Synthetic Discernment

How Self-Awareness becomes the basis for discerning good and evil.

The Line That Cuts Through Everyone of Us

I was told as a young man that,

“There is good and evil in all of us. The difference is which will you choose to feed.”

Early in my career, I was introduced to a psychologist who was 35-40 years older than me. He pioneered new ways of understanding and treating patients. He was an honored member of our community. For a brief few months, he mentored me in my understanding of the psychology of being a young professional. Then we moved across the country. Six months later, word reached us that this respected member of our community had been arrested and charged with several counts of trafficking in child pornography. Imagine the shock that we felt. As the story unfolded, he had been collecting and distributing child porn since he was a teenager. His wife of forty years had no idea. The man was living two separate lives under the same roof.

How does this happen?

More importantly, how could no one in our community and the city as a whole not identify the evil flaw in this man’s personality?

We must also ask,

Do we even know our own potential for evil?

It was this experience that led me to explore many of the margins of society. What turns a person into a drug addict, a homeless alcoholic, a sex worker, or a serial criminal is not a simple choice of “I think I feed the evil side of me today.” No. It is much more complicated. It not only is something within us, but also something within the structure of society.

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago describes what he learned.

“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains ... an unuprooted small corner of evil.

Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.”

This characterization of the divided nature of being a human is, in my assessment, an archetype of the modern individual. This archetype is a person of high ideals who has an unflinching commitment to realize the goals that are derived from those ideals.

The real mark of the idealistic mindset is not the nobility of its purpose but rather its irrational nature in pursuit of fulfillment. An idealistic personality combined with unwavering, absolute commitment can breed a pattern of narcissistic behavior. This narcissistic tendency believes in the righteousness of the cause that defines their life. As a result, it can lead to a scorched-earth approach to winning.

When Idealism Turns Violent

René Girard identifies this human behavior as a mimetic rivalry. It can justify acts of violence in the name of idealism. Almost all modern-day protests that end in violence begin with the singularity of the cause. The game is not to convince but to control, convict, and then cancel.

There is a two-part irony in being an idealist of this type. One is that they view other idealists who do share a similar idealistic focus as a threat. As a result, often activism in the name of a cause creates a perception of being the victim. Girard writes,

“Victimism uses the ideology of concern for victims to gain political or economic or spiritual power.”

What then is this mechanism within the human personality that causes Solzhenitsyn’s “the line separating good and evil passes … right through every human heart” to be crossed. René Girard describes it as the human tendency to imitate and compare ourselves to one another.

“If you survey the literature on imitation, you will quickly discover that acquisition and appropriation are never included among the modes of behavior that are likely to be imitated. If acquisition and appropriation were included, imitation as a social phenomenon would turn out to be more problematic than it appears, and above all conflictual. … If the tendency to imitate appropriation is present on both sides, imitative rivalry must tend to become reciprocal; it must be subject to back and forth reinforcement that communication theorists call a positive feedback. In other words, the individual who first acts as a model will experience an increase in his appropriative urge when he finds himself thwarted by his imitator. And reciprocally. Each becomes the imitator of his own imitator and the model of his own model. Each tries to push aside the obstacle that the other places in his path. Violence is generated by this process; or rather violence is the process itself when two or more partners try to prevent one another from appropriating the object they all desire through physical or other means. Under the influence of the judicial viewpoint and of our own psychological impulses, we always look for some original violence or at least for well-defined acts of violence that would be separate from nonviolent behavior. We want to distinguish the culprit from the innocent and, as a result, we substitute discontinuities and differences for the continuities and reciprocity of mimetic escalation.”

From my perspective, this explains a lot of why the modern world has been bloody and war-like. It is why politics is so tribal and divisive. It is why the elite hated Donald Trump. It is why the growing power of a global middle class threatens the power base that the global elites have had for a century. It is why siblings fight. It is why divorces can be so contentious. It is why newcomers have a hard time fitting in. And it is why idealists can easily rationalize mimetic violence.

It is also why we are surprised by kindness, the personal sacrifice that benefits another, and when we find genuine respect and trust in a relationship. For those people recognize the mimetic rivalry for what it is and they choose to be different. They choose to cross the aisle and build a relationship of shared values. Now, I know that sounds very idealistic. It is not. Rather, it is realistic. It sees the bigger picture. The person is choosing to build on the good rather than use evil to tear down.

Mimetic conflict under normal circumstances gets resolved through the sacrifice of a scapegoat. Girard sees that there is a religious-like ritual embedded in mimetic rivalry. He writes.

“Sacrifice is the resolution and conclusion of ritual because a collective murder or expulsion resolves the mimetic crisis that ritual mimics. What kind of mechanism can this be? Judging from the evidence, direct and indirect, this resolution must belong to the realm of what is commonly called a scapegoat effect. … that strange process through which two or more people are reconciled at the expense of a third party who appears guilty or responsible for whatever ails, disturbs, or frightens the scapegoaters. They feel relieved of their tensions and they coalesce into a more harmonious group. They now have a single purpose, which is to prevent the scapegoat from harming them, by expelling and destroying him.”

This description explains how the Democrats and Republicans in Washington had to sacrifice Donald Trump in order to preserve their control of Congress and the White House. It shows just how hard it is for an outsider to overthrow an entrenched base of power.

It also explains how this mimetic rivalry becomes the stage for the conflict between good and evil in society. Take any situation, any crisis, any conflict, and any narrative meme on social media, and mimetic rivalry becomes an excellent means of seeing below the surface of what is really happening.

The Rational Nature of Evil

I want to return to Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s perspective. He points toward an inescapable reality. The truth is that at the heart of every conspiracy theory, every rivalry, every ambition for success, and every desire to win someone over to a point of view, evil lurks in the wings. For most people, it seems just too hard to believe to be true that people we respect and honor as leaders in our communities and society have evil intentions toward us.

This evil of which Solzhenitsyn speaks cannot be curbed by laws, religion, or even by executive fiat. It can only be constricted by one’s own responsibility as a human being. It means never giving in to the desire to destroy someone as a scapegoat for one’s ideals.

As humanity mastered rational thought and its application in science and industry, there emerged the vivid reality that idealism has been the driving impetus of the modern age. Out of it was born a utopian belief in the perfection of humanity and human society. It is the same belief that drives transhumanism to perfect humanity through technological enhancement. Idealism is no barrier to evil but rather, in its modern form, the mask that hides it. This is the belief that I find in the Spectacle of the Real and the Culture of Simulation. Just as simulation is a replacement for the real, so is idealism a way to avoid reality.

Another quote from Solzhenitsyn is relevant here.

“To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good ... Ideology - that is what gives devil doing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors.”

Listen to all those who advocate for change, whether from the left or the right. Idealism drives their passion. It confronts a reality that increasingly requires more power and control over society to achieve that which they believe is essential. Out of this miasma of good and evil, idealism and reality, and mimetic imitation have come the rationale for authoritarian and totalitarian government regimes.

The question now that we must ask is.

Are we better off, more advanced, and closer to the ideal that we were a hundred years ago?

It is not a new or recent question. It has been asked in my presence many times over the years. Even as the sciences advanced to better understand us psychologically, sociologically, and economically, it has become apparent that something was missing.

Walker Percy, 20th-century novelist, and physician, asked the following question.

“Why does man feel so sad in the twentieth century?  Why does man feel so bad in the very age when, more than in any other age, he has succeeded in satisfying his needs and making the world over for his own use?”

This question remains unanswered.

Percy was not alone in pinpointing the problems inherent in the modern world. A half-century ago author John Steinbeck eloquently said, “We can shoot rockets into space but we can’t cure anger or discontent.” In response, my question is,

Why have positivity and idealism not worked on a society-wide scale?

What is the source of this anger and discontent?

Why is unfulfilled idealism so problematic?

Are we trapped in a downward spiral of mimetic rivalry?

Do we truly know ourselves? Or is there some missing awareness about who we are that is essential for being a good person?

These kinds of questions have been with me for over fifty years. I wish I could offer some pithy inspirational sayings to explain why, and what to do. If those bits and pieces of advice and inspiration could truly work, don’t you think they would have done so by now?

Of course for some individuals, aphorisms of inspiration do work. They act as a check on negative thoughts and even possible depression. These positive examples, and I know many, are truly the case of “mind over matter.”

But on a societal scale, they have not worked. Why have they not worked? It is real simple. Very few of those idealistic sayings address the deeper issues of how organizations and institutions function. I am not referring to how people get along. I mean the deeper issues of structure.

Discernment as Self-Awareness

Discernment is a product of second-order human agency. The development of this capacity makes it possible to discern whether a particular action is either good or evil. This capacity is developed by asking questions.

For example, how many of you paused when the COVID lockdowns, masking, social distancing, and vaccine orders were handed down by the government and business administrators? Maybe you thought about it. You did your own research. Thought about it critically, and decided to comply. If you didn’t stop and think. You automatically complied because you didn’t know how to tell people why you didn’t. You naturally go-along-to-get-along, then you failed to utilize your second-order agency to discern independently what was the right thing for you to do. The point is not whether you did or did not. Ultimately, it is about what is right or wrong, good or evil. But the entry point is you doing your own due diligence to decide what is the right thing for you. This is what discernment means.

Just to be clear. Second-order human agency is our capacity to make decisions between choices that on the surface may not have any discernable difference. First-order agency is simply that awareness that we are hungry, tired, and afraid. We respond instinctively, like any animal. This is why developing our second-order agency is so important in a time when human evil touches our lives every day.

We develop discernment by asking questions. Even if we feel the decision is automatic, we should take the opportunity to ask questions. My recommendation is to use my Five Questions That Everyone Must Ask.

The Five Questions That Everyone Must Ask.

1. What has changed? How am I in transition?

2. What is my Impact?

3. Who am I Impacting?

4. What Opportunities do I have?

5. What Problems have I created? What Obstacles do I face?

As you learn to ask these questions, you will discover that you can ask them in different ways.

As written, we are asking about the past.

We can ask them in preparation for a program or meeting.

We can ask them in planning for the future.

We can ask them in evaluating a team member or an event that was recently completed.

We can ask them to resolve a conflict of opinion.

We can ask them when we see a mimetic conflict arise.

We can ask them when we are trying to discern if someone has done something unethical.

From asking these questions, we gain two types of awareness.

We become aware of what is important to us.

We become aware of what is happening in the various settings in which we are operating.

Do this and you have taken steps toward doing that which is good rather than evil and you’ll find your life making sense in a way that it has never before. This is what I consider Synthetic awareness.