An Inner Discipline to Live Better
How to Overcome Monolithic Thinking
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So, how do we live better in a worsening world?
I think there are some key skills to learn in doing this—some of them are outer world practices and some are more private, inner world perspectives. The one that has my attention today is the notion of holding multiple realities within our own experience.
In his book The Saturated Self, Kenneth Gergen identifies two versions of the self-originating in recent centuries and which are prominent today—one of the romantic self that is inwardly oriented, and one of the modern self which is objective, rational, and outwardly oriented. I summarized his perspective in this article, which explored the impact of these ideas on the notion of personal authenticity. It is a heady read, but for those interested, worth the time.
For my purposes here, these two selves are similar in an important but subtle way—they both have a perception of reality (and of the self) that is monolithic. That is, they hold the idea that the self is this way and not that way. The romantic self, for example, is inner, deep, emotional, and unconscious; all that objective, rational stuff is just your head getting in the way of confronting who you really are. It is an “I’m right, you are wrong,” perspective. There is one way, and that is the correct way to perceive reality and the self.
Of course, the modern self sees it differently. Also monolithic, it is rational, objective, thoughtful, and scientific. Reality is out there, and even those pesky emotions and moods can be defined in terms of chemicals inside your brain. All that deep inner stuff the romantics talk about? That’s placebo. You are deceiving yourself.
What unites these two views is that they are monolithic. They are understood as holistic, but they achieve that perception by cutting out and attacking those things that don’t fit. Or they reduce them into their own theory. There is one way to understand the world and the self, and this is it.
Monolithic Thinking and Our Worsening World
A huge chunk of our worsening world can be attributed to this monolithic tendency. All righteousness and indignation are built on monolithic theories or perceptions like these, and that sense of the monolith is what has driven us into our respective corners politically, socially, and culturally. We want to be with people who see it as we do, and therefore getting together and talking with people from the other perspective becomes nearly impossible. More importantly, our internal capacity to hold differing viewpoints atrophies, and we become of one mind and one perspective. The balkanization of our political dialog, our economic classes, our races and other social groupings, and even our religious dialog, all rest on this monolithic perspective. Once you find your brothers and sisters, all others are enemies. This is a huge part of our worsening world. The more monolithic one’s perspective is, the less possible it is to entertain solutions that can appeal across perspectives.
What does monolithic thinking look like? It is alive and well in the climate deniers, those folks who believe that climate change is not real and anyone who says it is not dealing with reality. It is equally alive and well in the so-called localizers, those folks who believe the only solution is to grow your own food and live in the local community. A commenter on one of my essays wrote: "We need to focus on relocalizing our economy—by growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness.” In both cases, the proponents have an answer for everyone on the other side: The deniers tell the others to forget about it, while the localizers tell everyone to live like them. These are just two examples from hundreds you could think of. They all bear the hallmark of a confidence that "I have the answer and I just need to get the word out." This is the outcome of monolithic thinking.
The problem for monolithic thinkers is this: It tends to become an ongoing stream of defeats. People become less and less happy even as they become more committed to their rightness. They are ensconced in a worsening world like all of us, but living better becomes a burden. You make sacrifices and the world just keeps getting worse. Or, you live in oblivious bliss pretending the worsening world is not real. You live in denial and create false happiness, and you narrow your world as much as possible to prevent your bubble from being popped.
Multiplicity—The Alternative to Monolithic Thinking
The alternative is an inner work necessary to confront the challenges: multiplicity. It is the dead opposite of monolithic thinking, and it is a skill we can learn to live better. The objective modern self and the deep, interior romantic self, for example, can live together in a single human psyche. And so can other perspectives. We can assume that the self has only one way, and therefore go into monolithic thinking, but we could equally assume that the psyche is capable of holding multiple realities that are equally true and real even if they are contradictory. When you do that, the self-righteousness of any one position dissipates because the absolute rightness cannot hold.
The inner discipline of letting go of the monolithic perspective enables a certain peacefulness to enter, as well as an increase in effectiveness. I find myself much happier when I can embrace the multiplicity that life is. The self-righteous, monolithic view leaves one in a position to be continually defeated simply because so many people do not share that single view of the self or the world or the problem to be addressed. Defeats get depressing. They become discouraging, and soon, most people lose energy.
There is a lot of activist work to do to address the worsening world outside—climate, COVID, political instability, inequality, social justice, etc.—and all of it is important. We will all live better as solutions are found, but we can also live better by embracing more diversity of thought in our own minds. Developing this inner ability to handle multiplicity is just as important to finding viable solutions as any outer world action. It is key to living better in a worsening world.
As always, I appreciate your thoughts and comments.
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Recent Articles from Last Week
Here are my recent articles from this week on Medium.com. Note that if Medium needs you to sign up for a membership to get access and you wish to do so, please use my affiliate membership link. The cost is the same, but your sign up with that link helps support my work financially.
Conversion Infrastructure—The Only Viable Solution to Climate Change
Seven Lessons from My First 90 Days with Crypto
Private Property and the Digital Commons: Economic Transformation #1
Hierarchy vs. Networks: Economic Transformation #2
Coercion vs. Collaboration: Economic Transformation #3
Extraction vs. Conversion: Economic Transformation #4
From Scarcity to Abundance: Economic Transformation #5
In Case You Missed Them
Here are the articles from the previous week listed in last week’s Intertwine, just in case you missed them! The links below are live and go directly to the article on the platform where it was published.
The Saturated Self vs. The Search for Authenticity
How Political Instability Could Mess Up Your Retirement Plans
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Anthony Signorelli
Ideas, insights, and imagination to help you live better in a worsening world.