by Dr. Vickramabahu Karunarathne
The question whether the human has fundamentally moved out of the animal world or, on the other hand, he is primarily still a naked ape, is raised often in socio-political debates.
There is a popular view that however much the human is affected by the society, moment there is a break down of social bonds human will resort to animal like behaviour. This popular view is used to explain riots and other unacceptable behaviour.
In different forms the basic argument in all such cases, is that the primary animal like behaviour, which is guided by the subconscious, cannot be changed.
Hence it is difficult for humans to go for collective living. Such a social situation needs very restrictive regulations. But these regulations are to be implemented by individuals who will succumb to animal desire thus leading to a contradiction.
Such are the arguments of the opponents of collectivism. In effect this acceptance of uncontrollable animalism of the human is the biggest argument of those who are opposed to any kind of collectivism. On the other hand they propose that this animal like behaviour is very much in line with a competitive market economy.
Market economy will give room for competition, individualism and aggression, and at the same time bring a proper control into such animalism.
Thus the whole society will advance as a total effect. This is why some of them believe that the market economy is the final stage of human history. Apparently it fits the animal instinct to human creativity. They say that the global free capitalism will naturally produce a free society of human beings.
The postulate that the human is tied down by animal desire or that the human is bound by animal instinct, is put forward by both anthropologists and psychologists. Collectivists counter their arguments within these specializations. But scientific argument cannot neutralize ideologies; hence those viewpoints continue.
Clearly "human animalism" is a necessary assumption for an exploitative society. Thus it becomes an ideological struggle in the area of philosophy. So let us start from the beginning. In the animal world, the existence and the reproduction of life are the dominating factors.
Animal life is driven by these factors. Driven by such desires, animal looks for the shortest way out. There is no other strong awareness except drive and hunger for the above needs. It is true that mammals, especially the higher apes, are conscious of immediate dangers and challenges, but there is no serious check on instinctive drive. Evelyn Reed says,
"Hunger is the organic mechanism worked out in natural evolution to prod species into action to satisfy these needs. It has two forms; hunger for food and hunger for mates. Driven by these imperatives, animals seek out the closest available sources to satisfy both hungers".
Hunger for food and mates are the sources of all "feelings" in the animal world. Socialist thinkers say that humans have radically and sharply changed from this simple behaviour. Those who oppose them insist that even in the human world the subconscious mind behaves according to instincts that dominate the animal world.
Buddhism and mother care
The discussion on human feelings started with Buddha. It is true there were discussions in Greece and Iran prior to Buddha's intervention. However there was no detailed study that could be comparable to Buddhist analysis of human feelings and cravings.
According to Buddha, desire or craving that renews continuously, drives the human mind. Through that the hunger for existence, reproduction and for continuity of the species, arises. On the other hand it is the need for existence, reproduction and for the continuity of the species that creates desire.
By plucking, removing and keeping out the desire, humans can achieve a settled mind. In such a mind, compassion, kindness, joy and equanimity are the only feelings that can arise. According to Buddha to achieve this status, self-psychoanalysis based on certain self-discipline is necessary.
This can be achieved within a collective living in the form of Sangha. Buddha's view is that in a calm mind, intrinsically only compassion, kindness etc. could exist. This is the status of mind of a mother in relation to a child; the mental framework of a mother towards a newborn child. The care, given consciously by a human mother, does not exist in the animal world.
In other words, according to Buddha, in an ordinary mind there is coexistence between "mother-care" and desire. Each is attempting to dominate the human life. If craving is brought under control then (mother) care will over determinate human feelings.
On the other hand in a weak mind desire can dominate suppressing care and love. Thus exact mental condition will depend on intention and activity of the person; "praxis" for short. Buddha explained the correct praxis as discipline (Sila), concentration (Samadhi) and understanding (Pragna). This is the path of self-analysis.
This Buddhist analysis of mind takes us straight to debate in the modern human psychology. Robert Audrey and Sigmond Freud both belong to the camp that take desire as the basis of all human feelings.
The picture of the subconscious area of human mind and of the emotional setup, that arises from modern discourse, leads in the end to what Buddha saw thousands years ago. Then the question arises whether Buddha was aware of the fact that humanness developed through the suppression of animal desire that came over from previous animalistic existence, by the growth of matriarchal communal society?
Buddha claimed that to gain knowledge he used the method of conditional arising, in addition to the ordinary logical analysis of facts and figures. That means he was capable of historical analysis of human existence, starting from the primitive communal, matriarchal society. But were there enough data and information for such an analysis? Did he base his psychoanalysis on such a historical framework?
The modern archeology and anthropology tell us that there was a matriarchal society in North India before Aryans invaded the land around 1750 BC. Aryans defeated and suppressed the ancient matriarchal, Dravidian society and installed in place a patriarchal, hierarchical, caste society. This is what Mohendajaro and Harappa reveal to us.
Buddha lived more than thousand years later. By then there was social unrest against the caste system based on colour. State of Magadha become a center of this radicalism, there was debate and critical investigation.
In that context may be Buddha had gained an understanding of the human past when he spoke on the subject of human drive (desire) and the ability of human to overcome it, (Nirodha).
Buddhism teaches that by suppressing the desire in human subconscious the qualities of mother care, i.e. compassion, kindness, joy and equanimity, can be brought out. Also, it says that such people could live a collective society without fear and anxiety. According to socialist thinkers this is the essence of the ancient primitive communist society.
Some claim that the methods used by Sigmund Freud in the analysis of the subconscious are similar to those used in Vipassana Meditation.
Nevertheless it is undisputed that Freud was able to study the conflict between the subconscious and the human awareness, using very substantial methods. By this he was able to separate the subconscious (Id) from the conscious mind (ego and super ego). But he was working within bourgeois scientific framework based on logical empiricist outlook.
Thus he only investigated the subconscious that existed and imprisoned in the world at his time. However he attempted to use conclusions of this investigation to explain the historical development of human thinking and behaviour. Evelyn Reed explains,
"Apart from the fact that the story of Oedipus is not connected in any way with secret incestuous desires - as will be explained later in this book- the prime error made by Freud and others was to assume that a phenomenon which asserted itself so prominently in the nineteenth century social life has existed throughout all human history."
Thus Freud incorrectly attempted to find the principles governing the human subconscious through a limited investigation of the human mind in the 19th century capitalist world. On the other hand he believed that ordinary scientific (logical empirical) analysis could reveal the reality of human emotions.
He was wrong. It is possible to control conclusively the "Id" or the animalistic subconscious. The general way-out according to collectivist thinking is to overthrow the capitalist exploitative system and to establish feminist collectivist society.
Then instead of, 'Id' revealed by Freud, the condition would be laid for everybody's heart to be filled by Meththa, Karuna, Mudhitha & Upeksha (compassion, kindness, joy & equanimity).
Accordingly, desire in its pure form means sacrifice and murder of the object. Or more clearly "Love... can be posited only in that beyond where at first it renounces its object" and further more, "Then only may the signification of a limitless love emerge, because it is outside the limits of the law, where alone it may live."
So, for Lacan love has ceased to be anything connected to human existence, cooperation or human continuity. Lacan denounces his own master Freud when he couples love with Starry Heavens beyond the human reality.
However both Marx and Engels were aware of the birth of humanness and overthrow of it in the course of human history. In his book "Origin of family, private property and state", after investigating the nature of early matriarchal communist societies, Engels says, "the tribe remained the boundary for man, in relation to himself as well as outsiders; the tribe, the genes and their institutions were sacred and inviolable, a superior power, instituted by nature, to which individual remained absolutely subject in feeling, thought and deed. Impressive as the people of this epoch may appear to us, they differ no way one from another, they are still bound, as Marx says to the umbilical cord of the primordial community.
Power of these primordial communities had to be broken and it was broken. But it was broken by influence which from outset appear to us as a degradation, a fall from the simple moral grandeur of the ancient gentile society.
Moral grandeur, in a higher form can arise only in global socialist society, where exploitation and oppression of man by man will cease and world human community will become the boundary for man. Until such time, the real therapy against greed, hate and delusion is to join groups and go into practice with awareness and consciousness putting the interest of the community above one's own selfish desire.