You will often hear that mindfulness can make you a better person; stronger, kinder, more empathetic.
And it’s true (more or less). As meditation practice steadily erodes your fears, anxieties and insecurities, you naturally find yourself becoming less self-focused and more other-focused. You realise just how much your view of the world and of other people have been obscured by your self and your endless obsessions. This move from worrying about yourself to caring about others is like bursting through the fog and into open sunshine.
You find that to savour the present moment just as it is, without judgement, has a flow on effect in terms of savouring people in the present moment; just as they are, without judgement. Doing the right thing becomes something you want to do because it is who you are and it makes you feel good, as opposed to just being something you have to do in spite of yourself because of external rules and threats of punishment. Turns out, being a saint is just in your own self-interest.
This promised increase in compassion is one of the key selling points of mindfulness. And the idea that compassion is the key to happiness is the central insight of positive psychology, the science of well-being. After all, love is a source of happiness and contentment, not hate.
However, this is not quite the whole story.
the link between mindfulness and… being a SOCIOPATH?
According to new research, there are some people who do not become more compassionate after meditation practice. In fact – somehow, bizarrely – it seems that meditation can actually turn some people into assholes.(1) Or, at least, into bigger assholes than they already were.
And wrapping our heads around this strange fact is necessary if we want to practice meditation in a way that does bring out our better angels.
So how could meditation make you worse, if you were so inclined? Well in this scenario, as meditation erodes your fears, anxieties and insecurities, you might well reach a state where you don’t worry about anything; including other people or what they think of you. And for all that “not caring what other people think of you” is held up as a virtue in our culture, a healthy fear of the opinion of others is in fact a key part of what makes us consider other people’s feelings in the first place.
A lack of this kind of fear is a distinguishing trait of sociopaths.
As it turns out, the difference that makes the difference is one of framing. Those whose compassion is increased by meditation are those with a more collectivist outlook on life; they value interdependence, co-operation, the common good of the whole. While those who, well, become assholes, tend to have a more individualist outlook; they prize independence, competition and their own individual good.
In the first experiment, participants were screened for their attitudes towards individualism and collectivism, and then told about an opportunity to volunteer stuffing envelopes for a non-profit organisation. Those who already saw themselves in more individualistic terms were less likely to volunteer after meditation.
A second experiment was more interesting still; here, researchers actually chose people at random to be primed to think of themselves in individualistic or collectivistic terms. Stunningly, for those primed for individualism, meditation decreased their likelihood of volunteering by a shocking 33%. Yet for those primed for collectivism, meditation increased their likelihood of volunteering by a relatively encouraging 40%.
Historically, Eastern cultures where meditation has flourished have tended to be more collectivist, and this is reflected in their major religious traditions. Buddhism emphasises pratitya-samutpada, the interdependent origination of all things. Taoism has its Ying-Yang symbol, representing the dependence of seeming opposites upon each other. And Hinduism gives us the poetic image of Indra’s Net, where each person is represented by a perfectly clear jewel that reflects every other jewel in the net.
Modern Western cultures, in contrast, have been individualistic. We emphasise the “self” in positive terms and romanticise the notion of the “rugged individual.” This would seem to make the introduction of meditation to the West a mixed blessing at best, running the risk of turning us into a society of borderline sociopaths and narcissists. But the genie can’t be put back into the bottle; meditation can’t be untaught to the West, and nor should it.
The real solution for the West seems obvious: if we want meditation to cultivate our better angels and not our inner asshole, we need to bust the West’s simplistic binary that “individualism = good” and “collectivism = bad.”
busting the binary
Now, I know that by even daring to question the gospel of individualism, in some people’s minds I might as well be trying to argue against truth, justice, and all that is good and holy in the world. In the West, the word “individualism” still rings with positive connotations: it’s said to be about being your own person, bucking the trend, going against the grain, standing out from the crowd. It’s almost synonymous with freedom itself.
The word “collectivism,” on the other hand, has suffered enormously. While it may still have positive connotations in some quarters, it has generally been conflated with blind conformity and submission to authority. Even the notion of working for “the greater good” or “the common goal” has been demonised in Western film and literature as a kind of trick used to trample a character’s individual rights.
Unfortunately, the truth is not so black-and-white that I can come down hard on one side or the other; both individualism and collectivism have their light and dark sides. Yet this is exactly the point that seems to be lost in today’s world of simple binaries: both have their light and dark sides.
We can appreciate the positive side of individualism while also acknowledging its severe flaws. For example, going against the crowd isn’t always a good thing. Take this image, meant to embody the noble spirit of individualism in all its glory:
I’m sure to some people that little red man is a hero, refusing to march in the same direction as everyone else, boldly beating his own path and blah blah blah. But he is also clearly an asshole. Look at him, selfishly blocking the stairway and effectively saying “screw you” to everyone behind him who is just trying to make their way down- all because he wants to be a uniquely special individualistic douchebag.
Individualism isn’t even always the bastion of freedom that it’s cracked up to be. Think about it: as a lone individual you have little power against an overbearing boss, or corporation, or government, or any other powerful entity. As a lone individual, you will be crushed and dismissed as a fringe radical at best.
No slave was ever freed, no woman ever got the vote and no minority group ever won civil rights because of a lone individual fighting the unjust power structures of society. Every instance of progress in history has only happened because of people joining together and using their collective strength to demand change.
There is, in fact, nothing that those with power would love more than for everyone to define themselves in solely individualistic terms, in which (despite some people’s delusions of grandeur) they are rendered an easily manageable non-threat.
There’s also something odd in the idea that individualism is the keystone of democracy. Democracy itself is undeniably a collectivist activity, where the will of the individual voter must bow to the will of the majority. True individualism would be an individual voter overruling the majority and imposing their wishes on everyone against their will; and I can’t think of a better definition of despotism.
And yes, we can acknowledge the dark side of collectivism while not losing sight of its positive aspects. Collectivism is really just any situation where people work together for a common purpose. If the word bothers you so much then just substitute the word “teamwork” – no one criticises teamwork as hostile to personal freedom. That would be ridiculous.
Society is impossible without some degree of collectivism (a.k.a teamwork) simply because we have to work together to get anything done. There is a reason why collectivism, and not individualism, is the moral and social core of every major religious tradition; it’s not to try and control you (at least not always), it’s simply so communities can function.
Take the shirt you’re wearing right now. Oh sure, you bought it yourself; congratulations on your “rugged individualism.” But who did you buy it from? What clerk at what store gave you the option to purchase that shirt? What truck driver delivered that shirt to the store? What cargo ship brought it across the sea from where it was originally made? Who actually cut the material and sewed the shirt together? Who was the cotton farmer who produced the material in the first place?
And that’s just your shirt. Take any item you use during the day – your phone, your computer, your cup of coffee, public roads, etc. etc. – and think about all the people who contributed to the stuff you enjoy – and need to survive – on a daily basis. As much as we like to think of ourselves as self-reliant, everything we have is the result of a collective effort where we enjoy the fruits of each other’s labour.
Our mutual interdependence, therefore, is not just some ancient piece of Eastern religious metaphysics; it’s not just some warm and fuzzy abstract concept for hippies to hug each other over; it’s a brute fact of life. If you insist on your individualism and self-reliance, I invite you to run naked into the woods and start making your own clothes, shelter, food, everything, from scratch. Good luck with the dental hygiene.
You’ve been lied to. Literature, film, the media, even the way we tell history, portray the world as though it’s all about exceptional individuals doing exceptional things. This effectively sidelines those countless invisible, nameless, forgotten persons who these individuals depended upon to make things happen.
Take lines in popular history books like “The Pharaoh Khufu built the Great Pyramid” or “Ghenghis Khan conquered Asia.” By themselves, I wonder? I would love to have seen them try. More likely both of these assholes were living it up in a relative lap of luxury (even if it was in a tent), while thousands of slaves and soldiers suffered and died doing all the real work.
BRINGING OUT our better angels
As I say, the truth is not black-and-white. Yes, we need a certain sense of individualism to stand up for ourselves in the face of conformity and group-think; but we also need a sense of collective good will to empathise and have compassion for others. Once we acknowledge this – that is, once our meditation practice is properly aligned to reality and not to fantasies of complete independence and separation from others – then our meditation will indeed work as it should to make us more compassionate people.
Compassion can be an expression of who we are, and not merely of our fear of rules and punishment. The loss of fear in meditation can lead to opening up to other people, not to arrogant disregard of them. Savouring the present moment can lead to savouring other people, not to mindless self-absorption.
Meditation can awaken the better angels of our nature.
ENDNOTES
1. Bergland, C. (2021, April 15). Does Mindfulness Make Me-Centric People More Selfish? Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/nz/blog/the-athletes-way/202104/does-mindfulness-make-me-centric-people-more-selfish
Coming Back to Where You Are 