When the selfless acts of public-spirited individuals are recounted, they evoke our admiration. We sense that we are being called upon to emulate them.

Such stories impact us at two levels. First, they inspire us, convincing us that we are capable of more generous behaviour than we imagine. At a deeper level, we are shamed by the tacit comparison between their lives and ours.

Is Utterly Selfless Living Possible?

Is it possible for us to live consistently selfless lives?

If it is not possible for us to live altruistically, then we are being led up the garden path.

To what degree are we the servants of our genes, and our conditioning? Are we capable of behaving more selflessly, or is this optimistic view of our potentiality merely an appeal to an insupportable idealism, and to our desperate desire to bolster our self-esteem?

Pursuing an Ideal

It is important to ask what happens when we are encouraged to realize an ideal? [227]

For many, the process works this way.

First, we are presented, in reading a book or magazine article, in listening to an address or watching a play, with an example of noble behaviour. We are confronted by an illustration of selfless living that benefits others.

Our first response is to be uplifted by this example. Following fast on its heels, however, is another response, a sense of shame and guilt, which translate into an intention to emulate the example, an action that promises to allay these disconcerting emotions.

This response may be ephemeral, and quickly disappear. With the dissipation of the inspiration, shame, and guilt, we carry on as usual. If challenged, we argue that those whose lives are celebrated are so different from us that the expectation that we should follow their example is ill-founded. We are happy to admire without emulating.

Alternatively, we may be captive to our initial response, and determine that we will model our lives after theirs. When we attempt to do so, however, our intention can be subverted by unconscious factors, the very factors that make it impossible for us to live with the degree of selfless generosity exhibited by those we are seeking to emulate. When this happens, we are rarely aware of the dynamics involved, and are liable to castigate ourselves for not putting in sufficient effort.

Unfortunately, where our commitment to the ideal encounters resistance, we repress what we find discomforting. We may repress the inspiration, so that it is no longer consciously entertained. We may repress the shame and guilt, rather than examining them. On the other hand, if we are aware that we are encountering resistance, [228] we may imagine that it can be overcome by sheer will-power. The effect of this forcible repression, however, is to strengthen the resistance. It escalates the war within us, causes us to become more self-preoccupied, and lessens our capacity for other-centred behaviour.

The distortions resulting from repression, particularly repression associated with the attempt to realise an ideal, can be severe.

During the Middle Ages, the ideal woman exhibited three characteristics. She punished her body with gross forms of asceticism, denied her sexuality, becoming an honorary man, and had visions. It was only by exhibiting such behaviour that women could gain the esteem of men and be listened to by them. It is little wonder that it turned many into anorexics.

It is also possible that we may vicariously identify with the person held up as an example. We have seen this happening with pop stars, sports heroes, and in the massive outpouring of grief that followed the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Living vicariously through others causes us to exaggerate their virtues, and to so identify with them that we will fail to realize that we are not living our own lives.

Repression and vicarious identification can both diminish us.

A Broader Perspective

When heroic examples are promenaded before us, they are often taken out of context.

Awareness of the details of an individual's life, including their struggles, and the contradictory elements of their [229] personalities, can afford us a more realistic assessment of the sort of people they were. This broader context helps us relate to them with empathy and understanding, and enables us to avoid being intimidated by their heroism. It also helps us appreciate why their actions took the shape they did.

Some celebrated public figures have been dominating, irascible individuals, who were difficult to live with. They sometimes alienated their children, who were sacrificed to the parent's ambitions. However, to discover that those to whom we look for inspiration were not perfect, can be enormously liberating, without necessarily being disillusioning.

It is also important to appreciate the place, and time in which they lived. The historical context is a critical factor. What is possible in one set of circumstances may not be in another. For instance, Gandhi's crusade of civil disobedience would not have the same effect had India been subject, not to Britain, but to a power that did not respect the rule of law.

God-Like Icons

Nations, at various times in their history, seek heroes. This process is rarely conscious. It is likely to occur where a nation is suffering deprivation, occupation, or lack of identity.

The neural network that makes up the nation, a sort of national mind, scans the horizon in search of an individual, whose enhanced public image can be used to counter the humiliation felt by the nation. The fact that the resulting icon bears little or no relationship to the real person is not important. The image becomes a rallying point for national disaffection--a focus for the nation's angst, resentment, and aspirations. [230]

Sometimes icons are deliberately created, out of fictional characters, or by deifying leaders, as occurred in the later years of the Roman Empire, and, more recently, in China, North Korea, and Romania.

Those celebrated as national heroes are treated as secular saints. However, biographies of saints are notoriously selective in the tales they choose to tell, and in the effusive and often unwarranted praise they heap on their subjects. There have been occasions when those who have been celebrated as secular heroes have been little more than thugs.

One of the basic problems with altruism, particularly that generated by hero-worship, is that it fosters unreal and unrealizable ideals.

Is Altruism a Possibility?

Where altruism is associated with an extreme ideal it is unrealizable.

However, the fact that it is possible for us to live less selfishly than we do, particularly where we are aware that gains will be made slowly and incrementally, supports the idea of a more realistic approach to the ideal of selfless behaviour.

Progress towards a greater degree of other-centredness is more likely to be achieved, not through parading before us exemplars whose vaunted achievements are beyond us, but through affirming our modest achievements, and encouraging us to take the next few steps. [231]

Exemplars?

Should we be presented with examples?

If the presentation of the ideal is nothing more than an exercise in hero-worship, where weaknesses are hidden, and historical and cultural contexts absent, we are likely to be left with a residue of guilt and cynicism.

On the other hand, it is helpful for us to have some idea of the direction in which we should be heading if we are committed to living more fulfilling and fruitful lives. Examples that point us to possibilities we can explore are beneficial, provided the cameos are realistic.

Different Stages

Examples of other-centred living will have different effects on different people at different stages in their development.

Those who identify with the ego, who are attempting to discover a centre in themselves, if they are not totally dismissive of the process, are likely to be uncritical and seduced by the ideal. There are susceptible to repression and vicarious identification.

Those living at the level of the self, who have some insight into their shadow side, will be more aware of the factors within themselves capable of inhibiting further development. They will recognize that those held up as examples, like themselves, are a mixture of good and evil, of strength and weakness.

Those identifying with the bodyself are even more acutely aware of these tensions. It is in the body that the antagonism between our strengths and weaknesses is played out. The body amplifies these tensions. If we are familiar with the language of the body, we will be acutely aware of the body's [232] moods, and therefore the possibility of realizing certain ideals.

Those who intuit an interconnectedness between all elements of the cosmos, who are aware that everything is connected to everything else, are aware that good and evil are so inextricably entwined that it is impossible to have one without the other. They are also sensitive to a Spirit Presence, whose grace they discern in themselves, in the communities of which they are a part, and in the wider universe. They recognize that incremental gains they make in their attempts at living selflessly and compassionately are the gift of this Presence. They have discovered that the most appropriate response to this grace is to situate themselves in its flow.

Authenticity

I would like to suggest a change of emphasis from altruism to authenticity.

I suspect that it would be more helpful if we were urged to live up to the level of our present stage of development, while gently pushing against the upper limit of that level.

We can only live what we are capable of living. This does not mean that we need to be stuck at this point. Nevertheless, further development will be dependent on our being affirmed, rather than castigated because we are not more advanced. Self-acceptance is important, because without it we will make little progress.

In our journey towards integration, towards the appropriation of more comprehensive dimensions of the self, including our connectedness with all reality, we will need to live the tension between recognising what we are, where we [233] are, and what we are up against, and being captivated by a vision of possibilities.

This will involve us sensing the flow of the Spirit in our lives.

It is far better for us to be ourselves, to be true to ourselves, than to feign altruism, particularly extreme forms of altruism that distort the human ideal and further cripple us! [234]

[ROI 227-234]