More re: Heart of Flesh/Heart of Stone. Optimism, empathy and ethics

[pegkerr]

Lots and lots of comments on my last point. Um, where to start. I'm going to try to answer some of the comments and articulate a little bit better exactly what I'm getting at with this metaphor of "heart of flesh/heart of stone." I plunge into these explanations with trepidation, sure that I'll mess up again. Bear with me. I'll do my best.

I didn't mean to imply that magdalene1's vision of His and Her future was superior to awatson's (parodied) vision because magdalene1's was more hopeful or optimistic or idealistic.

I didn't always see that so clearly. I used to make the mistake--and I really do think it was a mistake--to think that optimism was morally superior. This caused me a great deal of anguish over the years until I got this straightened out in my own mind. Bad enough to struggle with chronic depression. It's even worse if you get down on yourself, and see yourself as a moral failure, because you see things in a gloomy way.

If this optimism/pessimism scale is what cakmpls was referring to by arguing that there is no intrinsic superiority between one way of looking at the world and the other, then yes, I agree.

I also think that people who have what I call the heart of flesh can certainly be pessimistic.

cakmpls also said I don't believe that there are hearts of flesh and hearts of stone. I think that there are simply people with different needs.

Well, yeah, I don't believe it literally, of course. I meant it as a metaphor. Let me try to pin down a little better what I meant.

As I understand it, People with a heart of flesh may be impervious to hurt because of a natural resiliency or very sensitive to hurt. The key is, they open themselves up to the possibility of being hurt. They are also open to the possibility of joy, too, in a way that those with hearts of stone are not. They allow themselves the whole range of human emotion, both joy and anguish. People with a heart of stone decide (unconsciously or not) that they don't to risk the ridicule of the world, or they don't want to feel pain.

I think that a large part of the reason why is that they refuse to feel empathy.

Let me point you to a passage from a book that I think gets at this directly, Tim Powers' Dinner at Deviant Palace. The hero of the book, Greg Rivas, begins the book as a cynical man with a heart of stone. He was hurt in love years ago, and the experience was so painful that he never wants to go through anything like that again. Now he feels, the hell with the rest of humanity. He is hired to snatch back from a cult leader the girl whose family rejected him years ago. In the course of the journey he makes through the book, getting closer and closer to the cult leader, actually a totally egotistic alien, he is wounded again and again. He encounters people on his journey, and those encounters teach him something he had forgotten about entirely: empathy. At the climax of the book, the alien cult leader, recognizing a kindred spirit, invites Greg to join him in running his kingdom:

As to the question of why you--my dear fellow you, you underestimate yourself! I learned something from you, too, during our brief psychic linking. Why, in all my travels, I swear to you, never have I encountered such a fellow soul! Confess, confess--you too find other entities interesting only to the extent that they might give you pleasure or hindrance. Like me you consume with greedy haste everything you can get from them, and are indifferent to what might become of them afterward; you are in fact sickened by the sight of them, like being forced to linger over the chilling, congealed remains of a dinner! And like me, your real focus of attention, shorn of peripheral poses and pretences, is the one thing, the only thing, worth an eternity of regarding--yourself! You and I understand each other perfectly, boy. We could, without having to simulate any affection for each other, help each other considerably. We don't merge with anybody, boy. We consume. You and I are always distinct, undiluted, individual. Quanta rather than arbitrary segments of a continuum." Jaybush laughed sharply. "We're two of a kind."

Rivas stared across the deck table at the fat smiling face and knew that no one had ever understood him so thoroughly....

"I'm afraid," Rivas said . . . "that I'm going to refuse."

"Are you sure, boy? Tell papa why."

Rivas downed the remainder of his tequila and refilled the glass. "Well," he said almost comfortably, sure now he would never leave Deviant's Palace alive and that nothing he could say would change anything, "because of a . . . a bald boy who died on a garbage heap. And a pile of old stove parts [a robot Rivas met on his travels] that died on a glass plain. And a murdering pimp who evoked, and died out of, loyalty. And a whore with a sense of justice. Am I boring you? And because of Sister Windchime, who has compassion, though you've tried hard to stamp it out of her. And because the hard selfish part of Greg Rivas is swimming around in a canal someplace."

What changed was that Rivas discovered empathy with other people. Because people who guard their hearts of flesh can feel, they can feel connection with others. I prefer magdalene1's rooting for Him and Her, over awatson's (parodic) narrator, who found pleasure in wishing them misery. And yeah, I agree, magdalene1's picture of a bright future for Him and Her might not match theirs at all. They might hate kids, and want to run away to live in Tibet in a poly trio with a third person. Whatever. What was significant to me was that she wanted the best for them, whatever it was. She wanted them to be happy, because happiness mattered to her.

Those with what I call hearts of flesh can be pessimists. Frodo thought his mission was doomed, he despaired throughout the quest, but he kept on going because he knew that laying down his life for others was right. Was he a fool? The world may say so.

Certainly those with hearts of stone can be very happy. I'm sure Hitler loved his dog and enjoyed opera and got great pleasure out of the vast ampitheaters he built and the lovely machinery of death he dreamed up. I would rather be Anne Frank who near the end of her life said that in spite of everything, she still believed that people were really good at heart--and who died in a concentration camp at fifteen.

Yes, as cakmpls says, states of mind such as optimism or pessimism can be morally neutral. But states of mind, of understanding the world, lead to actions, and I don't believe that all actions are equally morally neutral. I also believe that intentions that lead to those actions can be judged.

Is it dangerous error to speak of "hearts of stone"? Is this metaphor hopelessly simplistic? Perhaps. But there's something, something there, with real moral implications for me. If what I call a stony heart leads a person to commit a moral wrong, the ethical must condemn them. But conversely, those with hearts of flesh will continue to reach out to those with stony hearts, trying out of empathy to make a connection that may save both. Think of Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, two women on opposite sides of the conflict in Northern Ireland, who each refused to believe that other had only a heart of stone and reached out to one another, empathizing with the other's pain, creating a movement that won the Nobel Prize.

I understand and agree with what cakmpls is saying about that she has a richer life when she uses binocular vision. I believe (if I remember correctly) that cakmpls has also objected to my trying to "tell no lies and of the truth all I can." What is truth, in a relative world? How is your truth better than mine?

Perhaps it is more helpful to think of what Galadriel said to Frodo, when he started to realize the enormity of the Quest, and what he was being asked to do and yet decide to do it anyway: "You begin to see with a keen eye." Yes. That is what I want. I don't deny that things may turn out badly, as awatson points out. But I want to also see the possibility of hope. I want to operate from the assumption that I don't to cut myself off from pain or joy, both mine or other people's. I want to make my decisions ethically. I believe that some things are right and some are wrong. If I try to be aware of other peoples' points of view as well as my own, I think I will choose those right courses of action more reliably than not.

That, I guess, is what I mean, by having a heart of flesh.

Comments

[kishmish.livejournal.com]

Beautiful entry. I have a friend I've been thinking about lately and your entry sheds some light on why he is the way he is. Thank you.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

For external purposes, I think the "heart of stone" / "heart of flesh" dichotomy is terribly dangerous. The problem comes in thinking you can ever know that about any other person.

As a model for what to strive for in yourself, it's...lots of trite terms that feel condescending, and I don't mean them that way; I just can't find the clear, positive term. Descending to the utter nadir of triteness, but I hope at least avoiding sounding condescending, that's a good thing.

I've also had near-bad experiences with the meme that great heights and depths of emotion go together. In my experience, the great depths, the true tragic angst, comes from chemical imbalance, and has nothing to do with a capacity for joy. I'm also not at all clear that styles of emotional expression correlate very well to depth of emotion displayed. I'm on the more reserved side myself, and many of the ways I've seen this argued appear to be saying that means I can't really feel emotion. I'm not convinced, as they say. And find the suggestion rather insulting. (Not you particularly -- you haven't said that, we've merely touched things that go near it, and I'm explaining a thing that may add emotional power to my reaction.)

I found the original romantic article somewhat trite, slightly unpleasant, badly tinged with one-true-wayism, but basically positive. He's at least wishing them good. I guess if one feels more strongly the narrowness of the view, one could feel the urge to parody it as described (which I have not read). The parody sounds kinda trite, destructive, generally negative; not to my taste.

[pameladean]

In the first place, Peg, I don't think you messed up particularly; you just chose a really spiky multi-dimensional example that didn't look the same to everybody.

In the second place, I think David really gets to, well, the heart of the matter when he says that you can't know things like that about another person. When I used the metaphor, I was thinking of what people could do about their own hearts. And you are too, but in trying to explain, you talk about others' hearts as well.

Pamela

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

While it is true that we can never truly know the hearts of others, I think it does a great disservice to our empathic abilities to use that fact as an excuse to not bother trying to learn their hearts.

B

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Well. I certainly feel like I off more than I could chew. I certainly feel a little pummeled.

You're probably right; realistically, one can really only know about one's own heart. That's more than enough responsibility.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I was afraid this discussion had a high risk of producing a pummeled feeling. For my part I intended very little pummeling -- I don't think we disagree as much as a quick surface reading of your original post might suggest. I hope I managed to convey some of that in my post.

You certainly did bite off a big topic to chew on. That's a *good* thing, of course -- though sometimes the jaw will become rather tired after a while chewing on it.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I certainly don't think that emotional expression has anything to do with the distinction of heart of flesh/heart of stone I'm trying to pin down here; in fact I would say vehemently that it absolutely doesn't. For example, take Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, a book I've discussed in this LiveJournal before. Marianne and Elinor, two sisters each in love, both have "hearts of flesh" but whereas Marianne prides herself in allowing full rein to her emotion, both positive and negative, even to the point where she eventually endangers her life, Elinor, who has deep reserve, does not, not wanting to inflict her emotions on her family. Yet, as she tells Marianne eventually, "just because you can't see it doesn't mean I don't feel it. I do."

Conversely, the character who clearly has a heart of stone, Willoughby, acts as Marianne, always allowing free expression to his unchecked emotion. Because of his essential selfishness, however, he eventually abandons Marianne because she is not rich enough. Col. Brandon, ridiculed by Marianne for his dull, reserved demeanor, is eventually revealed to have suffered the greatest heartbreak of all, but he always hid it.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

What then, does distinguish the heart of flesh from the heart of stone? If it is people's actions, why bother with the metaphor at all? Why characterize people's hearts, if what you're really judging is (as I think appropriate) their actions?

[jbru.livejournal.com]

If I'm reading things correctly, the distinguishing characteristic cannot be actions. In her Sense and Sensibility examples, characters actions seem sometimes at odds with what would be their labels.

What seems more likely is that the distinguising characteristic is the character's/person's reaction to events. The person with a heart of flesh has an internal reaction that is more likely to cause them anguish or joy. The person with the heart of stone's reaction may appear outwardly similar but will leave the person insulated from the pain or pleasure; the reaction will be muted.

I don't think that's exactly right, though, because again, from pegkerr's example, people with hearts of stone can be demonstrative. Their expressions, however, are inherently self-centered.

It's an interesting puzzle.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

But pegkerr seems to be saying not just that people with hearts of stone are not leading their own lives in the potentially most fulfilling way, but that they are in some way bad for others.

This may in part (not in whole!) come down to a question of whether it is "better" (in some way) to have good intentions but as an unintended result to harm someone, or to have bad intentions but as an unintended result to help someone. Do we judge someone to be a "good" person or a "bad" person by their intentions alone, by the actions that result from the intentions, or by the result of their actions?

Do we have any evidence that "opening oneself up to the possibility of being hurt" (pegkerr's "key" to the heart of flesh, above) causes people to intend to treat their fellow humans better, to perform actions that they mean to benefit their fellow humans, or to actually benefit their fellow humans? Or do we just assume that people whose actions benefit fellow humans have "hearts of flesh" and people whose actions harm fellow humans have "hearts of stone"--the circular argument I previously referred to?

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Perhaps here's further help from Sense and Sensibility: After Willoughby's perfidy is discovered, Marianne and Elinor are discussing what Marianne's marriage to Willoughby might have been like, had it gone forward:

...your marriage must have involved you in many certain troubles and disappointments in which you would have been poorly supported by an affection, on his side, much less certain. Had you married, you must have been always poor. His expensiveness is acknowledged even by himself, and his whole conduct declares that self-denial is a word hardly understood by him. His demands and your inexperience together on a small, very small income, must have brought on distresses which would not be the less grievous to you from having been entirely unknown and unthought of before. Your sense of honour and honesty would have led you, I know, when aware of your situation, to attempt all the economy that would appear to you possible; and perhaps, as long as your frugality retrenched only on your own comfort, you might have been suffered to practise it, but beyond that -- and how little could the utmost of your single management do to stop the ruin which had begun before your marriage? -- beyond that, had you endeavoured, however reasonably, to abridge his enjoyments, is it not to be feared, that instead of prevailing on feelings so selfish to consent to it, you would have lessened your own influence on his heart, and made him regret the connection which had involved him in such difficulties?"

Marianne's lips quivered, and she repeated the word "Selfish?" in a tone that implied "Do you really think him selfish?"

"The whole of his behaviour," replied Elinor, "from the beginning to the end of the affair, has been grounded on selfishness. It was selfishness which first made him sport with your affections -- which afterwards, when his own were engaged, made him delay the confession of it, and which finally carried him from Barton. His own enjoyment, or his own ease, was, in every particular, his ruling principle."

"It is very true. My happiness never was his object."

"At present," continued Elinor, "he regrets what he has done. And why does he regret it? Because he finds it has not answered towards himself. It has not made him happy. His circumstances are now unembarrassed -- he suffers from no evil of that kind, and he thinks only that he has married a woman of a less amiable temper than yourself. But does it thence follow that, had he married you, he would have been happy? The inconveniencies would have been different. He would then have suffered under the pecuniary distresses which, because they are removed, he now reckons as nothing. He would have had a wife of whose temper he could make no complaint, but he would have been always necessitous -- always poor; and probably would soon have learnt to rank the innumerable comforts of a clear estate and good income as of far more importance, even to domestic happiness, than the mere temper of a wife."

[more to follow]

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it is really that simple. All the characters I have been thinking about in this way: Ralph Nickleby in Nicholas Nickleby, Nick Tooley in Tam Lin, Kett in my first book, Rolf in the one I'm working on now, Gordon Gecko in Wall Street, (remember: "Greed is good"? Remember "Why are you wrecking this company?" "Because it's wreckable!"), Jaybush in Dinner at Deviant's Palace, yeah all of them. Maybe it boils down, in the end, to selfishness.

Why use the heart of flesh/heart of stone metaphor then? I think it gives a feeling for how emotions are involved. As I said, it doesn't have to do with the demonstration of emotions. "When I speak of "opening the self up" to emotion, it may be my fumbling way to trying to explain empathy, the ability to sympathetically understand how another person feels. If you strangle that ability in yourself, perhaps I've been implying, the price you pay is that eventually you fail to be able to feel anything at all. I have to think about that a bit, but isn't that generally said of psycopaths and sociopaths? They cannot imagine other people's points of view, their hurts--and eventually, it is said, they don't seem to have a sense of "feeling" at all.

I think the first time I ran across the metaphor of the heart of stone was when I was a child and read the story of Exodus in my Bible story book for the first time. The Pharoah was afraid and promised to release the Israelites with each plague, but when each plague passed, his "heart would be hardened" and he would refuse to release them. I was fascinated by that metaphor at that age. Note, here, how it's the same thing: selfishness. As long as the "price" to the Pharoah of keeping the Israelites is expensive (it involves gnats, frogs, boils, blood in the water), selfishness leads the Pharoah to calculate it makes more (economic) sense to let them go. But when the plague passes, the selfish need to exploit the Israelites' labor outweighs the pain that is now in the past. At no time does the justice or injustice of enslaving the Israelites enter into the Pharoah's reasoning. He simply is incapable of think that way at all. "Hardening" of the heart is a useful metaphoric way to describe that deadening effect on emotions and reasoning.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

empathy, the ability to sympathetically understand how another person feels.

In fact, though, we can never know how another person feels. We can only know how we would feel in their position, and then make a guess at how similar or different their feelings are, based on our knowledge of them individually and our experience with people in general.

(I'm going to make my responses stick to one point from here on!)

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Well, there's one easy thing to do: we can always ask them.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Sure, if we know them, and know them sufficiently well to ask such a question. But what of the millions upon millions whom we don't know, as well as those we know but not well enough? If we want to help people in Sudan, or North Korea, or Kosovo, or even here in the U.S., even in the next town, even the burned-out family on the next block whom we have never met, we cannot ask the individuals what they are feeling. We can only look at their circumstances and use our intellect and our own experience to tell us what will probably help them.

(Even when we ask, we face the problem of not knowing whether what you mean when you say "I feel sad" = what I mean when I say "I feel sad," but that's probably a different philosophical discussion.)

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

If you strangle that ability in yourself, perhaps I've been implying, the price you pay is that eventually you fail to be able to feel anything at all.

But is it? Have you any evidence whatsoever that people who don't "sympathetically understand how another person feels" don't feel anything?

. . . isn't that generally said of psycopaths and sociopaths? They cannot imagine other people's points of view, their hurts--and eventually, it is said, they don't seem to have a sense of "feeling" at all.

Sociopaths and psychopaths generally show signs of these traits from their earliest years, rather than progressively "strangling" some inborn empathy for others. There are a lot of different definitions floating around of "psychopath" and "sociopath." I haven't found one that says that eventually they don't have a sense of "feeling" at all, though such a definition may exist. However, their defining characteristic isn't that they can't imagine others' feelings, but that they don't care. In fact, some psychopathic killers derive pleasure from being able to imagine their victims' terror, even from "feeling" it with them.

Here may be a key point where we differ: To me, it is not necessary that one be able to imagine how another feels in order to care about what happens to that person. And it is not necessary to care what happens to another in order to still behave morally toward that person. All of this can be an intellectual process, with no emotional involvement at all. One can believe that the proper activity for a human is to treat other humans (or other living creatures) in a certain way, and that treatment may be indistinguishable from the treatment given by the most emotionally affected, empathetic person.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

More re: Sense and Sensibility here in a reply to dd_b.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

See my answer to cakmpls here;
also, I would correct myself on assessing Marianne at the beginning of the book, actually. Marianne begins the book being callous of the feelings of others. After her illness, she reflects upon what she has learned:

"I am not wishing him [Willoughby] too much good," said Marianne at last with a sigh, "when I wish his secret reflections may be no more unpleasant than my own. He will suffer enough in them."

"Do you compare your conduct with his?"

"No. I compare it with what it ought to have been; I compare it with yours."

"Our situations have borne little resemblance."

"They have borne more than our conduct. Do not, my dearest Elinor, let your kindness defend what I know your judgment must censure. My illness has made me think -- It has given me leisure and calmness for serious recollection. Long before I was enough recovered to talk, I was perfectly able to reflect. I considered the past; I saw in my own behaviour since the beginning of our acquaintance with him last autumn, nothing but a series of imprudence towards myself, and want of kindness to others. I saw that my own feelings had prepared my sufferings, and that my want of fortitude under them had almost led me to the grave. My illness, I well knew, had been entirely brought on by myself, by such negligence of my own health, as I had felt even at the time to be wrong. Had I died, it would have been self-destruction. I did not know my danger till the danger was removed; but with such feelings as these reflections gave me, I wonder at my recovery, -- wonder that the very eagerness of my desire to live, to have time for atonement to my God, and to you all, did not kill me at once. Had I died, in what peculiar misery should I have left you, my nurse, my friend, my sister! -- You, who had seen all the fretful selfishness of my latter days; who had known all the murmurings of my heart! -- How should I have lived in your remembrance! -- My mother too! How could you have consoled her! -- I cannot express my own abhorrence of myself. Whenever I looked towards the past, I saw some duty neglected, or some failing indulged. Everybody seemed injured by me. The kindness, the unceasing kindness of Mrs. Jennings, I had repaid with ungrateful contempt. To the Middletons, the Palmers, the Steeles, to every common acquaintance even, I had been insolent and unjust; with an heart hardened against their merits, [note the heart of stone metaphor used here!] and a temper irritated by their very attention. -- To John, to Fanny, -- yes, even to them, little as they deserve, I had given less than their due. But you, -- you above all, above my mother, had been wronged by me. I, and only I, knew your heart and its sorrows; yet, to what did it influence me? -- not to any compassion that could benefit you or myself. -- Your example was before me: but to what avail? -- Was I more considerate of you and your comfort? Did I imitate your forbearance, or lessen your restraints, by taking any part in those offices of general complaisance or particular gratitude which you had hitherto been left to discharge alone? No; -- not less when I knew you to be unhappy, than when I had believed you at ease, did I turn away from every exertion of duty or friendship; scarcely allowing sorrow to exist but with me, regretting only that heart which had deserted and wronged me, and leaving you, for whom I professed an unbounded affection, to be miserable for my sake."

Marianne in this scene clearly sees the difference between the heart of flesh and the heart of stone. The pain of Willoughby's betrayal has tutored her in the difference, and she clearly ends the book making a deliberate choice to turn from one path to the other. Again, clearly, the key is recognizing the selfishness underneath of the heart of stone.

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

What your talking about reminds me most (at least the way you're describing it here) of Harry and Dumbledore and the end of OotP. Harry is hurt and angry and just wants to hate and die and never care about anyone again, but Dumbledore explains to him that the things that make him want to withdraw from the world, to have a heart of stone, are the very things that make him care and that will make him care again, to have a heart of flesh. Anyway, I just instantly thought of that when I read this. Very interesting concept.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

I think that a large part of the reason why is that they refuse to feel empathy.

I think this turn of phrase may be part of the crux from which the danger in this metaphor arises.

The metaphor proposes that there is a binary state. Your usage seems to imply that this may be a matter of choice.

I imagine that you would agree that there are shades of gray between the two extremes; it seems appropriate, for example, that one may have a heart of "stone" in relation to certain subjects or people.

What seems to come across in your postings, however, (both on this topic recently and elsewhere) is that you are an empathic person and that you see value in quality of yourself. (Was it Fiona or Delia(sp?) that you reassured about being sensitive? You reinforce, quite rightly, the positive aspects of this in your children, it seems.)

It is possible, however, that people simply do not empathize, that the capacity to do so is somehow not part of their make-up. This doesn't make them, necessarily, bad people. (It may allow them to more readily become bad people.) Likewise being able to feel empathy for your fellow human does not, of itself, make one a good person. (It may make it more difficult to be a monstrous person.)

And so some are struck, I think, with the danger implied in the metaphor. That it would be easy to write off those we see as having hearts of "stone." Or, as dd_b points out, to assume that a heart of "flesh" means we must have both highs and lows of emotion in the extreme.

I think, however, that this metaphor is a good one to write about. Exploring how people relate to each other is a fabulous theme for fiction and a worthy one.

Hmm. Just struck on another metaphor that may be appropriate for your Ice Palace book: the heart of ice vs. the heart of fire. (Some people live their lives with a heart of fire, they are volatile, energetic, passionate, but also may "burn out" quickly. Others live their lives with a heart of ice, they are distant, hard, slow to love or to anger but are in danger of becoming completely removed from their fellow humans.)

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Empathy is both a talent and ability.

Some people are born with it--they're lucky, but they also have their own special brand of problems because of it.

Other people have to learn it.

It can be learned. And it should be.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

Some would say that empathy is developed at an early age, that if a child is supported in particular ways that they learn empathy and that if they are not, that they end up not learning it or with a stunted ability.

I'm not sure how one would go about learning empathy once past that developmental stage. An adult could learn, I think, to mimic empathy; but if they did not have an innate capacity for empathy, that it would be just repeating learned responses. "Be quietly attentive in this situation," "Offer support in that case." Kind of like learning etiquette for funerals or pregnancy announcements.

So, can empathy be learned? I'm not sure. Should it be? Like I said, I think having empathy makes is much less likely for a person to do monstrous things and lacking it makes it may make a person more likely to become a bad person. So, yes, empathy is a valuable attribute in our civilization.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

If you mimic empathy long enough and the behaviors become ingrained and it becomes typical for you to tell yourself: "I wonder if my actions made so-and-so feel bad--perhaps I should try to put myself in their shoes and imagine it?", then the difference between being born with empathy and imagining it is insignificant.

It's something all people should aim for, whether they're lucky enough to be born sensitive to other people's feelings or whether they have to expend the massive effort it requires to compensate for being without it.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I can't believe anyone gave you trouble over this, by the way. I find it rather ridiculous. :,

Our culture these days devalues the sacred and the serious in favor of mockery, profanity and cynicism. I hate it. I'm in this battle with you all the way.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that. I really needed to hear it today.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I like to think that I'm "with you" in this too. I find the topic fascinating and hope that discussion helps me clarify my thoughts on the subject. In the meantime, please know that however you are defining the meanings behind this metaphor, I think that you have a lot to give and I appreciate all you do.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

I note lately that if you say something as common-sensical as "You should be decent to one another," a flood of people will appear out of nowhere. Half of them will say, "OH YEAH? Well what IS decent behavior, anyway??" and the other half will declare, "Well, I think you can approve of cynical, cruel or thoughtless behavior and still be decent!"

I'm not sure where these trains of thought originated, but I find them both so remarkable that I hardly know what to say to people who seriously believe they constitute a refutation of the argument that we should be decent to other human beings.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

To me, those don't sound like refutations; they sound like requests for clarification.

Part 1

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

(This is so long that LJ won't let me post it all at once. I hope you don't mind my taking up so much space in your LJ!)

First, I want to say that I generally agree with what dd_b says above. (I think that he and I have some traits very much in common, and some other traits that are about 180 degrees off, which explains why over the years we have generally either agreed completely or disagreed vehemently!) The following particularly resonates with me:

I'm also not at all clear that styles of emotional expression correlate very well to depth of emotion displayed. I'm on the more reserved side myself, and many of the ways I've seen this argued appear to be saying that means I can't really feel emotion. I'm not convinced, as they say. And find the suggestion rather insulting. (Not you particularly -- you haven't said that, we've merely touched things that go near it, and I'm explaining a thing that may add emotional power to my reaction.)

One example I can think of for myself is that I have a very dry sense of humor. Often, people don't know when I'm not serious. It has been said of me that I am "humorless" and "totally lacking in a sense of humor."

I also have, in this discussion, been doing much as he has: going further into topics to which your comments led me, rather than meaning a reply directly to what you said.

In reading dd_b's comments, then pameladean's and minnehahaB's responses, it strikes me that some of what we're looking at is not so much truly knowing another's heart as drawing conclusions about another's heart by judging their superficial demeanor. I think that it's essential to make a distinction between those two; like dd_b, I don't think that all people show their feelings in the same way, nor IMHO should they, nor would it be a very interesting world (though perhaps a more peaceful one)if they did.

Also re your response to him: I'm quite sure that no one here intended to "pummel" you. (Certainly no one here whom I know personally would have intended that.) But how can any of us test our own ideas unless we expose them to others' scrutiny? We can then accept or reject, adopt new bits, adjust, gain new insights even where those insights don't change our approach. It all contributes to learning about others, which for me at least is the only road to understanding them.

Now, on to this post of yours.

If this optimism/pessimism scale is what cakmpls was referring to by arguing that there is no intrinsic superiority between one way of looking at the world and the other, then yes, I agree.

It was certainly part of what I was referring to. But another part is this: Thinking that things may, even probably will, turn out badly for someone does not mean that one does not care about it. Being able to foresee a probably bad end is not the same as wishing it to happen. Accepting the bad end as the likely one does not mean doing what one can to keep it from happening.

cakmpls also said "I don't believe that there are hearts of flesh and hearts of stone. I think that there are simply people with different needs."

Well, yeah, I don't believe it literally, of course. I meant it as a metaphor.

Of course I knew that. But as I said to someone else, as a metaphor, it has never been a compliment. Therefore, it seems to me that it does imply a negative judgment of the person one characterizes as having such a heart. The fact that you later use Hitler as an example of someone with a heart of stone seems to support this.

Part 2

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

The key is, they open themselves up to the possibility of being hurt.

IMHO, sometimes people who appear not to be affected by others' pain are the ones who feel it most acutely, and they are able to function at all only by shutting off a certain amount of caring. Consider the way emergency personnel (EMTs, firefighters, ER medical staff) often joke around horribly injured people: it's the only way they can do their job. They can't "open themselves up to the possibility of being hurt" (in the sense you seem to mean it) and still be of any use to themselves or anyone else. I think the same is true for some people in their everyday lives. Consider the possibility that it is the people who feel the most empathy who have the greatest need to shut off the feeling.

What was significant to me was that she wanted the best for them, whatever it was. She wanted them to be happy, because happiness mattered to her.

awatson may very well have wanted them to be happy, too. There is nothing to say otherwise in the parody. "Want to happen" and "think will happen" are not the same. This is, I think, a crucial point in this discussion.

Yes, as cakmpls says, states of mind such as optimism or pessimism can be morally neutral. But states of mind, of understanding the world, lead to actions, and I don't believe that all actions are equally morally neutral. I also believe that intentions that lead to those actions can be judged.

I believe that intentions can be judged as something like "potentially dangerous" or "potentially helpful," but that's all. Only actions can be judged as morally (or ethically, legally, etc.) right or wrong.

If what I call a stony heart leads a person to commit a moral wrong, the ethical must condemn them.

Condemn the wrong actually done, yes.

But conversely, those with hearts of flesh will continue to reach out to those with stony hearts, trying out of empathy to make a connection that may save both.

I could just as easily say that people with hearts of flesh stand by, helplessly dissolved in grief for the suffering, while people with hearts of stone do the actual work of saving people.

It appears to me that your argument is circular: People with hearts of flesh do good things; I know they have hearts of flesh because they do good things. Do you have any evidence at all that opening oneself up to hurt actually causes one--not you yourself, but any randomly selected person--to do good things?

I believe (if I remember correctly) that cakmpls has also objected to my trying to "tell no lies and of the truth all I can." What is truth, in a relative world? How is your truth better than mine?

No, that wasn't I. I think that it's a fine thing for a person to tell all they can of the truth as they see it, because only if they and those around them do so can any of them test their own vision of truth. People who are convinced that they have the truth and who will not listen to others' counter-truths are, IMHO, among the most dangerous people in the world. This ties in with what I said about people not intending to pummel you, but to test their own truths against yours.

Searching for the truth is a brave act. Please continue!

Re: Part 2

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

As I said to dd_b in a later reply, I don't think that those who aren't emotionally expressive have hearts of stone. That's not at all what I'm saying or believing. I went on to take some examples from Sense and Sensibility that are worth thinking about.

It's good that you help me test and refine my thinking, and while having one's (initial) thinking on a topic scrupulously examined and poked and prodded and tested by friends can be challenging, I don't doubt that it will help me in the end to "see with a keen eye," so it's all to the good. I've certainly been doing some good cogitating on this subject the last couple of days, and it has spun out to touch quite a number of other topics. Thanks.

Re: Part 2

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

and while having one's (initial) thinking on a topic scrupulously examined and poked and prodded and tested by friends can be challenging,

I think it's perfectly reasonable to say in an entry something like "These are my first thoughts on the topic, and I'm not ready to have them examined and poked and prodded and tested, because I still have some things to work through for myself." I've said something similar,on occasion, to J when putting my preliminary thoughts into words.

Re: Part 1

[apeppermintgirl.livejournal.com]

Or All have 'hearts of flesh'--just some of those are only flesh for their own, and stone for others. For instance, in Schindler's list, didn't it show a Nazi official smiling benevolently at his child, patting him on the head indulgently and ordering cruelties for his Jewish prisoners...Everyone has a heart of flesh for someone....some hearts of flesh have walls of defenses built around them, some people are so afraid to be vulnerable, that their heart does appear 'stone cold.' Then there are the 'hard hearts'--I don't want to generalize, for there may be a separate cause for that state for each person so 'afflicted.' I call it an affliction, because it is a deep-seated part of how that person responds. In the Bible, it was the hard hearts that always pitted themselves against God, and lost. No one has a completely stone heart--a heart of flesh with lots of defenses for one reason or another. What I'm wondering is if there is a difference between a heart of flesh with lots of defenses and a ' hard heart.' Perhaps the defenses 'grow into' the heart, hardening it? Is the person to blame for allowing that to happen? Again, it depends what triggers the process...there seem to be some people with a hardness in their heart that has no visible outer cause, even knowing their life story....is it something in the genes?

[shusu.livejournal.com]

Peg, I'm entirely too addled IRL to follow the different lines of discussion. I'll do my best! First of all, thank you for holding it in your journal. It's terribly important to have this kind of interface.

I think a lot of the quibbling is over semantics. Does your metaphor apply to the greater universe? To society? To individual human beings? Does it accept the possibility that someone with a heart of flesh might do something wrong, though they meant well? Does it accept that someone with a heart of stone might do something right because it has to be done? Can people with different hearts do exactly the same thing and mean them in different ways, or cause different outcomes?

The mechanisms that a society uses to uphold the sacred and the just may not be the same as the mechanisms of a human being. Or the one of the guy next to him. Personally? I came into the world sensitive, and built walls as I grew up. I probably do have a heart of stone. I'm an expert at withholding my love and attention, if only to protect myself. I think I'm too young to understand anything beyond that... did I start out with a heart of flesh? Do I actually still have it? I have no idea.

I really think you could consider all of our opinions and strengthen your ideas. I took a course on Indian philosophy a while back, and it struck me that they spent so much energy on defining what was essentially indefinable. That's not something that would be given much credence today. Yet many biologists and sociologists count experience and altruism as necessities for population survival. And part of that experience are the things that cannot be defined in languages already invented, or stories already written, or songs already sung.

I've read your journal for quite a while, and I think you have something important to share. Best of luck and blessings on writing.

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

I think I understand what you mean by your metaphor, the heart of stone as the unempathic, cut-off-from-caring state vs. the heart of flesh as the empathic, open, vulnerable-but-alive-and-feeling state. However, I don't agree that the "happy" version represents the "heart of flesh" and the "cynical" version represents the heart of stone.

For starters, let's remember that the "cynical" version is a parody. If we're going to damn parody, sarcasm, cynicism, and such, then we've pretty well damned ourselves to a humorless existence. As Valentine Michael Smith pointed out in Stranger in a Strange Land, humor is based, not on the happy and good, but on the unhappy and bad things. The parody, cynical as it is, is humorous precisely because it is cynical: It evokes that sadly ironic sense of recognition in most anyone who's lived long enough to realize that real life is more complex than the happily ever after fairy tale romance version of relationships. It addresses our point of pain. We recognize. We relate. We grok. And we chuckle.

Also, I think that there is just as much danger (as I've said) in being wholly romantic as there is in being wholly cynical. Maybe the Heart of Novocaine -- numbing via thinking only happy white-light thoughts and not allowing sarcastic thoughts to take hold?

Finally, at the risk of stating the obvious: It was, from what I see, mainly an intellectual exercise in word play, and I think everybody's making a far bigger deal of it than the situation actually warrants -- unless, of course, there really are people out there who think that cynicism and parody have NO place in a balanced life of the mind and soul.

In which case, I can only say: I disagree. The bitter and the sweet are all part of a balanced diet.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

The bitter and the sweet are both part of life. Accepting them both are part of a balanced human life. But the celebration of the bitter is not something that should be encouraged in a sane society.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

A couple observations:

What is sweet to one person may cause bitterness for another.

Not everyone finds the same things sweet and bitter.

Perhaps the bitter should be celebrated, because without it we could not recognize the sweet.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

What is sweet to one person may cause bitterness for another. Not everyone finds the same things sweet and bitter.


We're all human. At some level, the things we want and need are the same. To deny that is to deny the humanity of other persons.

We're not really that different, even if you have to back away from the day-to-day lives in order to see the themes that move through all human cultures and all human lives.

Perhaps the bitter should be celebrated, because without it we could not recognize the sweet.

The bitter should be acknowledged for making the sweet sweeter. I believe putting it on a pedestal to be worshipped and encouraged only leads to more bitterness. Since the object (of my life, at least) is to increase the sweet for myself and all the people around me, I'd rather not encourage behaviors that lead people to be cruel, cynical or thoughtless.

Just my two cents.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

We're all human. At some level, the things we want and need are the same. To deny that is to deny the humanity of other persons.

Only if one believes that what we "want and need" defines us as human. There are other definitions.

I'm curious as to what these things are, that for you the wanting and needing of them defines humanity.

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

I'm not necessarily talking about "celebrating" the bitter, but we certainly ought to be able to joke about it. Shadow and light are to be equally embraced in order to find balance and wholeness. People who emphasize only the "sweet" tend to be just as unbearable, in their sweet-and-delicate think-only-white-light-thoughts fluffiness, as people who dwell only on the dark side of life and can find the cloud in every silver lining.

I think it is both sane and healthy to have a capacity for both sentiment and sarcasm, not to mention to have a sense of humor. Goddess preserve us from the humorless at either end of the spectrum!

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how I came upon this entry (followed a link to a link to this), but I wanted to comment on it, because it mirrors something about my own writing right now. Apologies for jumping on something far in the past...

First, I think I understand what you want to say here, about hearts of flesh and hearts of stone. I also understand how *hard* it is to express that in a way that people can understand.

Right now, I'm trying to understand and write about (and puncture and destroy) an aura of negativity. Today, in the United States, it seems easy to think poorly of the other person. It's easy to think that most other people are scum, it's easy to view the world as a terrible, unfriendly, and nasty place.

And a lot of times it is. You can't ever deny that, or ignore that. At the same time, most people want to do the right thing, and, if you give them a chance, and enough information, they'll do it. *Usually*, if a large number of people are being evil, they've been blinded or misled... sometimes on a societal level (e.g., the US did have legal slavery for a long time), sometimes more locally.

It's easy to be cynical, to decide that people are bad guys, until proven to be good, but if you believe that, then why should you reach out to others? The odds are, you'll be reaching out to a bad person.

And if no one reaches out, the world does become a colder, more unfriendly place, and it ends up becoming nastier and more self-centered, until there's more reason to believe that people *are* the bad guys, etc..

I'm not sure if there are words for it. But, among the two descriptions of the blind date, who would you expect to help, if the person who had a bicycle was trying to make it to the date with a flat tire?

The one who imagined the long, happy relationship, who thinks "Just think what I could end up being part of"? Or the one who imagined the cold, dead relationship, who could just as easily think "you're better of not making it to meet some random loser."

The difference isn't optimism versus pessimism, really... just as the optimist can work to bring about great joy, the pessimist could work to avoid a bitter disappointment (when the great joy collapses). It's something dealing with hope, and with importance.

One of the things I remember most from Tolkein is a very vague scene, something about one of the warrior-folks talking about the hobbits, and being happy that they know nothing of the great struggles. He was glad to realize that, by holding the line, he was doing enough good that the hobbits *could* live their peaceful lives.

The other point of view would be furious that the hobbits didn't know, or care, about the great war being fought.

Herm. Definitely a lot of stuff to think about.

Sorry for the long comment to such an old entry, but you really got me thinking about this.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much for your thoughts. I'm interested in what you've discussed here. I think we've seen a very good example of it in the news lately, with all the heated rhetoric in the Schiavo case. Terri Schiavo's parents kept insisting that Michael Schiavo wanted to "murder" her; they couldn't seem to grasp that he might actually be acting out his sense of personal ethics. And there were also charges flung around that judges eager to "murder." There was a lot of demonizing going on.

I went to a healing ceremony put on by a liberal group after the last election, and we discussed the wounds in our nation now, the sense that we are bickering so bitterly that we are losing our sense that "the other side" on any public question might actually want good things for our country, too. Like you, I am thinking a lot about these things.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Did you see the earlier post on the same topic, by the way?