fallen into a condition because we have been subjected to conditioning. ⁴ We have incorporated (literally) the illusions and delusions that the dominating society around us wants us to have. Eventually we have this tool, the ego, and we rely on it to understand the world.

There are two problems with this tool. First, while the products of this tool, the conclusions we use to guide our actions in the world, are something of which we are sometimes aware, the processes of using this tool and its dependence on absorbed values are largely unconscious. In arriving at conclusions we are dependent on long-formed assumptions and those assumptions are vaguely understood at best and are almost never brought to critical review. In other words, we aren’t aware of the functioning of the ego as we use it. Our consciousness focuses on what we are doing with the tool, not how the tool is shaping what we are doing. ⁵

The second problem is that all of our experience becomes colored by this ego, filtered by us and defined by us. There are no pure physical perceptions taking place in human beings. We are kept to the limited perspective of our relationship with the rest of the world that has been given us. We lack the whole context that could give meaning to our lives. Even if those around us are on a parallel course and reinforce our illusions, in a profound sense our experience is ours alone. We are solipsists without knowing we are.

Anais Nin said it well, "We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are." And, what we are is conditioned beings whose conditioning is constantly being reinforced by the social environment that dominates us. This condition is universal for all except those whose condition is changed. I believe the restlessness and occasional despair that George Fox felt before his revelation was exactly due to this condition in which a connection to reality (God) is lacking and the illusions of the ego shape the understanding.

How does this "condition" feel as it develops in us in our times?

To explore further the idea of a universal "condition" I would like to make some observations about how things seem to be going in people’s lives today. I don’t assert that all lives go precisely like this model but I think it is common enough to be recognized. The point is that the fundamental condition of people’s lives (in the sense of being free of the illusions of the ego) has not changed for the better since Fox’s time. I know many people today enjoy comforts and choices undreamed of even by the royalty of the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, I find ordinary people (including Friends) are still leading "lives of quiet desperation" as Thoreau noted over a century ago.

Over the last twenty-five years the number of economically "well-to-do" folks who have been flocking to lectures and buying books on subjects dealing with personal angst and life’s discontents has risen exponentially. Drug and alcohol abuse continues to draw in millions in spite of a "war on drugs" and the legislation of severe penalties for drunken driving. What’s going on? I don’t want to focus here on the obvious casualties produced by the world’s cultures – the war victims, the damaged, the sick, or those crushed by our Western economic system – even though the great numbers of these should be a caution to us. I want to avoid this because that kind of emphasis can only contribute to the illusion that most of us are managing our lives well and that we are not damaged by what has happened in our socialization.

I do not believe that is the case. I want to focus on the middle and upper class family that appears to function fairly well, takes care of its children, gets schooling, orthodontist services, good nutrition, etc. In other words those who are trying to and want to be fair, honest, generous, and kind. (For example, those in Friends meetings.)

The following course of experience seems "normal." We seem to start off OK as young children, but, from adolescence on, there tends to be an emptiness, a restlessness under our busyness. (I go to the mall on a weekday afternoon and I see dozens of adolescents affixed to computer games or just wandering.) There seems to be a nearly insatiable demand for distraction. As the Western (USA) model has become the world culture, we are running full tilt away from any quiet.

Why are we running? When we are quiet or alone for a while, feelings often arise that are not pleasant. It may only be a slight feeling of dis-ease or it may be a powerful fear that drives us back to the company of others or machines. We don’t like these feelings. All feelings are hard to put into words but those that make us doubt that all is well with us are the most difficult. Thinking about our anxieties doesn’t seem to do much to make them better or get them to go away. Sometimes we reach a conclusion about what to do with these feelings and we feel better for a while with the understanding we have imposed. But, shortly, the feelings come back and the understanding doesn’t work anymore.

Over time we may feel the need to try to talk to others about these feelings to see if they can help. We may get someone who listens to us sympathetically and we feel better for a while (catharsis is articulation). Often we don’t encounter sympathy. What we get is the other person giving us a description of the life raft they are clinging to though it doesn’t fit us at all. Or we get those who pretend that our feelings are odd so that they will not have to deal with us.

Our uncomfortable feelings reflect feelings they deny and so they find ways to turn us away. If our pain keeps growing we may seek the counsel of a priest or pastor or therapist (what George Fox might be doing in this day). The chief advantage of these folks is that they have to listen to us because they are expected to and are paid to. The experiences we have with professionals may also disappoint us.

What to do? Typically, at some point our ego takes charge and we adopt modes of behavior to escape the pain of our doubts. These escapes are legion (remember Mark. 5:9). Please note that these escapes generally have been given a positive cultural endorsement. To name of few classes of these ways:

1. We set a career goal that will make us "somebody" by standards of the culture.
2. We pursue distractions (for example, we become sports fans or hang out at the casinos).
3. We attach ourselves in service to a cause, political party or project that can devour our attention.
4. We join a church (especially those where the pastor clearly believes he or she has the answers).
5. We work to accumulate unnecessary wealth and material goods.
6. We try to lose/find ourselves in a love/sexual relationship.
7. We seek positions of authority over others (to make it easier to think we are "somebody").
8. We use alcohol or take drugs.
9. We keep very, very busy (Marx was wrong – not religion, but work is the opiate of the masses).
10. We become practiced at blaming others or projecting our pain outside of ourselves.