SEEING THINGS WHOLE: An Unreasonable Kind of Rationality
This one is a repeat of a SEEING THINGS WHOLE entry that I posted originally in March of 2008.
I’m posting it again for two reasons: first, I like it; and second, on a rather recent post, one of the central issues raised in this post became the occasion of some dispute here on NSB (namely, the question of the appropriateness of turning down an offer of SOMETHING when the offer is regarded as unfair, even if that rejection leaves one with NOTHING).
This brief essay provides the framework within which I make my judgment on that issue. And it also raises a bigger question about some of the problems of unwholeness in our cultural system.
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I’m not going to claim it’s an instance of synchronicity, but I certainly have found it striking that in the past two or three weeks –in different places that I happened on for reasons that had nothing in common– I’ve encountered some version or another of a particular notion of “rationality.”
It’s a notion that grows out of, or at least is akin to, ways of thinking about human behavior that characterize mainstream economic thought. In this perspective, the human being is an actor whose basic motivation is –or at least should be– to maximize a certain amount of “good” for himself. This kind of “good” is generally measurable in terms that can be represented in terms of dollars and cents, things that can be bought and sold.
So in recent days I’ve encountered talk about the “irrationality” of people who make certain kinds of choices that don’t fit into that motivational scheme.
For example, there’s the experimental design in which there are two subjects, one of whom is given, say, ten dollars. That person is then empowered to divide the ten dollars however he wants, giving some to the other subject and keeping the rest for himself. The second subject then has but two choices: he can accept what is given to him or he can reject it. If he accepts it, then the first subject gets to keep what he apportioned to himself, but if he rejects it, then neither person gets anything.
According to this fairly prominent school of thought, the “rational” thing for the second subject to do is to accept what he’s offered. After all, the reasoning goes, something is better than nothing.
And so the fact that below a certain threshold of offer, a lot of people will tell the first subject where to put his offer strikes some people as “irrational.” By indulging his feelings about the other person having treated him unfairly –say, with an offer of one or two dollars, while the one making the offer keeps nine or ten– he ends up with nothing. Too bad, the conclusion seems to be, that people are not better at identifying their true interests, or at least in serving those interests when their interpersonal emotions get involved.
Elsewhere I recently encountered essentially the same point, reading something where the author spoke of the irrationality of people who will sometimes prefer to do some work for no remuneration whatever than to perform the same work for a pittance. After all, once again, something is better than nothing.
Here, in a microcosm, we find one of the intellectual forces behind human fragmentation, as well as one of the symptoms of it.
Think of the assumptions that underly the notion of the human good whereby the amount of dollars one gets is the paramount consideration for weighing one’s decisions, WHEREAS GIVING WEIGHT TO THE QUALITY AND NATURE OF ONE’S HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS IS IRRATIONAL.
Think of the (mis)understanding that leads a whole school of thought to believe that it is rational to attend to the way in which getting one or two dollars is better than getting nothing, whereas it is irrational to protest another person’s treating one unfairly.
Think of the (mis)understanding that leads to the conclusion that a rational person would prefer to be paid a quarter for some piece of work performed to doing it for nothing as a gift, as an offering pro bono, as an act of generosity. A quarter is better than no money, the argument says– which seems true enough as far as it goes, which is not very far at all. But to refuse to accept a quarter, when to accept it would ratify the demeaning message sent by the payer in implying that twenty-five cents represents a quid pro quo for what one has given– that is irrational?
No, not only does man not live by bread alone, but the heart and soul of the human being are not primarily about such “bread” as seems to be the only rational motivator in this narrow, skewed, irrational notion of rationality.
Which brings me to yet another notion that I happened on lately, in reading the book SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE by Daniel Goleman. (This is a book that I’ll be using in several future postings in this SEEING THINGS WHOLE series, as it contains vital information about how deeply ingrained is interconnectivity in the nature of things –in this case how deeply ingrained is the interconnectivity of human relationship in the nature of the human animal.)
Goleman reports the interesting finding (from the brain research that he is reporting in that book) that the human brain has a default mode, something that it tends to think about when it has nothing else that it needs to think about. What it tends to thing about is the state of our relationships with other human beings.
That default mode –that, unless something else demands our attention, our natural inclination is to attend to our relationships– says a whole lot about what it is that constitutes the heart of the human good. It is the ties that bind.
Positive human connection –not maximizing our material gain– is apparently our core value. And if that’s so, then surely “rational” decision-making will not focus solely on the lesser good and ignore the central good in our lives.
In my book, THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE: HOW THE MARKET ECONOMY SHAPES OUR DESTINY, in Chapter 3, entitled “Missing Our Connections,” I talk about how the market economy conceives of us as social atoms, acting as if each of us were indeed an island. In some future posting, I will likely go more deeply into the systemic dimensions of how a system that allows us to act separately but not as a community does damage to the Wholeness of our society and of our lives.
But for now, I’ll just make this connection: that in such a distorted notion of rationality as that described here, which condemns as irrational our placing weight on the quality of our relationships in making decisions of an “economic” nature, we can see one of the many tendrils of that Wholeness-eroding influence.
February 19th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Two items popped at me in a fast reading of this piece that I should read more slowly.
The first is that it is not rational to accept payment for something done out of our goodness, when the payment would not equal the normal value of the task that has been done….unless in the acceptance of a pittance you are also giving goodness…honoring what someone else has done when it is the best they can do. But taking a pittance when you know someone can afford the whole, you lessen the value of what you did and then cannot, in the ordinary course of business, say the value is such and such when you’ve taken less. To me it is rational to not take the pittance under such a circumstance.
The second thing that popped at me wasn’t in the article, it was what I misread. I misread the sentence and it became “It’s the ties that blind”. Due to the nature of this blog…I thought it was an appropriate statement of cause. Grin.
February 19th, 2010 at 11:17 am
And the sad thing is that this distorted form of “rationality” is now too often confused with true intelligence. Another example would be the current bastardization of de Tocqueville’s “enlightened self-interest”, wherein we find that self-interest is trumped by self-centeredness, and the light soon extinguished. Real intelligence seems to arise more as a field to be tapped into, hence the strange phenomenon the idio-savant. And the frequent brilliant intuitive insights that often propel science and other disciplines forward. Wholeness is all of one cloth, if we have the equipment to perceive it.
Being smart is fine, until we outsmart ourselves.
February 19th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Thank you much for this most interesting piece, Dr. Schmookler. I now have the Amazon screen open to add Dr. Gorman’s book to my “Wish List” there. He seems to be a rather amazing fellow too.
http://www.danielgoleman.info/biography/
Andrew Bard Schmookler said,
I have to say, my impression is that most people I’ve run into would understand someone preferring to do something completely pro bono rather than giving the appearance of undervaluing oneself by accepting a ridiculously low amount. Certainly lawyers understand that.
But. That said, I think we will have to find a way to incorporate those who “[condemn] as irrational our placing weight on the quality of our relationships in making decisions of an ‘economic’ nature” into our efforts to See Things Whole, by which I mean I have no reason to believe that that group is going to become extinct any time soon.
For one thing I know some people for whom potential economic benefit is a factor in what relationships they form, but then they do place some weight on the quality of those relationships if only to smooth things along. But my father felt he had been “called” to be a spiritual leader. The call did not seem to be money, trust me, especially in rural churches. So I am privileged to have grown up knowing that there really are some things in human relationships that are more important than money. I generally have not made a big point of arguing about that, however. I have also had experience with being a good employee, where much of the relationship was of course focused on the idea of my employer making money.
Larry
February 19th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Fine post, and timely, as well.
My wife and I presently find ourselves in two situations where the principles of “An Unreasonable Kind of Rationality” seem appropos. In her case, she has volunteered to perform a professional function that the previous “doer” was compensated a not inconsiderable sum. She feels that the activity is so important to the organization that she is willing to take on this uncompensated task. [There is also a good chance that she will perform it in a far superior manner than the predecessor] No one even remotely expected her to do this, or in any way hinted that she would come to grief if she didn’t take it on. Successful completion will add real value to a few dozen colleagues’ career prospects; I observe real enthusiasm as she carries out these sometimes onerous tasks.
In my case, I am being asked to change my circumstance for the worse, not in terms of compensation, but in terms of the satisfaction of my mix of activities. This example hasn’t reached its culmination yet (I don’t know how it will turn out). But despite that unknown, I have sorted out in my mind and heart (at least at the 99% level) what it is that I will do if I’m not offered better options in the case. And that will be to choose the path that leaves me with less monetary advantage.
Both of us feel quite natural in making these choices, in fact, we both hold considerable empathy and support for the other despite the imbalance between the “cash value” of it and the “satisfaction” of it. Neither of our choices feel irrational.
I happen to think that “The Illusion of Choice” is one of the wisest books that I’ve read (it was the volume that led me to find ABS and NSB). It challenges received economic thinking yet does not do so by rejecting out of hand markets, free exchange, or the importance of the material in our lives. What it, along with its companion, “Fool’s Gold,” does (among other things) is to ask penetrating questions about meaning, freedom, and our tendency, individually and as a society, to become blind to important values that define us as human.
February 19th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
I hope it is noted that there are quite a few threads on which I offer NO comment. Not that ‘excuses’ quite a few others, but it does happen that I have had a lot of experiences some pleasant and some otherwise in which isues discussed are involved. And THIS is another one of those.
!. Generally speaking, people will value you (regardless of the service) as you value yourself regardless of the benefit they receive no matter the good words and fair speeches they bestow.
(Andy may be aware of this-at donation time)
2. It is not good to provide the service you do for livelihood at a discount for :friends’ as they will expect it again and may show resentment when it is not perpetual.
3. If there is a real need for what you can provide and the would-be beneficiary really cannot compensate at all and there is no one closer who should, pro bono is truly called for. (And I have observed, the ‘Universe’ is watching’ and at a time of unexpected need . . amazingly ‘the bread comes in off the waters” Truly amazing.
{This is one of the respects or aspects where it IS demonstrated: we really are all of One]
4. It does NOT devalue yourself nor your service -as in the case, say, of Jim Z’s wife if you are rendering service for less than another WHO HAS BEEN PAID MORE and the beneficiary IS able to pay more IF, say, it is obvious the other worked with greater overhead costs of whatever kind. One can simply point out This does not really cost me what it does someone else, I believe in what you are doing (or your legitimate need) and I feel it is even fairer to both of us this reduced cost.
5. BUT again, all things being equal, you will be valued by others as you value yourself . . and you will attract more of the same whichever way you go.
6. When in doubt on an issue, just give me a call; I have probably been there. I do not advise but I will tell you what I did . . and how it turned out.
(or just buy my book)
February 19th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Is that a jest, or is there really a book?
February 19th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Ho ! ho !
February 19th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
David R said,
An excellent post, I think, David R. Thank you.
Just that one line confuses me a bit. Perhaps you mean that people who value themselves attract others who value themselves. That seems probably true.
Larry
February 20th, 2010 at 9:43 am
One day a florist went to a barber for a haircut.
After the cut, he asked about his bill, and the barber replied, ‘I cannot
accept money from you , I’m doing community service this week.’ The
florist was pleased and left the shop.
When the barber went to open his shop the next morning, there was a
‘thank you’ card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.
Later, a cop comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill,
the barber again replied, ‘I cannot accept money from you , I’m doing
community service this week.’ The cop was happy and left the shop.
The next morning when the barber went to open up, there was a ‘thank
you’ card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.
Then a Congressman came in for a haircut, and when he went to pay his
bill, the barber again replied, ‘I can not accept money from you. I’m doing
community service this week.’ The Congressman was very happy and
left the shop.
The next morning, when the barber went to open up, there were a dozen
Congressmen lined up waiting for a free haircut.
And that, my friends, illustrates . . . .
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February 20th, 2010 at 10:10 am
I’m thinking about making that my email tagline for now. But I’m also thinking there are those who are valued by others more than they value themselves. With all deference to the virtue of humility, I think it is good to try to understand something about the actual effect one has on others one way or another, motive(s) completely aside. But in my observation some people really do not understand just how significant they are or how they are significant, good or bad. Perhaps this is a different topic. Or perhaps it’s not.
Larry
March 12th, 2010 at 2:36 am
“All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.”
~Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, 1734