“[I]f we succeed …the revolutionary conflagration will spread to Europe: the European worker languishing under bourgeois reaction will rise in his turn and show us ‘how it is done’, then the revolutionary upsurge in Europe will have a repercussive effect upon Russia and will convert an epoch in a few revolutionary years into an era of several revolutionary decades.”
-Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, 1905.
“There will be deer grazing in Times Square in 40 years.”
-Timothy Leary, 1967.
“I believe that every human being with a physically normal brain can learn a great deal and can be surprisingly intellectual… We can all be members of the intellectual elite and then, and only then, will a phrase like ‘America's right to know’ and indeed any true concept of democracy, have any meaning.”
-Isaac Asimov, 1980.
These lines are a fitting summation of the sentiments of the groups of which each were most closely associated - Lenin of the Socialist ideologues, Leary of the American counter-culture, and Asimov of the tech intelligentsia at the dawn of the internet.
It was clear to each of the groups respectively that the first shot of revolution would set off a spark that would engulf the first world and lead to the workers at long last rising up in unison against their exploiters. It was clear that the “square” order was dying and an evolution of consciousness was imminent that would remake the world. It was clear that the availability of all the world’s knowledge at the fingertips of near everyone would transform the population and democratize the realm of thought.
Each is an example of the long history of a misestimation of the human species in a particular direction. About the capacity and interest that broad swaths of human beings have in focusing on vital matters and the courage to do something definitive about it in an opportune moment. Lenin about economic exploitation, Leary about the diminishment of the self and the constriction of freedom, and Asimov about ignorance.
Though obviously quibbles could be made about the wisdom of the "something definitive" proposed by each, I would suggest the point is that nothing was done, and often indeed less than nothing. People of a certain class who do nothing to contribute are thriving as never before and many who work are still largely left to fight over the scraps that fall from the masters table. The "ant people" values that the counterculture rose up against have been doubled down on, almost universally now. And lies and ignorance rule the world.
What comes to mind though when reading such statements is the many similarly bold and optimistic proclamations by people within my field about individual change and growth. I think of Rogers, I think of the young Maslow, I think of Winnicott, I think of Allport, and even of Erich Fromm.
Allport and Rogers are the ones that go at this the hardest though. An example of relevant lines from each, respectively:
“A person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits.” (Allport)
“…experience has forced me to conclude that the individual has within himself the capacity and the tendency, latent if not evident, to move forward toward maturity. In a suitable psychological climate this tendency is released, and becomes actual rather than potential. It is evident in the capacity of the individual to understand those aspects of his life and of himself which are causing him pain and dissatisfaction, an understanding which probes beneath his conscious knowledge of himself into those experiences which he has hidden from himself because of their threatening nature. It shows itself in the tendency to reorganize his personality and his relationship to life in ways which are regarded as more mature.
Whether one calls it a growth tendency, a drive toward self-actualization, or a forward-moving directional tendency, it is the mainspring of life, and is, in the last analysis, the tendency upon which all psychotherapy depends. It is the urge which is evident in all organic and human life—to expand, extend, become autonomous, develop, mature—the tendency to express and activate all the capacities of the organism, to the extent that such activation enhances the organism or the self.” (Rogers)
The problem with this proposition is that large scale studies have consistently found that when it comes to human beings, stability - in personality, growth indicators and character - is the norm. And this is easily confirmed by everyday experience. How many people do you know who have drastically changed for the better in a “move forwards toward maturity”? Typically when the adult stability norm is broken, it’s in the opposite direction. Trauma, for example, leads to things like lower openness to experience and to permanent declines in character strengths and age itself seems to kill off the urge to grow.
So are Allport and Rogers full of shit, whose quotes should be placed alongside those of Lenin, Leary and Asimov in the Great Hall of Over-optimistic Errors?
Let me remind you though that I’ve already staked a claim on this question, so I can’t pretend objectivity. The rhetorical question “What if the self, rather than being a stable, predictable, bulwark-ish thing-like thing, is rather a deeply malleable, loose, water-esque, organism-like organism?” was answered unequivocally in the ensuing letter.
So am I here to backtrack?
No, I’m here to qualify. To speak about for whom and when the law of stability breaks down, and growth becomes possible. Humans broadly have the capacity - either by birth or by circumstance (or some combination) - to alter themselves in the direction Rogers speaks of (just not exactly how he proposes it).
First I want to point out the obvious and immediate: that the writers I’ve drawn on thus far have not faded from history and that this letter has any active readers whatsoever are just two signs that the “average” trajectory of life is just that. I’d like to think it has something to do with the old-fashioned pursuit of the good, the true and the beautiful that somehow refuses to altogether die off.
It suggests that a focus on the common lot disguises considerable heterogeneity, and that individuals with both the capacity and desire to take a different path are alive and (hopefully) well in the world.
But what are the markers of those who defy the pull of normalacy and who continue “kicking against the pricks” that keep the masses in line?
Let’s draw a sketch. The relevant variables are potentially never-ending, but I want to highlight 3 key ones:
1. Cognitive Ability
While Maslow fetishized those in the upper stratosphere of this variable, what is far more important for most outcomes is meeting a certain minimal threshold:
As growth involves the striving toward insight and wisdom, a certain level of cognitive abilities is a necessary yet not sufficient precondition of growth. The cognitive decline observed across late adulthood that accelerates after around the age of 60 is one potential driver of the declining trajectories of growth indicators. In line with this idea, previous research has shown that cognitive performance is not only a correlate but also a predictor of Openness. It was also found that controlling for fluid intelligence and Openness attenuated negative age differences in personal wisdom. Furthermore, an inductive reasoning intervention designed to improve cognitive functioning in old age resulted in concomitant changes in Openness.
In other words, for many after the age of around 60, growth for most begins to become especially difficult - granted they were born over the cut-off point
—1A. Health
This should be no surprise because cognitive decline is linked with health and everything that detracts from it. One of the continuing themes of these letters is that everything is connected and we put them in little set-apart boxes to our own detriment.
There’s a ton of hand-wringing about the lack of great works, and I’d suggest one major factor is right in front of us: Americans - and 1st world countries generally - are deeply unhealthy. We’ve cordoned off the intellectual classes from any sphere of meaningful human physical activity, and so our flesh rots away. Freud vexed about the lack of ethical individuals constraining the supply of genius’s and in today’s world I’d add the lack of movement and often the lack of sensible eating and habits of living.
This is not entirely new, though of course it’s only grown worse. If Einstein had taken better care of himself and not spent his last 39 years wracked with chronic illness, who knows how much further he would have gone, and whether or not he still would have spent the last decades of his life essentially banging his head against the wall pursuing a dead end. Maslow himself hated exercising and it’s ironic that he died during one of the rare times he listened to his doctor. I don’t think it’s unrelated that he did very little beyond some tinkering with his old theories after 1967, and became a rather stodgy old man.
But to a certain extent past generations can be excused because of the state of knowledge then. Now, there are few refuges from the plain fact this is cognitive suicide on the installment plan, en masse.
Some however fall into this trajectory of stasis and decline however because of the blows of fate. This is particularly so (and difficult to bounce back from) when it happens early or when the baseline level of health is low to begin with. For example, the disadvantages of early adversity are growing by the day, and just this year Chopik and colleagues found that the only variable that predicted whether a soldier bounced back from deployment experience was their self-reported level of health prior to deployment. In other words, health is what appears to be the primary component of “grit” and resilience and not the consumption of monomaniacal self-help books.
—1B. Enrichment, and particularly (perhaps) of the Social Engagement Variety
I think it was Hume who mentioned that during the heyday of literary salons, one could for a few cents gain access to an education through overhearing the conversations in those places. What corollary do we have today? And don’t give me this online nonsense, or even anything about podcasts. There is something different about being in the same room, in breathing the same COVID-laced air, in being able to see and size up a person and in gathering places that are not entirely self-selected. People also act differently in a room in public - and often better. Put a beautiful girl in the same room as a group of male intellectuals, and see how they behave differently. It brings something out of a person, as actual studies have shown. Instead, the eggheads stick to themselves and a true education - a bringing out - never happens. Instead everyone self-strangulates in private.
During parole I had for almost 2 years near daily to sit in on AA speaker meetings. I always brought a book or newspaper and would sit in the back and read while however it was spoke. So rock bottom stories and the interaction between speaker and audience formed the backdrop to my literary excursions. I could switch my attention back and forth between the page and the room, depending on what was of greater interest and vitality.
And I can’t tell you how much I miss those days. Everywhere else one goes one either has to respectfully pay attention or one has to be engrossed in one’s own business. That in-between public space - how few places there are in the modern world to engage in that. And how much poorer we are for it.
The authors of the growth paper have this to say on the subject:
Opportunities in people’s environment to stay active and gain new experiences should thus help maintain growth. Findings from intervention studies have supported this idea. For instance, an intervention that asked participants to think about and discuss life problems with a confidant facilitated general wisdom-related knowledge and judgment in solving life dilemmas, particularly for middle to old adults... Another study found that a life-review intervention that involved reminiscence alongside an analysis of personal life problems facilitated personal wisdom in both younger and older adults... [Note: is this a propaganda piece for psychoanalysis or an academic paper? Make up your mind!] Positive intervention effects were also reported for Openness in older adults... Openness increased in older volunteers who had received a training to prepare them for the new volunteering tasks as compared to volunteers on the waiting list for this training..). These findings suggest that growth can be promoted by providing challenging contextual experiences and by empowering older adults to be successful in new contexts. It can, however, not be denied that the age-related decline in Openness can have functional value with regard to increases in adjustment. It is functional because it saves resources, which are shrinking with age.
The finding that the majority of people in our societies decrease in growth (i.e., Openness, Purpose in Life, Personal Growth, Ego Level) despite this potential for plasticity reflects a lack of contextual resources that support the potential for continued growth... From middle to later adulthood, rights and responsibilities to engage are getting increasingly limited in most societies, which is particularly problematic as the need for cultural resources increases when biological potential wanes with age... This constrains options for different life avenues and the individuals’ opportunities to achieve personality growth. A recent study provided further support for this idea. Using a population-based cross-country design, the study found that societal opportunity structures to participate in work, volunteering, and education attenuated negative age differences in Openness after midlife... The decline of Openness seemed to be less extreme in societies that provided older adults with opportunities to stay engaged rather than with constraints that force them to give up participation and social roles.
In other words, we can do better. We should do better.
Finally, this beautiful passage from R.L. Stevenson I just came across deserves consideration:
The first duty of a man is to speak; that is his chief business in this world; and talk, which is the harmonious speech of two or more, is by far the most accessible of pleasures. It costs nothing in money; it is all profit;
it completes our education, founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any age and in
almost any state of health.
From now on whenever I am asked what my hobbies are my first answer will be conversation. It really is one of the best things in life. Rock climbing don’t have shit on it.
2. Openness to Experience
There’s a large overlap, as noted, between this and cognitive ability, so I’m not going to expound any further than I already have. The link is largely self-evident, though the encouraging news is that - as also noted - while cognitive ability is near impossible to budge upwards openness can be increased.
3. Vantage Sensitivity
Regardless of the greatest advantages in IQ, health, openness, context and anything and everything else, some individuals do not grow. More than that, it appears they largely have an incapacity for it. This hits a bit on Maslow’s comments at the end of a previous piece - some people are beautiful, fit physical specimens without the slightest hint of neurosis, surrounded by plenty on all sides, and yet nothing is happening there. They’ve ascended Maslow’s hierarchy, and embody his aristocratic demeanor, and yet it’s all empty. And why? Because they have an incapacity to be deeply affected by experience. It all just passes over them in a wave, not making a dent - for good or ill.
They are part of the much larger group of humanity. Vantage sensitivity is a sub-group of high sensory processing sensitivity, which up to a third of the population qualifies as (depending on what is defined as “high”). This is a still developing concept - which though based on long observation still has its mysteries - including recent studies that suggest that this is not a unitary measure, that individuals differ not only in how sensitive they are to negative and positive environments, but also to different categories of people, and likely of course much more. So, for example, it appears someone could be high in vantage sensitivity to positive close friendships, but not with positive familial relationship (perhaps due to idiosyncrasies of valuing and rapport). This makes a lot of sense, and mirrors my experience.
So I’ve touched on for a moment at least the question of whom it is that is most likely to change. But perhaps more interesting than this is when it is that someone is able to change.
For evidence is accumulating that there are particular states of being in which individuals become extraordinarily malleable. States that create an opening for change, even in those for whom it is patently against the odds.
And perusing the therapeutic literature, there are stories of individuals who are clearly not high on either openness or sensory processing sensitivity that do meaningfully change. I recall Whitaker had a client once in family therapy to whom he said during a session: “Whenever I look at you I see a block of ice.”
It is exceedingly unlikely that this individual was high on many if not most of the variables outlined. And yet - as I recall - his was an example of radical change. It seems as if there are states in which the laws of nature are suspended for a moment, and something like a miracle becomes possible.
And if this is not the season to speak of miracles, what is?
Happy (late) holidays, everyone. Bless you all, and thanks for joining me on this journey. If all goes well I’ll complete this letter and this series of the afternotes next time and then be back on the straight and narrow.
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