Let's face it - you may be lying to yourself.
At least that's what I believe, but it could just be a story I am telling myself.
Preface: I don't mean for this to be a political blog, but I may use political examples. They are examples and may or may not be what I believe. If you can't handle that, then this substack may have been designed for you!
Every day I hear “right,” “wrong,” “should,” and “shouldn't” used in mainstream media, social media, and conversation. Sometimes it is not that obvious, but what it amounts to, is people trying to define for others what they believe is right and wrong or should or shouldn't be. Let me be clear – there is no “right,” “wrong,” “should,” and “shouldn't” – those things are not real and if you believe they are, you may be lying to yourself and others.
Take an example of an average day on the RealClearPololtics.com page. On the day of writing this, there were 18 stories in the first part of the website. While they all have catchy headlines, a fun game is to read through them and ask yourself if there is a should, shouldn't, right or wrong story under each link. Today, I counted nine headlines that would fit into this category without even reading the stories. Each was a writer or editor trying to tell me, the reader, what was right or wrong or what I should or shouldn’t do.
Let’s be generous and accept that they are not deliberately trying to deceive us. Assuming that, and that you might agree with some and not others, in all cases what they are saying is not the truth. It’s just truth as they see it. The difference matters because the reason for the difference matters. If you don’t understand it, you (like many of these writers) may just be lying to yourself.
Right/Wrong and Should/Shouldn't
The Japanese have something they call Hansei. Hansei (反省, "self-reflection") is a central idea in Japanese culture, acknowledging one's own mistakes and pledge improvement. The "self-reflection" here is this: there is no right, no wrong, and no should and no shouldn't and these concepts are not real and are unhelpful. When using them, you are not being honest; you are just telling yourself a story to make you feel better.
This may be a shocking idea and hard to get your mind around. In fact, many people faced with this concept respond that the very idea that there may be ‘no right or wrong’ is itself, "wrong." Ironic. We need to explore why this is and how thinking this helps us.
First, to accept there is no 'wrong,' you need to accept some other things.
When we think through why we believe something is right or wrong and trace it back, it leads us to what we were taught. Someone, somewhere, told us it was right/wrong, and we believed what we had been told. Our parents, for example, probably taught us stealing was bad, and therefore, it is wrong. They were taught by their parents or their religion or someone else and they passed it on. They may have even told us an example about someone taking something of ours and asking us how we would feel. You would not like it if Marky took your $1, so don't take his. This stealing is wrong, clearly.
Conversely, if our parents had taught us, in this example, that stealing from the rich is OK because the unfair distribution of wealth makes it acceptable, would it be OK to take Marky’s $1? If you answer no to this, even given the context, then you may be missing the point.
In both these examples, we reply to stories we tell ourselves to justify what we believe. In many cases, this justification is both valuable and necessary. Most cultures agree that killing people is terrible unless some precondition is met. Your self-defense may be a precondition that most people agree on but only when 'necessary.' But one person thinking it necessary may be considered an overreaction to someone else.
Of course, you may say stealing is bad because it’s against civil law or maybe it was disallowed in the Ten Commandants. Yet both are based on stories we tell ourselves which others see differently.
Not sure? Answer this question: which of the Ten Commandants forbids stealing? Is it 7 or 8? Well, checking Wikipedia, it’s 7 if you believe in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but it’s 8 if you follow the Talmud. Why is that?
The answer is that there are reasons, but both are just stories we tell ourselves.
Taking short-cuts
Either way, it is hard to live in a community where don't agree on some standards. Additionally, it would be hard to go through life having to question whether everything is real or not. So, we take shortcuts and have processes to make life easier. But it may be worth remembering that these shortcuts don't make things right/wrong or mean should/shouldn't. These shortcuts are just stories we tell ourselves to make life easier, but they only have limited validity and use. Often these shortcuts do not survive even trivial poking.
In these postings, I want to explore why these shortcuts aren't always helpful and can even mislead you. We will examine ideas found in the works of psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky around heuristics and where they can lead us astray. We will look at books like the 3 Laws of Performance by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan to understand that language is key to understanding what we think is real. We will even explore some philosophy and what makes us believe what we see is true.
So why does this matter?
All this matters because way too many of us are spending way too much time thinking that these shortcuts are somehow real. Following that, we then demand others to act and behave to reinforce what we believe in the stories we are telling ourselves. The moment we accept there may be no right, no wrong, no should, and no shouldn't, and that these are just stories we are telling ourselves, we open ourselves up to better understand ourselves and each other. That would seem a pretty good step forward for all of us.
At least that's what I believe, but it could just be a story I am telling myself.